Vice President of Programs and Senior Fellow Todd Moss and research assistant Stephanie Majerowicz are cited in a piece on the age gap between Africa's leaders and its citizens.
Recently, Todd Moss and Stephanie Majerowicz at the Center for Global Development published “The Generation Chasm,” which studied the difference between the average ages of the citizens of countries and the ages of their leaders – and discovered that Africa had by far the largest gap, an amazing 43.3 years (Europe and North America, by contrast, have only 16.2 years between the ages of leaders and voters). This led them to speculate whether the staggering generation gap was a factor in the spread of the Arab Spring unrest – and whether it might provoke further sudden regime changes in Africa.
Mr. Moss and Ms. Majerowicz found that 20 of the 30 countries with the widest population gap were African, and no African state made it to the list of top 30 countries with the smallest population gap. That Africa’s ruling class is only represented in the oldest 3 per cent of the continent’s population both worries and excites me.
It is clear that Africa’s gerontocracy isn’t going to last much longer. The worry, echoed by others, is that there’s a shallow pool of experienced candidates to fill the transition gap.
The excitement is in the massive opportunity this presents to Africa’s youth. Where it previously took a lifetime of political gamesmanship to get and maintain a seat in government, one can now just run for office. If not by election, then the omni-present potential of more youth revolts shouldn’t be ruled out. It is no longer a matter of if, but when.