By David Adama, Senior Specialist for Continental and Regional Engagement at AGRA, and Henry Lagat, Lead for Generation Africa Youth Voice and Empowerment at AGRA

Africa’s agrifood transformation depends on whether young people are actively shaping the system, or waiting outside it.

Across the continent, youth are told that agriculture is an opportunity. Yet opportunity without access to markets, finance, skills, and decision-making power rarely leads to transformation.

In the Central African Republic, agriculture employs the majority of the population and contributes significantly to rural incomes, yet only a small fraction of arable land is utilized. The country holds vast livestock potential and sits at the crossroads of regional markets linking Cameroon, Chad, Congo and Sudan. Under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), these geographic realities represent opportunity at scale.

But open markets do not automatically translate into youth prosperity.

For young agripreneurs to benefit from AfCFTA and regional integration, they must be trade-ready. That requires structured cooperatives, value chain development, access to finance, climate-resilient production systems, and the technical skills to meet quality standards. It also requires something less discussed but equally critical: influence.

At a recent national youth agribusiness dialogue in Bangui, a shift occurred. The discussion moved beyond access to opportunity toward access to systems. Young entrepreneurs engaged directly with national development plans, agricultural strategies, and continental frameworks under the CAADP Kampala Declaration (2026–2035). The question was no longer “What support can we get?” but “How do we shape policy, budget priorities, and market structures?”

The dialogue also led to the development of a National Youth Agribusiness Roadmap designed to guide the implementation of the recommendations emerging from the discussions. The roadmap, expected to be finalized and submitted to stakeholders for validation, focuses on improving young people’s access to productive resources, strengthening youth participation in policymaking, and promoting more inclusive frameworks for market access and competitiveness. It is intended to help mobilize government institutions, development partners, the private sector and youth organizations, while supporting the integration of Youth in Agrifood Systems Performance Index (YAPI) indicators into national policies and programmes.

This shift from seeking support to shaping systems matters. Evidence shows that youth inclusion in agrifood systems improves when enabling environments, access to services, finance, markets, and resilience mechanisms are aligned. Tools such as YAPI help track progress across these domains. Measuring youth participation is foundational to institutional reform. Without data, commitments remain rhetorical. With tracking systems, governments and partners can identify structural gaps and prioritize reforms that deliver sustainable impact.

Yet data alone does not create agency.

Across West and Central Africa, experience from youth dialogues and initiatives such as YEFFA (Youth Entrepreneurship for the Future of Food and Agriculture) shows that transformation accelerates when young people are organized, skilled, and connected to real value chains. Training must link to markets. Skills development must align with investment pathways. Entrepreneurship support must integrate risk-sharing mechanisms and business incubation.

Structured cooperatives offer one example of system-level change. When youth organize collectively, they improve bargaining power, reduce transaction costs, and become more bankable. Financial institutions are more willing to engage when risk is distributed and governance structures are formalized. Collective organization turns fragmented opportunity into scalable enterprise.

AfCFTA amplifies this imperative. Regional markets reward competitiveness, standards compliance, and supply consistency. Youth participation cannot remain informal if it is to benefit from continental integration. Governments and partners must therefore invest not only in production, but in processing, logistics, digital systems, and quality assurance.

The lesson from the Central African experience is not unique to one country. It reflects a broader continental truth: youth agency grows when policy literacy, structured advocacy, and institutional access converge.

When young entrepreneurs understand how national plans operate, how budgets are allocated, and how reforms are monitored, they move from petitioners to participants. When they have access to data, they can demand accountability. When they are connected to markets, they can scale beyond subsistence.

Africa does not lack youth ambition. It lacks fully aligned systems.

If CAADP 3.0 and AfCFTA are to deliver meaningful transformation, youth must be integrated not as a demographic target, but as co-designers of reform. That means embedding them in governance processes, aligning skills development with value chains, mitigating investment risk, and measuring performance transparently.

Agriculture will remain central to Africa’s economic future. The question is whether young people will simply work within the system, or shape it. The answer will determine not only agrifood productivity, but the continent’s broader trajectory of stability, trade, and inclusive growth.