Young citizens say the government is failing on key priorities.
Key findings
- Cameroonian youth (aged 18-35) have more education than previous generations. Eight in 10 (80%) have at least some secondary schooling, compared to 44%-72% among older cohorts.
- But they are also more likely to be unemployed. More than one-third (36%) of youth say they are unemployed and looking for work, compared to 11%-28% of middle aged cohorts.
- o Youth cite inadequate training (23%), a mismatch between educational qualifications and job requirements (21%), a lack of experience (19%), and weak entrepreneurial skills (18%) as key barriers to employment.
- o If they had a choice, most youth (60%) would start their own businesses, while 18% would opt for public-sector work.
- o If the government could spend more on programmes to help young people, youth would prioritise job creation (49%) and job training (19%).
- Unemployment and the rising cost of living top the list of most important problems that youth say their government should address, followed by infrastructure/roads, electricity, and health.
- Youth give the government low ratings on its performance on these key priorities. Fewer than one in five approve of its efforts to create jobs (19%) and keep prices stable (13%), though 53% say it is doing "fairly well" or "very well" on improving basic health services.
- o Youth dissatisfaction with the government's performance has increased significantly over the past decade. On job creation, for example, approval has dropped by 27 percentage points since 2015.
- More than three-fourths (77%) of youth say the country is going "in the wrong direction," and 65% rate the economy as bad. Half (50%) expect economic conditions to worsen during the next 12 months.
- Six in 10 youth (61%) say they have considered emigrating, mainly to find better job opportunities and escape economic hardship.
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Cameroon's demographics make youth central to the country's economic development. Citizens aged 18-35 constitute 57% of the country's labour force (World Bank, 2025a). But the economy has struggled - and failed - to absorb the growing number of labour-market entrants, and many youth continue to face unemployment, underemployment, or vulnerable informal employment (World Bank, 2025a; Hyéfouais, 2019).
Despite employment and entrepreneurship initiatives implemented by the government and development partners (World Bank, 2025a), almost one in four young Cameroonians (23.2%) are not in education, employment, or training, according to 2021 estimates (World Bank, 2025b).
As Tangko (2020) notes, youth unemployment contributes to economic marginalisation and increases the risk of political instability as exclusion generates frustration, weakens confidence in institutions, and heightens social tensions. Cameroon's "low" ranking in the 2023 Global Youth Development Index highlights persistent challenges for youth across a wide range of sectors, from education and employment to well-being and civic participation (Commonwealth, 2023).
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Findings from the Afrobarometer Round 10 survey (2024) reinforce these concerns. While Cameroonian youth are more educated than older generations, they are also more likely to be unemployed. Young people identify inadequate training, skills mismatch, and a lack of experience as major barriers to employment. Job creation is their top priority for additional government spending to support young people, and unemployment ranks among the most important problems they want the government to address.
Young citizens see the government as largely failing to address their top concerns. Most see the country as heading in the wrong direction, and few express optimism about the near future.
Against this backdrop, a growing majority of young Cameroonians report considering emigration, primarily in search of better economic prospects.
Stephen Quansah Stephen Quansah is a PhD student in political science and a graduate research assistant at the Department of Political Science, University of Florida.
