> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.bontehmagazine.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Can Cameroon’s political institutions keep pace with Africa’s youngest population?
- URL: https://www.bontehmagazine.com/the-new-generation-is-waiting/
- Published: 2026-07-29T09:22:45.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-30T09:34:36.000Z
- Description: Official figures from Elections Cameroon (ELECAM) suggest that young people are already a formidable political force.
- Author: Ndifor Richard
- Tags: Politics

The applause comes first.

Graduates in flowing gowns file across the stage to collect their degrees as parents lean forward with phones raised high, determined to capture the moment. Friends embrace, lecturers shake hands, and for a few hours, years of sacrifice give way to celebration. Yet when the photographs are taken and the ceremonial robes are folded away, another question quietly emerges, one that no graduation speech can answer:

What comes next?

For thousands of young Cameroonians, that question extends far beyond the university campus. It speaks to a country where youth is no longer simply a stage of life, but the defining demographic reality. According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), nearly 45% of Cameroon’s population is under the age of 15, while more than six in every ten citizens are younger than 25\. Every year, another generation steps into adulthood carrying new ambitions, expectations and responsibilities.

A generation cannot remain the future forever. Eventually, it becomes the present. The question, then, is not whether Cameroon has a young population, but whether its institutions are evolving quickly enough to keep pace with it.

Why does that matter? Because, according to the United Nations’ World Population Prospects 2024, youth alone does not create prosperity. A youthful population becomes a demographic dividend only when countries invest in education, health, productive employment and effective institutions. Cameroon has recognised this challenge for decades. The Government of Cameroon’s National Youth Policy, adopted in 2006, places young people at the centre of national development, while UNFPA likewise describes them as one of the country’s greatest forms of human capital. But demographic opportunity does not wait forever. It rewards countries that adapt while the window remains open.

If demographics tell us who Cameroon is becoming, Afrobarometer tells us what that generation expects. Its latest survey found that 45% of young Cameroonians want the government to prioritise job creation, while 52% see entrepreneurship as a pathway to opportunity. Yet the survey also reveals growing impatience. Two-thirds of respondents believe political leaders are doing a poor job of preparing the next generation of leaders, and 55% say they have considered leaving the country in search of better opportunities. For many young people, confidence in institutions is shaped less by promises than by the opportunities they encounter in everyday life.

Official figures from Elections Cameroon (ELECAM) suggest that young people are already a formidable political force. Of the country’s 7.8 million registered voters, more than 2.6 million are youth, giving them significant electoral weight. Yet data compiled by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) paints a different picture inside Parliament. At the beginning of the current legislature, the average Member of Parliament was 55 years old, while fewer than one in ten MPs were under 40\. Participation, it seems, is expanding faster than representation. Having a voice at the ballot box is not always the same as seeing that voice reflected in national institutions.

When the applause fades and another class steps into adulthood, the uncertainty facing today’s graduates reflects something larger than the search for a first job. It reflects a country standing at a demographic crossroads. Every generation inherits a nation shaped by the choices of those before it. Today’s young Cameroonians will inherit one shaped, in part, by how their institutions respond to them now. In that sense, the question raised after every graduation ceremony is also one facing the nation itself: not simply *what comes next* for its graduates, but *what comes next* for Cameroon.