In 2025, Africa witnessed a surge of youth-led protests that cut across geography, language, and political systems. From West Africa to the Maghreb and the Indian Ocean, a common thread ran through these uprisings: Generation Z was at the forefront.
In June, Togolese youth poured into the streets following the arrest of a rapper known for denouncing corruption, challenging decades of repression under President Faure Gnassingbé. Around the same time, protests reignited in Kenya, echoing the 2024 Gen Z–led uprising against tax hikes. A month later, sustained demonstrations in Madagascar culminated in the unseating of the government. By October, protests erupted in Morocco’s Agadir after a spate of maternal deaths in a public hospital, quickly spreading to Marrakech as young people protested failing healthcare, unemployment, and state spending priorities.
These events earned 2025 the label “the year of protest.” While not all movements achieved their stated goals, they shared a defining feature where young people were the primary drivers, confronting heavily armed police, arrests, and repression. Far from spontaneous outbursts, these protests reflect deeper structural anxieties and a generational reckoning with governance failures across the continent.
Corruption sits at the heart of these grievances. It drains resources from hospitals, universities, infrastructure, and food security, worsening every other crisis.
Born roughly between 1997 and 2012, Gen Z came of age amid climate uncertainty, economic precarity, and pervasive digital connectivity. Often described as generation anxiety, African Gen Z faces additional pressures: chronic unemployment, collapsing public services, and entrenched corruption. For many, protest is not ideological but existential.
Corruption sits at the heart of these grievances. It drains resources from hospitals, universities, infrastructure, and food security, worsening every other crisis. Young people see billions looted while graduates sell sweets on street corners and patients die in public hospitals. Universities, which are meant to be ladders of mobility, are often underfunded and dilapidated.
Unemployment compounds this anger. Degrees no longer guarantee jobs, and informal work rarely covers rent or basic dignity. Work is not only about income; it is about independence, purpose, and hope. When taxes rise, but public services deteriorate, young citizens feel cheated.
While youth protest is not something novel, what distinguishes today’s Gen Z movements from earlier youth uprisings is not grievance but infrastructure. This is the most networked generation in history. Platforms such as TikTok and X amplify personal stories into collective outrage. WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord enable decentralised planning. VPNs and mirrored content help activists circumvent internet shutdowns.
These African protests form part of a 15-year global wave of digitally enabled youth movements, from the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street to Sri Lanka’s 2022 uprising and Bangladesh’s 2024 protests. Despite different contexts, some shared dynamics stand out. First, social media amplifies the message and transforms individual experiences into shared narratives. Second, it enables rapid cross-border learning, with tactics, memes, and symbols spreading across the continent. Finally, State repression often backfires as censorship and violence, when livestreamed, fuel larger mobilisations rather than silence dissent.
Africa has been at the forefront of this digital activism. Movements such as #EndSARS in Nigeria, #FixTheCountry in Ghana, #ShutItAllDown in Namibia, and #RejectFinanceBill in Kenya demonstrate how online platforms translate into street power. African civic-tech initiatives such as Ushahidi, BudgIT, and Code for Africa, along with digital rights organisations, have further strengthened this ecosystem.
State repression often backfires as censorship and violence, when livestreamed, fuel larger mobilisations rather than silence dissent.
Beyond tactics, these movements are symbolically connected. Many adopted the Jolly Roger flag popularised by the Japanese manga One Piece, representing resistance to injustice and exclusion. Such symbols signal a shared consciousness that transcends national borders, producing movements that are simultaneously hyper-local and global.
This combination of shared symbolism and constant cross-border dialogue has created a rapidly evolving metanarrative. Young people are demanding transparency, equity, and dignity in societies where institutions have failed. These protests express not just anger at the past but a desire to shape the future.
So far, Gen Z–led protests have achieved some tangible results. In Kenya, mass demonstrations forced the withdrawal of a controversial finance bill. In Morocco, protests compelled the state to acknowledge failures in healthcare and announce investments in hospitals and schools. In Madagascar, sustained unrest toppled the government.
Yet these victories reveal the movement’s limits. In Madagascar, the vacuum was filled not by civilian reformers but by the military, which hijacked a protest that failed to institutionalise itself as a political force. Elsewhere, governments have paired limited concessions with repression. Kenya continues to see arrests and disappearances of protesters. Morocco has rolled out economic relief while prosecuting protest leaders. In other contexts, regimes contemplate cosmetic reforms to ease pressure without relinquishing power.
From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street, many movements surged and then dissipated. Social media is a double-edged sword. It accelerates mobilisation but often unintentionally creates a hindrance to its sustainability. For example, leaderless, horizontal structures foster inclusivity and flexibility, but they also lack clear decision-making mechanisms, negotiation capacity, and post-protest strategies.
Digital spaces also expose activists to surveillance, censorship, and disinformation. Governments increasingly deploy AI-generated propaganda and online manipulation, as seen in parts of the Sahel, to reshape narratives and undermine dissent. Without institutional anchors, movements risk being co-opted, repressed, or simply exhausted.
The central challenge for African Gen Z is not mobilisation, but its transformation. Protest alone cannot substitute for political strategy. The next phase requires turning street energy into a sustainable influence. This means articulating clear post-mobilisation visions, building intergenerational coalitions, and engaging existing institutions towards their reform.
Broad alliances with civil society, labour unions, and reform-minded political actors can help prevent movements from being isolated or militarised.
Therefore, hybrid strategies are essential. Research on democratic resilience shows that durable change emerges when extra-institutional pressure, such as protests, strikes, and boycotts, is combined with institutional engagement, such as legal reform, electoral participation, and policy advocacy. Broad alliances with civil society, labour unions, and reform-minded political actors can help prevent movements from being isolated or militarised.
Policymakers, for their part, must move beyond viewing youth as a destabilising force. Inclusion is not a concession but a strategic investment. Formal mechanisms for youth consultation in policymaking, aligned with the UN’s Youth, Peace and Security agenda, can reduce volatility and restore legitimacy.
The story of Africa’s Gen Z protests is still unfolding. Looking ahead to 2026, Bloomberg Economics’ model flags Ethiopia, the Central African Republic, Angola, and the Republic of Congo as countries at heightened risk of civil unrest. As risks of unrest loom in several countries, the real question is not whether youth will rise again, but whether their voices will translate into lasting change. The test ahead is whether Gen Z can move from resistance to reconstruction, defining not only what they oppose, but the future they seek to build.
This commentary originally appeared in Hindustan Times.
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Dr. Samir Bhattacharya is an Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation (ORF), where he works on geopolitics with particular reference to Africa in the changing ...
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