Ambassador Michelle Gavin – How Urban Youth Are Changing Africa

About the Event

6:00 – 6:30 PM Registration & Networking
6:30 – 7:30 PM Program

Africa is undergoing an astounding transformation that will usher in a new era of political volatility and experimentation in the coming years. The region is in the midst of a historically unprecedented demographic surge that has skewed the median age in most countries to below twenty years old. This demographic moment coincides with three factors likely to amplify the political agendas of African youth: rapid urbanization, dramatically increased digital connectivity, and increasing recognition that old political narratives are no longer fit for purpose.

Gavin argues that these clear trends will result in an increase in political volatility. Anti-government movements will continue to find new expression, incumbents will be more vulnerable, honeymoon periods for new leaders will be shorter, and transfers of power and leadership will be more frequent. Citizens frustrated by the status quo will show more willingness to experiment with different forms of government and different external partnerships, all with significant implications for those hoping for a global democratic resurgence.

This book explores growing dissatisfaction and desire for change as the political through line emerging on a diverse continent, and illuminates some of the frustrated, defiant, and often humorous pan-African political conversations underway among young, politically engaged populations. What is coming will be dramatically different from the period of political stagnation that has characterized the past two decades in the region, and that also means that major powers like the United States, Russia, and China that are competing for influence in the region will have to change the way they do business.

Ambassador Michelle D. Gavin is Senior Fellow for Africa at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She has over twenty-five years of experience in international affairs in government and non-profit roles. She was formerly the managing director of The Africa Center, a multidisciplinary institution dedicated to increasing understanding of contemporary Africa. From 2011 to 2014 she was the U.S. ambassador to Botswana and served concurrently as the U.S. representative to the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

During Ambassador Gavin’s tenure, the United States and Botswana launched the most ambitious HIV prevention study in the world; Botswana hosted Southern Accord, the 1,400-strong joint SADC-U.S. military exercise; and the U.S. embassy helped to found Botswana’s first American Chamber of Commerce. Prior to that, she was a special assistant to President Obama and the senior director for Africa at the National Security Council, where she helped to originate the Young African Leaders Initiative and led major policy reviews of Sudan and Somalia.

Before joining the Obama administration, Gavin was an international affairs fellow and adjunct fellow for Africa at CFR. Earlier in her career she worked in the U.S. Senate, where she was the staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on African affairs, director of international policy issues for Senator Russ Feingold, and legislative director for Senator Ken Salazar.

Gavin received an MPhil in international relations from Oxford University, where she was a Rhodes scholar, and earned her BA from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where she was a Truman scholar. She serves on the board of directors of Points of Light, which as founded by President George H.W. Bush.

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