A bold new vision for Africa’s economic future is emerging from the 2025 Bridge Africa Summit, with young leaders and stakeholders calling for remittances projected to surpass $100 billion annually to be redirected toward entrepreneurship and productive investments across the continent.
The summit, held at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Morocco, gathered more than 130 young leaders from 25 African countries under the theme “A New African Leadership.” Participants issued The Bridge Africa 2025 Call, a collective document urging governments, investors, and development partners to treat youth as central actors in shaping Africa’s economy rather than as distant promises of the future.
Discussions centred on transforming diaspora remittances into pooled investment funds, mentorship platforms, and advisory roles that can support Africa’s growth. Nigeria and Morocco, which account for significant inflows from their diasporas, were highlighted as pivotal countries in this effort. Stakeholders stressed that redirecting these funds into sectors such as agriculture, digital technology, and renewable energy could unlock sustainable, inclusive growth.
Khalid Baddou, Chair of the Bridge Africa Programme, said the summit was about building ecosystems of collaboration rather than spotlighting individual achievement. He explained that UM6P’s entrepreneurship infrastructure, including the StartGate accelerator, UM6P Ventures, and the Green Energy Park, provides startups with research, technical expertise, mentorship, and access to early buyers , turning entrepreneurship into a developmental engine.
Workshops explored how artificial intelligence can revolutionise education and agriculture, how fintech can expand rural market access citing Nigeria’s Flutterwave as an example of enabling a 30 percent boost in trade and how biotechnology innovations, such as Benin’s waste-to-textile initiative, can address industrial gaps.
Since the 2024 summit, five initiatives have already emerged from the network of “bridgers.” These include a Youth Tech Challenge linking students in Cameroon and Morocco on sustainable cities and agriculture, a Leadership Academy in Mali that trained 100 young people on governance in the digital age, a Beninese project converting pineapple waste into textile fibres, a Kenyan innovation to redesign carbon credit systems in favour of local communities, and The Bridge Academy, which has provided free training to more than 50 youth across 15 countries.
The 2025 summit generated 25 new projects, some already in prototype phase. Participants identified persistent barriers between policy and practice, including limited freedom of movement, education systems misaligned with market realities, and inadequate funding models. They called for governments to incorporate the lived experiences of youth into policymaking, stressing that youth unemployment is not only about job numbers but about mismatches between institutional structures and real aspirations.
Organisers described the outcomes as a turning point, with young Africans not only identifying roadblocks but also proposing concrete solutions and charting pathways forward. The summit underscored the capacity of Africa’s youth to connect ideals with action, positioning them at the heart of the continent’s next phase of economic transformation.
