It’s dusk on a Wednesday, and in an unassuming office building in a working-class neighborhood of Abidjan, Junior Konaté’s elocution class is in session.
“Clarity, tempo, and expression. These are the things we look for!” Mr. Konaté calls out to his adult students, who are sitting with their shoulders bent over their papers, hoping not to make eye contact with their teacher.
This wasn’t what he imagined for himself when he set off for his first university degree. But despite having two undergraduate degrees, he has not been able to find a full-time job. Teaching elocution lessons twice a week is just one way he pays his bills. He’s also worked at a call center, conducted market surveys, and been an emcee for events.
Why We Wrote This
Young Africans could drive economic growth across the continent. But only 1 in 6 holds a steady job.
Recently, he’s also been trying to build his social media following as a comedian in hopes that he will eventually make money off the platforms or be hired as a voice actor.
For now, he is resigned to having his students take turns around the table, reciting a complicated text in French. They hope perhaps the course will give them an edge so that when they complete it, they too aren’t making ends meet with part-time gigs.
Mr. Konaté flashes a warm smile and winks. “Who wants to go first?” he asks.
More than 70% of Ivorians are under age 35, making Côte d’Ivoire one of the youngest countries in the world. Mr. Konaté’s pupils – a mix of government workers and university students – are among them.
But the country has struggled to harness their energy. According to government officials, 400,000 young people enter the labor market each year, but a majority end up in informal jobs. Meanwhile, nearly half the population lives below the poverty line.
Côte d’Ivoire is not alone with these challenges. Of the 420 million Africans between the ages of 15 and 35, one-third are unemployed and only 1 in 6 holds a steady job.
The stakes are paramount. If young Africans are given opportunities, they have the potential to become engines of the continent’s economic development. But if left jobless and frustrated, they can instead be the drivers of social unrest or mass migration.
“Young people are so creative here,” says Francis Akindès, a sociologist at the University of Alassane Ouattara de Bouaké, who studies youth and democracy. “Imagine if we gave them the means? They could conquer the world.”
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Chasing dreams
When Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara – one of the world’s oldest heads of state – secured his fourth term last October, the octogenarian vowed to make young people and their futures a government priority.
However, despite pumping 831 billion CFA francs ($1.4 billion) into its Youth Plan between 2023 and 2025, the government has had trouble making good on its promise. President Ouattara claims youth unemployment is only 4%, but experts say the actual numbers are many multiples of that amount. The figures also hide the many underemployed young Ivorians who are working part time or in fields not related to what they studied.
That is what has brought Mr. Konaté’s students here. After a full day’s work or study, they battle fatigue and Abidjan’s brutal traffic to spend two hours learning how to speak clearly and precisely. They hope the government-recognized certificate they will earn from this class will make a difference on their next job application.
“I want to work,” says Carla Gnakala, a recent graduate of Félix Houphouët-Boigny University in Abidjan. “But there are no opportunities.”
Her teacher, who is younger than many of the students in his classroom, says he refuses to give up. He has enrolled in another degree program, this time a master’s at the university where Ms. Gnakala studies. He also has a plan B up his sleeve. On a recent morning, he sits facing a watermelon-sized selfie ring light in the corner of his small dorm room. Just out of the shot, dishes are piled high on a rickety desk. A miniature fridge and single bed are pushed up against a wall spotted with black mold.
“I’d like to do something like Ms. Rachel, but in French,” he explains, referring to the American YouTuber who makes videos for toddlers. Then he turns to face the phone camera.
“Hi! Hello! Can you say Mama? Mama!” Mr. Konaté says in a Ms. Rachel-esque squeak.
“There are lots of people who give up on their dreams,” he explains later. “But I won’t.”
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
Informal and precarious
Most young people are working on contingency plans instead.
When Joel Kouakou graduated with a master’s degree in information technology and telecommunications, he imagined a nine-to-five job in an air-conditioned office. But after years of job hunting that only landed him short-term contracts, he got tired of waiting.
“It was always so hard to keep anything for very long,” says Mr. Kouakou. A silver cross necklace dangling over his black T-shirt, he sits on the edge of a desk inside a shop the size of a child’s bedroom. This serves as headquarters for the small e-commerce business he founded seven years ago.
Around him, several young men frantically sort plastic bags filled with everything from clothes and shoes to blenders. Throughout the day, they’ll drive their motorcycles throughout sprawling Abidjan to drop off the packages.
“If you keep moving and you’re dynamic, you can succeed,” says Mr. Kouakou.
Mr. Kouakou’s business is considered informal, meaning it isn’t registered on any government ledgers. About 80% of all workers in Côte d’Ivoire are in the informal sector, which spans a wide range of jobs, from street vendors and cleaners to taxi drivers and hairdressers. Together, they generate 40% of the country’s gross domestic product.
This informal work is often precarious. Despite laws obliging them to pay into the national social security system, many informal workers do not, leaving them without unemployment, retirement, and healthcare benefits.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
The government recently pledged 6.75 billion CFA francs ($12 million) to help young people start businesses this year. But this kind of official assistance often doesn’t reach the most vulnerable.
“For those who decide to launch a business in the informal sector, they end up self-financing their project,” says Guy Raoul Konan, a researcher on Ivorian youth migration at Grenoble Alpes University. “They can’t pay their bills and, ultimately, many people give up.”
Who you know
In many ways, the country’s employment woes begin long before young people in Côte d’Ivoire even reach the job market.
Though 95% of children in Côte d’Ivoire are enrolled in primary school, only about two-thirds of them reach secondary school. Children from poor families, who may not be able to pay school fees or who are encouraged to work instead, are especially at risk of dropping out.
In an effort to build up the country’s education system, the Ivorian government has invested heavily in subsidies for private elementary and secondary schools. But experts say their implementation has been chaotic and the quality of education is often not up to standard, furthering educational inequality.
For those who do make it to university, learning remains focused on memorization and theoretical knowledge, instead of the practical, hands-on learning that’s necessary to enter the labor market, says Mr. Akindès, the sociologist.
Many young Ivorians say that, even with a university degree in hand, job hunting is a struggle. College internships are notoriously hard to find. And nationwide exams for the highly prized public sector jobs have staggering odds. The national teachers exam in May attracted 24,185 candidates for just over 3,000 jobs. Favoritism and cheating are also long-standing issues.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
“There are too few spots, so families go through who they know,” says Hyacinthe Digbeugby Bley, a historian at Félix Houphouët-Boigny University. “If you find out that the person who got the job or internship you wanted wasn’t even at the national exam to get it, it reinforces a sense of corruption. And obviously, it creates anger and frustration.”
Ivorians have a particular word for such corruption: réseautage.
“You can’t get a job without work experience, but you can’t get work experience without knowing the right people,” says Ms. Gnakala, the university student. She has been living with her mother to save money and is taking Mr. Konaté’s elocution class to improve her chances of finding an internship. “It really is the chicken or the egg.”
Meanwhile, Landry Yassi Gaye has stopped trying to fight the system.
Instead, his organization, the Léo Lagrange Federation, uses its own professional connections to help young people without networks connect to employers. It then helps them prepare for the hiring process.
“It creates that necessary first link,” he says. “We don’t try to hide the fact that there is réseautage in this country. We work with it, not against it.”
The consequences of hopelessness
For Côte d’Ivoire, the stakes of creating a more stable future for young people are sky high. Already, many young Ivorians have decided that they would rather risk their lives to reach Europe than continue chasing scarce opportunities at home.
Though Côte d’Ivoire has historically been a destination country for migrants from across West Africa, it is increasingly experiencing emigration as well. Since the early 2000s, migration from Côte d’Ivoire to Europe and North America has more than tripled, and today, Ivorians are among the top five nationalities of migrants who reach Europe’s southern borders.
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
There is no single reason why people leave, says Mr. Konan, the migration researcher.
But the desire to migrate is particularly high among young people, the unemployed, and those with advanced degrees, according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
“More young people find themselves thinking, ‘Why not risk it on the other side, in Europe?’” says Mr. Konan.
For those who stay and fail to find jobs or financial stability, other countries on the continent offer a kind of caution. In 2024 and 2025, Generation Z-led protests roiled Morocco, Madagascar, and Kenya, leading to violence, arrests, and deaths. In Madagascar, the demonstrations also sparked a military coup that ultimately ousted the country’s president.
There, young people rose up against corruption and economic instability, as well as a failure by their governments to deliver basic necessities and opportunities for the future. They say they have inherited problems their generation did not create.
Fears of similar unrest were heightened in Côte d’Ivoire in the run-up to the presidential elections last October. Elections are historically fraught here. In 2010, the disputed results of a presidential race touched off a brief civil war.
In 2025, critics of Mr. Ouattara were outraged by his decision to run for a fourth term, as well as the fact that his two leading challengers were barred from the race.
In the end, Mr. Ouattara won by 89%, and though there were no major protests, many young people feel that their aging president has not made good on his promises to their generation. Some worry about this anger bubbling over.
“I don’t see the results of the president’s words,” says Mr. Konaté, the elocution instructor. “He says he’ll fix things for us young people, but in the meantime, we’re losing this generation.”
Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff
For now, Mr. Konaté is doing his best to get ahead on his own. In March, he was nominated for a national talent competition in Abidjan. But when he found out he would have to pay for his spot in the finals, he declined.
Instead, he forges on, teaching and going to auditions when he can. His master’s program will cost him upward of 600,000 CFA francs (about $1,000), but it also allows him to hold on to his inexpensive dorm room.
Back in class, Mr. Konaté calls on Ms. Gnakala, the university student. She grabs ahold of her paper and lifts her chin straight ahead. In a clear, solid voice, she begins reciting her elocution assignment – a complicated text filled with tongue twisters.
Everyone applauds when she finishes, Mr. Konaté writes down a grade in his notebook and then it’s another young woman’s turn. She looks around the table as the gazes of her classmates and teacher bore into her. After a few words, she bursts into nervous giggles and has to stop. Then, Mr. Konaté breaks into song, imitating Mariah Carey. The tension melts away.
“Life here is difficult,” says Mr. Konaté, shrugging as he cracks a smile. “Everyone here is just doing what they can to get ahead.” ■