THE 2026 ELECTIONS IN AFRICA: Youth Participation, Inclusive Governance, and Generational Issues

1. YOUTH FACING THE CHALLENGES OF THE 21ST CENTURY: GLOBAL ISSUES

The term “youths”—deliberately used in the plural—reflects the fundamental diversity of the life paths experienced by young people around the world. (Loncle & Roquebert, 2004) It rejects any homogenizing view and emphasizes differences in gender, geographic location, social class, and cultural context. Ignoring this diversity leads to structurally biased responses that tend to reproduce—or even amplify—the very inequalities they claim to address. (Cornwall, 2002)

1.1 Socioeconomic Challenges and the Structural Disruption Caused by Artificial Intelligence

Entering the workforce is the primary challenge. The transition from education to employment has become longer, more uncertain, and more selective: the youth unemployment rate is structurally two to three times higher than that of adults. (ILO, 2023) Early school leaving, the precarious nature of first jobs, and the mismatch between training programs and labor market needs are the main manifestations of this trend. (World Bank, 2022)

Artificial intelligence is now emerging as a driver of structural transformation that is affecting young people in distinct and accelerated ways. Routine jobs—often the first available to low-skilled young people—are the most vulnerable to automation, while demand for skills in data analysis and critical thinking is skyrocketing. In Africa, where the informal economy employs the majority of young people, this transition creates a risk of double marginalization: exclusion from traditional jobs that are being eliminated and from new digital jobs due to a lack of adequate training. (OECD, 2023; PCNS, 2024)

Social and territorial divides constitute the second structural challenge. Inequalities in access to public services—including education, health care, mobility, and digital services—persist within regions, pitting urban and rural areas against one another, as well as urban centers and their peripheries. (OECD, 2021) Amartya Sen’s capabilities approach emphasizes that individuals’ actual opportunities are shaped as much by their geographic and social context as by their individual endowments. (Sen, 1999) Mental health is a third, often underestimated challenge: the rise in psychological disorders among young people—exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis and the influence of social media—poses a challenge to healthcare systems and educational institutions, with implications that vary by social background and gender.

1.2 The Call for Participation: The Demands of the"Generation Z"

The forms of youth engagement have changed profoundly. Abstention or distrust of traditional institutions does not reflect political apathy, but rather a shift in the ways citizens take action: digital activism, involvement in nonprofit organizations, social movements, and social entrepreneurship. (Putnam, 2000) The dominant analytical framework distinguishes between two approaches: the consultative approach, in which young people are consulted but remain on the sidelines of decision-making, and the participatory approach, in which they are integrated as full-fledged co-actors.

“Generation Z,” born between 1997 and 2012—the first fully digital generation—has specific demands that are redefining the terms of the contract between young people and institutions. These demands revolve around five key areas: authentic representation and the rejection of tokenism; climate justice and the demand for intergenerational accountability; transparency and anti-corruption, with zero tolerance for cronyism, which social media instantly exposes; economic equity and access to decent work in a labor market reshaped by digital technology; and identity-based representation, with recognition of the diversity of life paths within institutional spaces. (Twenge, 2017; PCNS, 2024; Gallup, 2023)

However, an analytical caveat is in order: participatory mechanisms—such as youth councils, consultations, and participatory budgeting—tend to overrepresent young people who are already integrated into society, urban, college-educated, and male. (Lister, 2003; Cornwall, 2002) The demands of “Gen Z” risk being co-opted by the most privileged segments of this generation, rendering invisible rural youth, young women, and young people in the informal economy, whose demands are structurally different. A participation policy that does not correct this bias reproduces existing social hierarchies under the guise of inclusion. (Kabeer, 1999)

Analytical Framework: Huntington and the Challenge of Youth Inclusion—The Institutional Gap as a Systemic Risk

In *Political Order in Changing Societies* (Huntington, 1968), the central thesis is that political instability arises not from underdevelopment per se, but from the mismatch between the pace of social mobilization and the capacity of institutions to absorb it. When collective aspirations rise faster than political structures can keep up and are unable to channel them, the result is not democracy: it is disorder, or even reactive authoritarianism.

Three levels of application to African youth, including Moroccan youth, are worth highlighting. First, a revolution in aspirations without a revolution in structures: young people are experiencing unprecedented mobilization, the expansion of education, widespread use of social media, and a keen awareness of inequalities. However, institutions are evolving at a structurally slower pace, held back by the logic of patronage, clientelism, and centralism. It is this gap—not a lack of aspirations—that breeds mistrust, abstention, and, in certain contexts, radical protest. (Zerhouni, 2013; Desrues & Szmolka, 2019)

Second, the pitfall of reforms without the capacity to implement them: rapid institutional reforms can exacerbate instability if they are not accompanied by an effective capacity for implementation. The 2011 Constitution, the 2015 National Youth Strategy, and advanced regionalization are all formal advances whose effectiveness remains uneven across different regions and social groups. (CESE, 2020)

Third, inequality as a catalyst for the disconnect: rural youth, young women, and young people in the informal economy face a double disconnect—between their aspirations and institutions, and between their own activism and the recognition of that activism as legitimate. An inclusion policy that ignores this stratification replicates the Huntingtonian trap exactly: it responds to the aspirations of the most visible while allowing silent frustration to build among the most excluded. (Kabeer, 1999)

The limitation of Huntington’s thesis is that it reasons from the perspective of the system’s stability, at the risk of justifying institutional inertia. The challenge is not to dampen young people’s aspirations, but to transform institutions quickly enough to meet them. And this transformation must be equitable: rural youth, young women, and Young people in the suburbs cannot wait to be the last to benefit from reforms. (Cornwall, 2002)

2. AFRICAN YOUTH: A DEMOGRAPHIC RESOURCE, ELECTORAL ISSUES, AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES

With more than 60% of the population under the age of 25, Africa is the world’s youngest continent. (African Union, 2006; AfDB, 2020) This demographic reality is both a strategic resource and a major governance challenge, in a context where institutions are struggling to integrate young people as legitimate actors in development.

2.1 Cumulative challenges with varying effects

The mismatch between education systems and labor market needs is particularly pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa. The youth unemployment rate there is structurally high, exacerbated by the predominance of the informal economy. (ILO, 2022) Young women are more likely to face underemployment and unpaid work, while rural youth face a double disadvantage: distance from formal labor markets and limited access to skills training. (UN Women, 2023) The digital divide illustrates this phenomenon of compounding inequalities: unequal access to the Internet—particularly pronounced in rural areas and among young women whose mobility is socially constrained—penalizes the most vulnerable. (ITU, 2023)

2.2 Gender and Space: Two Cross-Cutting Factors of Inequality

Gender is a cross-cutting driver of inequality that universalist policies fail to address: social norms that limit women’s geographic and occupational mobility, the unrecognized burden of domestic work, the risk of early marriage that interrupts educational pathways, and exclusion from informal decision-making spaces. (Kabeer, 1999; Moser, 1993; UN Women, 2023) A “gender and development” (GAD) approach—as opposed to WID approaches that isolate women from structural dynamics—allows us to understand these mechanisms in their “systemic” context. (Moser, 1993)

The territorial dimension is just as crucial. National youth policies, designed from the center, tend to inadvertently reproduce a public service system that neglects outlying areas. (OECD, 2021; Pecqueur, 2009) Decentralization can correct this bias, provided it is adequately resourced and explicitly includes young people in marginalized areas. (World Bank, 2022). Despite talk of decentralization, the centralization of power remains entrenched in many African countries, and corruption continues to erode citizens’ trust in institutions, disproportionately affecting populations with the fewest social and political resources.

2.3 The 2026 Election Cycle: A Test for Youth Participation in Africa

The year 2026 offers a unique opportunity to analyze the relationship between African youth and democratic processes. Five countries are holding legislative elections: Benin, Guinea, Algeria, Morocco, and Cameroon. In addition to these elections, there is the Ugandan presidential election early that same year, in which Museveni was seeking a seventh term after forty years in power, following the recent parliamentary elections in Côte d'Ivoire in December 2025. (Africa Center for Strategic Studies, 2026)

These elections reveal conflicting trends regarding youth participation. In Côte d’Ivoire, the Youth Parliament deployed 100 female observers during the December 2025 legislative elections—a sign of structured civic engagement that goes beyond mere electoral mobilization. (Allafrica, 2026) In Uganda, the crackdown on the opposition and the documented internet shutdowns prior to the election illustrate the persistence of an environment hostile to youth civic engagement. (Jeune Afrique, 2026) In Senegal, the movement that brought Bassirou Diomaye Faye to the presidency demonstrated young people’s ability to overturn an established political order, before internal tensions within the ruling coalition served as a reminder of the limits of institutional transformation driven solely by generational momentum.

This cycle confirms the Huntingtonian diagnosis: youth engagement is real, but institutions remain structurally ill-equipped to channel it. When the gap between aspirations and institutional responses widens, the risk is not apathy, but rather lasting disengagement or radicalization. (Desrues & Szmolka, 2019; Zerhouni, 2013)

2.4 Opportunities: An Emerging Form of Civic Leadership, but One That Is Socially Selective

Movements such as “Y’en a marre” in Senegal and “Balai citoyen” in Burkina Faso have demonstrated young people’s ability to promote accountability and mobilize their peers through innovative forms of action. (Obadare, 2017) However, these movements are emerging primarily in urban settings, driven by relatively well-educated young people with access to social media. There is a real risk that institutional recognition of “youth leadership” will benefit only a youth elite, which reaps the benefits of representation at the expense of the most marginalized young people. (Cornwall, 2002)

3. THE MOROCCAN EXPERIENCE: REFORMS, ELECTORAL ISSUES, AND STRUCTURAL TRANSFORMATIONS

Morocco, a middle-income country engaged in an advanced decentralization process—formalized by the 2015 regionalization—offers a particularly instructive case study for examining how global and African dynamics play out in a specific context, amid reformist ambitions and persistent structural obstacles. (OECD, 2017; CESE, 2020) It also serves as an illuminating case study on the risk of perpetuating inequalities through youth policies that are, on the face of it, progressive.

3.1 Young People Facing Deep-Seated Socioeconomic Tensions

Morocco has approximately 10 million young people aged 15 to 29, accounting for nearly 30% of the population. (HCP, 2023) The labor force participation rate for young women, which is less than 20%, is among the lowest in the MENA region. This structural exclusion is not due to a lack of qualifications, but rather to persistent sociocultural and institutional barriers(ILO, 2023; HCP, 2023). The unemployment rate among urban youth is structurally above 30%, and NEETs account for a significant share of the 15–24 age group. Active labor market policies, vocational training programs, and job placement services have yielded insufficient results given the scale of the challenge. (HCP, 2022; Ibourk & Ghazi, 2024) Disparities between urban and rural areas—in terms of access to quality education, healthcare, and digital services—directly translate into unequal life trajectories, with inland and southern regions being particularly affected. (HCP, 2023; OECD, 2017)

3.2 The Institutional Framework and the Stakes of the September 2026 Legislative Elections

The 2011 Constitution explicitly recognizes the rights of young people and enshrines civic participation as a principle of governance. (Kingdom of Morocco, 2011) The Advisory Council on Youth and Community Action (CCJA) serves as a dedicated institutional forum. The 2015–2030 Integrated National Youth Strategy sets objectives regarding employability, civic participation, and access to rights, but the mismatch between vocational training and the labor market remains a persistent structural shortcoming. (Ministry of Youth and Sports, 2015; Ibourk & Ghazi, 2024)

These formal advances face structural obstacles. People under 35 remain underrepresented on municipal and regional councils, despite the quota mechanisms introduced by electoral reforms. (CESE, 2020) Voter turnout among young people in local elections remains low, reflecting not so much apathy as an unresponsive system for those outside local networks of influential figures. (Zerhouni, 2013; PCNS, 2024)

The legislative elections on September 23, 2026, will be a decisive test. For the first time, Moroccan lawmakers have explicitly incorporated digital tools into the legal framework governing elections, focusing on social media, online platforms, and artificial intelligence technologies used in campaigns. (Moroccan Center for Policy Research and Analysis, 2026) Candidacies will be filed via a dedicated electronic platform—a sign of modernization, but also a risk of excluding candidates with limited internet access. With 16 million registered voters out of an estimated 28 million citizens of voting age, mobilizing unregistered voters—among whom rural youth and young women are overrepresented—is central to the legitimacy of this election. (Medias24, 2026)

However, an analytical caveat is in order: an analysis of the profiles of young people serving on Moroccan participatory bodies reveals a persistent selection bias, with participants predominantly male, urban, educated, and from major metropolitan areas. (CESE, 2020; Naji, 2018) In the Moroccan context, this bias takes on a particularly pronounced territorial form: rural municipalities and outlying regions lack the institutional capacity to design and facilitate inclusive participatory mechanisms. Without the transfer of adequate resources, advanced regionalization risks producing local participation tailored to young people in urban centers, thereby legitimizing the very inequalities it aims to correct. (OECD, 2017; Cornwall, 2002)

3.3 The Values of Citizenship: A Beacon for Democratic Consolidation

Beyond institutional mechanisms and participatory processes, the sustainability of democratic progress depends on embedding the values of citizenship in the political socialization of young people. In a democracy still taking shape, these values—respect for diversity, a culture of debate, civic responsibility, commitment to the common good, and opposition to discrimination—are not merely a “spiritual supplement” to institutional reforms; they are the very foundation of those reforms. (Putnam, 2000)

Educational institutions, community organizations, local governments, and the media play a decisive role in fostering a culture of civic engagement that transcends community affiliations and local solidarity. (Lister, 2003; Zerhouni, 2013) Distrust of institutions—as measured by voter abstention rates and young people’s sense of exclusion—is not a fixed given; it is the product of institutional and cultural conditions that can be transformed. Investing in dynamic civic education—rooted in local realities and attentive to inequalities in life trajectories—means placing faith in the ability of Moroccan youth to become the architects of a fully realized democracy. (CESE, 2020)

3.4 Gender and Territories: Two Structural Shortcomings in Moroccan Policies

Legislative advances over the past two decades—including the 2004 reform of the Family Code and the enshrinement of the principle of equality in the Constitution in 2011—have established a regulatory framework without, however, transforming the actual conditions faced by young women. The gap between law and reality remains wide: limited access to public spaces, exclusion from formal employment, and underrepresentation in leadership positions. This gap is not uniform; it widens as one moves further from urban centers, revealing an intersection between gender inequality and territorial inequality that policies still too often address separately. (UN Women, 2023; El Harras, 2015; Kabeer, 1999)

It is precisely this intersection that constitutes the most costly blind spot. A young woman living in a rural area does not simply face two disadvantages; she faces a specific set of constraints that cannot be reduced to either gender or location alone: limited mobility, unrecognized domestic responsibilities, distance from training and employment services, and community norms that restrict her scope of possibilities. As long as youth policies are not designed with this intersectional reality in mind—using disaggregated indicators, measures tailored to local constraints, and regionally balanced resources—they risk primarily benefiting young men in urban centers, thereby perpetuating the very inequalities they claim to address. (HCP, 2023; OECD, 2017; CESE, 2020; Pecqueur, 2009; World Bank, 2022)

3.5 New Forms of Engagement: Moroccan “Gen Z” Between Demands and Disillusionment

Moroccan youth of “Generation Z” are articulating demands that are more specific than those of the Arab Spring generation: decent jobs in an inclusive digital economy, environmental justice in the face of water stress, the fight against cronyism and corruption in electoral processes, and recognition of their identity in all its territorial and cultural diversity. (Desrues & Szmolka, 2019; Gallup, 2023)

Her relationship to political engagement is, however, ambivalent. Their presence on social media and their ability to mobilize quickly around concrete causes coexist with a marked caution in the public sphere—a caution that does not constitute a withdrawal from politics, but rather a strategic adaptation to an institutional environment perceived as unresponsive. Young people in outlying regions, facing different risks, tailor their engagement accordingly. The central question, therefore, is how can local governments and the state accommodate these forms of engagement without instrumentalizing them or reducing them solely to the forms of participation they institutionally recognize? (Zerhouni, 2013; Desrues & Szmolka, 2019)

4. RECOMMENDATIONS: TOWARD YOUTH POLICIES THAT DO NOT REPRODUCE INEQUALITIES

The following recommendations are based on a key observation: Moroccan youth are experiencing a crisis of confidence in elected institutions, fueled by a lack of accountability, a perception of impunity, and a decline in integrity within political and labor organizations. Restoring this trust does not require additional participatory mechanisms, but rather a genuine transformation of governance practices. The elections on September 23 offer a window of opportunity, provided that clear and credible signals are sent.

R1. Establish accountability as a condition of electoral legitimacy. The lack of accountability among elected officials is the primary factor that renders the electoral process meaningless in the eyes of young people. Introduce a legal requirement for an annual public report—available online and presented at a session open to the public—in which each local elected official accounts for the commitments made during their campaign, the budgetary decisions made on their behalf, and any potential conflicts of interest. Without this basic mechanism, voting remains a meaningless act for the young people who observe it.

R2. Design flexible representation mechanisms. Uniform quotas have shown their limitations: they result in representation without real power. Experiment with differentiated modes of representation based on region, demographic profile, and local issues; set aside seats on regional councils for people under 30 to deliberate on employment and training; ensure greater representation of rural areas on local budget committees; short, renewable terms for young women in outlying areas to lower the barrier to entry into public life. Representation is not a static state; it is a process that must be structured according to specific contexts.

R3. Rebuild social networks by requiring internal integrity. Political parties and labor unions have lost their ability to mobilize young people, not because young people reject politics, but because these organizations have ceased to embody the values they profess. Make public funding of political parties contingent on verifiable internal governance mechanisms, transparent internal elections, the publication of financial statements, gender parity in leadership bodies, and a ban on holding multiple internal offices simultaneously. The credibility of social institutions is a prerequisite for rebuilding trust, not an expected outcome.

R4. Make the 2026 elections a turning point. Transparency in the voting process is necessary but not sufficient. For these elections to send a strong message to young people, three concrete measures must be taken before September 23: publication of all candidates’ financial disclosure statements in a format that is accessible and verifiable by citizens; deployment of trained citizen observers, a majority of whom young people at polling places in areas with historically low voter turnout; and a formal commitment by political parties to field young candidates in winnable positions, not just as placeholders.

R5. Invest in citizenship education as a long-term democratic infrastructure. Combating voter abstention through voter registration campaigns is a short-term solution. The structural solution is citizenship education grounded in rights and responsibilities—not as an additional school subject, but as a cross-cutting thread running through the entire educational journey, from elementary school through higher education. This education must be supported by reformed public media capable of conveying a credible civic message to young people, breaking away from the top-down institutional communication that has precisely contributed to their distrust.

R6. Make AI a tool for democratic transparency rather than a vehicle for manipulation. AI will be widely used in the 2026 election campaign—for targeting messages, generating content, and amplifying rumors. Rather than passively accepting this reality, we should turn it into a tool for transparency: deploy AI-powered citizen fact-checking platforms accessible via mobile phones, enabling every voter to verify campaign promises, financial disclosures, and candidates’ backgrounds in real time. At the same time, incorporate into civic education programs a specific module on detecting AI-generated content and resisting election disinformation—a fundamental requirement for informed citizenship in the digital age.

CONCLUSION

From the global level to the Moroccan context, this Policy Brief has highlighted a persistent structural tension: youth policies tend to reproduce, through their very mechanisms, the gender, spatial, and territorial inequalities they aim to address. This tension is not cyclical; it is the result of institutional choices that prioritize the form of participation over its substance, and normative compliance over actual impact.

The context of 2026 introduces a new variable that reshapes the terms of this challenge: artificial intelligence redistributes opportunities and risks in a way that, without explicit corrective policies, will exacerbate existing inequalities—particularly for rural, female, and low-skilled youth, whom this Policy Brief has placed at the center of its analysis.

The legislative elections on September 23 will serve as a useful indicator—not of the state of Moroccan democracy, but of the institutions’ ability to send signals credible enough to bridge the gap between young people and politics. This disconnect is not irreversible. It is the result of conditions that can be changed, provided that the transformation is designed to benefit all young people—including, and especially, those whom public policies reach last.

Young Moroccans, like their African counterparts, are not asking to be protected. They are demanding to be heard, represented, and empowered. The democratic legitimacy of the coming decade will hinge on these three demands.

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS

Africa Center for Strategic Studies. (2026). 2026 Elections in Africa. Washington, D.C. World Bank. (2022). Jobs and Growth. Washington, D.C.

Gallup. (2023). Global State of Youth. Washington, D.C.

IFC. (2024). AI and Jobs in Africa: Scenarios for Inclusive Growth. Washington, D.C. OECD. (2017). Rural Policies: Morocco. Paris.

OECD. (2023). Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Skills. Paris.

ILO. (2023). World Employment and Social Outlook: Trends for Youth. Geneva. UN Women. (2023). Women in the Arab World. New York.

MOROCCAN SOURCES

CESE. (2020). The Integration of Young People: A Matter of Mutual Trust. Rabat. HCP. (2022). 2022 National Employment Survey. Rabat.

HCP. (2023). Economic Outlook and Demographic Projections. Rabat. Medias24. (2026). 2026 Elections: Status of Voter Registration. Rabat.

Ministry of Youth and Sports. (2015). Integrated National Youth Strategy 2015–2030. Rabat.

Kingdom of Morocco. (2011). Constitution. Official Gazette No. 5952 bis.

POLICY CENTER FOR THE NEW SOUTH

Azeroual, O. (2024). Artificial Intelligence in Africa: Challenges and Opportunities. Policy Brief No. 23/24. Rabat: PCNS.

Ibourk, A. & Ghazi, T. (2024). From the Classroom to a Career: The Strategic Role of Vocational Training in Morocco. Rabat: PCNS.

Ibourk, A. & Ghazi, T. (2024). Active Labor Market Policies in Morocco: An Assessment of Flagship Programs, Challenges, and Areas for Improvement. Rabat: PCNS.

Jaldi, A. S. & Bensaoud, R. (2024). Artificial Intelligence: What Threats Does It Pose to the Major Elections of 2024? Rabat: PCNS.

PCNS. (2023). Annual Report on the Geopolitics of Africa 2023. Rabat: PCNS.

PCNS / UNDP / World Bank. (2024). Let’s Talk Development — 23rd Edition: Regions in Action: Creating Sustainable Jobs for Youth. Rabat: PCNS.

Zerhouni, S. (2013). “Youth and Politics in Morocco.” Perspectives, 11. Rabat: PCNS.

ACADEMIC WORKS

Cornwall, A. (2002). Making Spaces, Changing Places. IDS Working Paper 170.

Desrues, T. & Szmolka, I. (2019). “Mobilizations and Protests in Morocco.” *Politique africaine*, 155.

El Harras, M. (2015). “Moroccan Youth: Between Social Exclusion and the Search for Identity.”

Moroccan Journal of Political and Social Sciences, XII (1).

Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Kabeer, N. (1999). “Resources, Agency, Achievements.” *Development and Change*, 30(3). Moser, C. (1993). *Gender Planning and Development*. London: Routledge.

Putnam, R. (2000). *Bowling Alone*. New York: Simon & Schuster. Sen, A. (1999). *Development as Freedom*. New York: Knopf.