New Afrobarometer Flagship Report Reveals
African youth are less likely than older generations to engage in a variety of political and civic activities, with one exception – protest, Afrobarometer’s new flagship report reveals.
The largest generational disparity is in voting, where the youth (aged 18-35) trail their elders by a striking 18 percentage points. Youth are also less likely to feel close to a political party, to attend a community meeting, to join with others to raise an issue, and to contact traditional leaders and local government councillors.
The report, the second in an annual series on high-priority topics, draws on data spanning the past decade, including the latest round of nationally representative surveys in 39 countries, representing the views of more than three-fourths of the continent’s population. The analysis focuses on 10 key indicators of citizen engagement.
These generational gaps underscore the challenges of political participation on the world’s most youthful continent if governments fail to create channels for meaningful engagement.
The new flagship report, based on 53,444 face-to-face interviews, is accompanied by country scorecards on citizen engagement that provide an at-a-glance snapshot of key indicators of citizen participation for each of the surveyed countries.
Afrobarometer survey
Afrobarometer is a pan-African, non-partisan survey research network that provides reliable data on African experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance, and quality of life. Nine survey rounds in up to 42 countries have been completed since 1999. Round 9 surveys (2021/2023) cover 39 countries.
Afrobarometer’s national partners conduct face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent’s choice. National samples of 1,200-2,400 yield country-level results with margins of error of +/-2 to +/-3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. Key findings
- African youth (aged 18-35) are less likely than older generations to attend a community meeting (-12 percentage points), contact traditional leaders (-10 points), contact local government councillors (-10 points), feel close to a political party (-8 points), and join with others to raise an issue (-8 points) (Figure 1). o The most striking deficit is in voter turnout (-18 percentage points).
- Senegal (-29 percentage points), Cameroon (-28 points), and Zimbabwe (-28 points) exhibit the largest disparities in voting rates by age (Figure 2).
- Attendance at community meetings sees the widest gaps in Côte d’Ivoire (-28 points), Zambia (-26 points), and Botswana (-24 points) (Figure 3).
- When it comes to direct engagement with local government officials, the largest disparities are in Lesotho (-24 points), Zambia (-20 points), Guinea (-16 points), and Kenya (-16 points) (Figure 4).
- Youth are more likely than their elders to participate in protests in many African countries, although rates in 16 countries differ by no more than 1 percentage point (Figure 5).
o Tunisia stands out with the largest gap in protest rates (+17 points), followed by Sudan (+9 points) and São Tomé and Príncipe (+7 points).
Charts
Figure 1: Age and citizen engagement | 39 countries* | 2021/2023
Respondents were asked:
People are not always able to vote in elections. … How about you? In the last national election, held in [year], did you vote, or not, or were you too young to vote? Or can’t you remember whether you voted? (% who say “I voted in the election”; respondents who were too young to vote are excluded.)
Do you feel close to any particular political party? (% who say “yes”)
When you get together with your friends or family, how often would you say you discuss political matters? (% who say “occasionally” or “frequently”)
Here is a list of actions that people sometimes take as citizens. For each of these, please tell me whether you, personally, have done any of these things during the past year: Attended a community meeting? Got together with others to raise an issue? Participated in a demonstration or protest march? (% who say “once or twice,” “several times,” or “often”)
During the past year, how often have you contacted any of the following persons about some important problem or to give them your views: A [local government councillor]? A member of [Parliament]? A political party official? A traditional leader? (% who say “only once,” “a few times,” or “often”)
*35 countries for traditional leaders and local government councillors, 36 countries for MPs, 38 countries for party officials