The world population report has indicated an unprecedented increase in youth population across the world with nearly half the global population under 25 years, with more than 1 Billion between the ages of 15 and 24 years. It has been projected that by 2015, there will be 3 Billion young people and 2.5 Billion of them will be living in developing countries (Ruth Kagia, World Bank Group, 2008).  In 2002, youth as a percentage of the total global population ranged from a high of 35 percent in Grenada to a low of 14 percent in Monaco. The percentage of youth was predominantly higher in Africa and much of Asia, but generally low in the countries of the Developed World and in Eastern Europe and the new independent states of the former Soviet Union. Over the 2002-2025 period, the change in the population ages 15- 29 is expected to vary by region. Youth population in Sub-Saharan Africa has been projected to grow at very fast rate while declining in China, Eastern Europe, and the Developed World. As a result, youth as a percentage of the total population are likely to decline everywhere across the globe except in Sub- Saharan Africa.

Despite the increasing youth population growth, successive Governments in Africa have demonstrated little commitment to address the problem of youth marginalization from mainstream development. Africa today has witnessed marginal increase in the number of young people in the legislature and the active involvement of the youth in national governance (i.e. social, economic and corporate) is yet to be institutionalized. Mirroring the African-wide problem from the lenses of Ghana, USAID succinctly expressed in USAID/ Ghana Strategy Statement thus “Ghanaian youth have extremely limited opportunities for education, employment and participation in constructive political and development processes. While Ghana’s youth represent an enormous resource, they are rarely considered as important agents of social and economic transformation” (USAID/Ghana, 2006).

The broad issues confronting the African Youth shall, for the purposes of the planned event be viewed from the three pillars of governance and democracy;