Africa: Keeping Up With the People's Agenda: Popular Priorities for Government Action, and How They Are Evolving

Africans' list of most important problems shows heightened concern about economic management and crime/security.

Key findings

Across 39 African countries, we find widespread pessimism: 66% of respondents believe their country is heading in the wrong direction (Figure 1). o These assessments are rapidly getting worse. Ten years ago, citizens in 30 countries were evenly divided between "right direction" (47%) and "wrong direction" (46%). But after a 20-percentage-point decline in positive assessments, those who say "wrong direction" now outnumber those who take the positive view by a 2-to-1 margin. o Majorities in 30 out of 39 countries agree that things are heading in the wrong direction, led by 92% of Sudanese and 91% of Gabonese (Figure 2).
Economic issues top the list of public concerns, with one in three Africans (33%) citing unemployment as one of the most critical issues for government to address and nearly as many mentioning management of the economy (29%). Another 12% prioritise poverty (ranked 10th) (Figure 3). Overall, 84% of all respondents mention economic concerns (Figure 4).
Public infrastructure is also a top concern, placing water supply (22%) and infrastructure/roads (22%) fourth and fifth and electricity supply (12%) ninth. In total, six in 10 respondents (60%) identify infrastructure issues as critical.
Nearly as many (58%) identify social service delivery, including almost one in three who mention health (29%, ranked third) and one in five who cite education (20%, ranked sixth) as a priority.
Governance issues are mentioned by 42%, including 20% who prioritise crime and security (seventh) and 11% who cite corruption (11th).
Some of the starkest differences are evident when we compare people who experience the highest levels of poverty to those who are most economically secure. Respondents who are experiencing high levels of lived poverty1 put far more emphasis than those who are better off on water supply (32% vs. 8%), food shortage (21% vs. 7%), and infrastructure/roads (23% vs. 13%), and significantly less emphasis on management of the economy (23% vs. 33%) (Figure 5).
Large differences are also associated with education level. Compared to citizens with post-secondary qualifications, those with no formal schooling are much more likely to mention water supply (32% vs. 12%), food shortage (25% vs. 8%), and agricultural issues (13% vs. 3%), while the most educated are far more concerned about unemployment (42% vs. 20%) (Figure 6).
We also find that urban residents are significantly more concerned about unemployment than their rural counterparts (41% vs. 26%), as well as about economic management (33% vs. 26%) and crime/security (23% vs. 17%), but less concerned about water supply (14% vs. 29%) and infrastructure (17% vs. 26%) (Figure 7).
Age-related differences are much more modest: Compared to seniors, youth express greater concern about unemployment (36% vs. 27%) and education (21% vs. 16%), but differences are otherwise not significant (Figure 8).
There are no significant gender differences when it comes to priorities for government action.
Unemployment, the top issue continentally, ranks as the most frequently mentioned problem in 11 of the 39 surveyed countries. It is cited by half or more of respondents in seven countries, led by Cabo Verde (60%), and by 20% or more in 30 countries (Figure 9). But prioritising jobs is not universal: In Seychelles and Sudan, fewer than 10% mention employment as a priority.
While economic management and health tie for second place continentally, the country profiles for these issues are quite different. Economic management is the highest priority in 14 countries, is cited by an overwhelming 92% of all Tunisians, and tops 50% in two other countries (Sudan and Malawi) (Figure 10). Health is the leading concern in just four countries - Angola (44%), São Tomé and Príncipe (40%), Tanzania (38%), and Uganda (48%) - and is the second-highest concern in another eight, including Gabon (52%), the only country where it tops 50% (Figure 11).
The top issues in other countries are more varied: o Water supply takes the top spot in Benin (43%) and Mozambique (37%) and ranks second in seven countries, led by Guinea (49%) (Figure 12). o Infrastructure/roads lead in Guinea (58%) and Lesotho (46%) (Figure 13), while education is the dominant issue in Liberia (47%) and Mauritania (42%) and is also cited by 43% of Gabonese (third-highest issue) (Figure 14). o More than half of Burkinabè raise concerns about crime and security (53%), making it the No. 1 issue there. It is also the top issue in Nigeria (41%) and ranks second in Mali (49%), Cabo Verde (46%), and four other countries (Figure 15). o Finally, the No. 1 concern in Niger and Mali is food shortage or famine, cited by 53% and 50%, respectively (Figure 16).
The overall focus on unemployment has not changed dramatically: Mentions of the issue across 30 countries tracked for the past decade are down just 3 percentage points, from 37% to 34% (Figure 17). o But seven countries experienced large decreases (8 percentage points or more) in prioritisation of this issue, led by declines of 24 points in Tunisia and 20 points in South Africa. o Four countries saw similarly substantial increases, led by Togo (+12 points). ▪ The largest shift occurred in prioritisation of economic management, which has increased by 14 percentage points over the past decade (Figure 17). o Only one country, Uganda, saw a substantial decline in priority on this issue (-13 points), while 18 countries recorded marked increases, led by Zambia (+37 points), Tunisia (+36 points), Senegal (+34 points), and Ghana (+31 points).2
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic that shook the world in 2020-2021, there is no aggregate increase in prioritisation of health issues across 30 countries (Figure 17). o But as civil and political unrest has taken hold of the country, health has dropped by 29 points in Burkina Faso, whereas both Cabo Verdeans (+15 points) and Ugandans (+16 points) are placing much more emphasis on this issue compared to a decade ago.
In aggregate, water supply has remained essentially unchanged as a priority. But we see again that Burkinabè have shifted their focus, with a 36-point drop-off on this issue, along with significant decreases in Mauritius, Malawi, Cabo Verde, and Botswana and significant increases in Côte d'Ivoire, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe (Figure 18).
We also see little aggregate change in the importance of infrastructure and education (Figure 18), although focus on infrastructure more than doubled in Lesotho (+25 points), and prioritisation of education saw major declines in Sierra Leone (-19 points) and Zambia (-19 points). But more Ugandans (+14 points) and Guineans (+13 points) are turning toward education.
Crime/security is the second issue on which we see heightened concern not just in a few countries, but in the aggregate 30-country indicator, which increased by 7 points between 2011/2013 and 2021/2023 (Figure 19). o Several countries record remarkable increases, including Burkina Faso (+45 points), Mali (+40 points), Niger (+27 points), Senegal (+24 points), and Sudan (+15 points), all of which have recently experienced coups or serious political unrest. o Only Tunisians (-23 points) show a comparable decrease in this concern. ▪ Even as economic management has grown as a concern, food security (-3 points) and poverty (-9 points) have declined (Figure 19). While all three reflect economic unease, the shift in focus from hunger and poverty to broader economic management may suggest some overall gains in economic conditions. o Guineans (-22 points) and Kenyans (-16 points) are far less focused on food security compared to a decade ago. o Mentions of poverty, meanwhile, have dropped by substantial margins in 16 countries, led by Botswana (-26 points), Senegal (-25), Lesotho (-24), and Mauritius (-20).
Even as concerns about electricity supply have declined in priority in Cabo Verde (-25 points) and Zimbabwe (-14 points), they have spiked in South Africa (+19 points) as the country continues to struggle with frequent load shedding (Figure 20).
Corruption has become a lower priority in Morocco (-13 points) and Nigeria (-13), whether because of progress in fighting it or displacement by other issues (Figure 20). But Kenyans' concern about corruption has surged, more than doubling (+18 points) to 35% over the past decade.
Figure 21 shows over-time changes in citizens' priorities for 36 of the 39 countries included in Round 9. The other three countries were surveyed for the first time in Round 9, so only the current results are shown.

Agenda setting is a key function of governments. Whenever resources are limited - i.e. always - governments must set priorities before they leap into policy action. But agendas can be set in many ways. They can follow the whims of leaders. They can be shaped by lobbyists or other proponents or beneficiaries of particular courses of action. In Africa, agenda setting has often been contested, with many complaining that priorities are driven by external actors such as international financial institutions or bilateral or global patrons.

Since 2000, the United Nations has collectively played a more prominent role, initially through eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that fundamentally shaped the international development discourse from 2000 to 2015. The MDGs were followed by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2015-2030 (United Nations, 2024). Also in 2015, the African Union adopted "Agenda 2063: The Africa We Want," reflecting significant progress in bringing the agenda-setting prerogative back onto the African continent (African Union, 2015).

However, it is no secret that Agenda 2063 is a broad and ambitious plan. With 20 goals and 39 "priority areas," trying to implement all of it would likely overwhelm the capabilities of even the most well-resourced government. Agenda 2063 establishes a useful development framework for the continent, but individual countries still have a lot of work to do to identify their own specific priorities.

While governments can turn to varied sources of data, insight, and information in setting their priorities, Afrobarometer has long argued that a critical place to start should be understanding citizens' priorities. That is why Afrobarometer has been capturing data on popular priorities since its inception in 1999, meaning we have up to 25 years of data on the public's agenda in some countries, and at least 10 years of data in 30 countries. Every Afrobarometer survey asks people what they think the most important issues are that their government should address, and accepts up to three responses per person. We then code respondents' open-ended answers into roughly three dozen policy sectors.

This report presents findings on the popular agenda from our recent Round 9 surveys, conducted in 39 countries between late 2021 and mid-2023, and tracks how priorities have evolved over time across 30 countries where we have data since Round 5 (2011/2013). We report the findings from several perspectives: 1) continent-wide priorities and how they have shifted over time; 2) how priorities differ across socio-demographic groups (based on age, gender, urban-rural location, education, and economic status); and 3) priorities at the country level and how they have evolved over time. The key findings are summarised below and illustrated in the extensive charts and tables that follow.

Mohamed Najib Ben Saad Mohamed Nejib Ben Saad is the data quality manager for post-fieldwork at Afrobarometer.

Carolyn Logan Carolyn is the director of analysis and capacity building at Afrobarometer.

Read the original article on Afrobarometer.

Africa: Keeping Up With the People's Agenda: Popular Priorities for Government Action, and How They Are Evolving

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