oluwatosin oyeniyi From Tunisia to Nigeria, Ghana and Morocco, young Africans are weighing dangerous journeys and uncertain futures abroad against unemployment, weak public services and limited opportunities at home. The figures reveal a retention crisis but they also require careful interpretation.
The desire to leave is becoming a development indicator
A recent report on Tunisia’s youth has brought a wider African question back into focus: what happens when a generation no longer believes its future must be built at home?
In Tunisia, an August 2026 report documented a youth unemployment rate of 37.5 per cent in the first quarter of the year. It also described a severe professional exodus: about 39,000 of the country’s roughly 90,000 registered engineers were living abroad, while 1,600 of 1,900 doctors in one recent graduating class reportedly left to practise elsewhere. These figures describe different forms of migration and should not be added together, but they point to the same pressure—education is not reliably leading to opportunity.
A June 2026 Afrobarometer survey found that 36 per cent of Tunisians had considered moving abroad. The share rose to 65 per cent among young people, 57 per cent among the most educated and 53 per cent among unemployed people seeking work. Better job opportunities were the most common reason, cited by 54 per cent of prospective emigrants.
Tunisia is not an isolated case
Nigeria offers a similar warning at a much larger scale. Afrobarometer’s latest published Nigerian survey found that 56 per cent of citizens had considered leaving the country, rising to 60 per cent among 18-to-35-year-olds and 71 per cent among people with post-secondary qualifications. Work opportunities and escape from poverty were the leading reasons. The survey was published in 2024, so it should not be described as a 2026 measurement. Its value is that it shows the depth of the trend before the latest cost-of-living pressures were fully reflected in public debate.
Gallup’s 2026 analysis provides a broader comparison. Using surveys conducted across 149 countries between 2023 and 2025, it calculated a Potential Net Youth Gain Index based on whether 15-to-29-year-olds said they would like to move permanently. It is not a forecast of actual migration. But the results show the scale of possible demographic loss: Ghana recorded a potential youth-population decline of 67 per cent if expressed migration preferences were realised; Sierra Leone recorded 81 per cent and Liberia 79 per cent.
A continent moving within Africa and beyond it
Africa’s migration story is not simply a flight to Europe or North America. The International Organization for Migration’s 2026 World Migration Report estimates that about 45.8 million international migrants were born in Africa by mid-2024. Around 25 million Africans were living in another African country, while about 21 million lived outside the continent. Of those outside Africa, roughly 11 million were in Europe, nearly 7 million in Asia and 2.7 million in Northern America.
This is important context. Most African migration remains within Africa, shaped by work, family ties, regional mobility agreements and conflict. A young Ghanaian may move to a neighbouring country, while a Tunisian may seek Europe and a Nigerian professional may target Britain, Canada, the Gulf or the United States. “Africa is losing its youth” is therefore too broad unless it specifies whether the issue is cross-border mobility, permanent emigration, irregular departure or skilled migration.
The common thread is not geography. It is opportunity. The 2026 Africa Youth Employment Outlook estimates that Africa has about 532 million people aged 15 to 35. More than 10 million young people enter the labour market each year, but current growth patterns create only about 3 million formal jobs. Around 90 per cent of young employed Africans work in informal jobs, and 104 million young workers live in households classified as extremely poor.
A young person may therefore leave not because of a romantic view of foreign life, but because work at home is insecure, wages are low, public hospitals are unreliable, electricity is expensive and social mobility appears reserved for those with family connections.
Morocco shows how hope can become dangerous
Morocco’s 2026 Ceuta crisis illustrated the emotional force of migration. The Nation reported that an estimated 50,000 Moroccan migrants attempted to reach the Spanish enclave in late July after false online claims suggested that people arriving there would receive legal status in Europe. More than 70 people died, while over 48,300 returned home within days.
The event cannot be treated as a normal measure of Moroccan emigration. It was a sudden, misinformation-driven mass movement, and the figures come from reporting around a fast-moving crisis. But it showed that thousands of young people can be mobilised by the belief that a door abroad has opened, even when the route is deadly and the promise is false.
The cost of losing a generation
Destination countries benefit from younger workers while origin countries carry much of the cost of training them. That imbalance should push African governments and destination states towards fairer labour-mobility partnerships rather than policies focused only on interception and deportation.
Retention requires more than border control
Governments cannot stop youth migration through patriotic appeals or tighter borders. They must make staying a credible choice. That means job-rich growth, reliable electricity, better technical and university education, safer cities, stronger healthcare and fair recruitment based on merit.
Legal migration agreements can reduce deaths and exploitation, but they should include skills partnerships, recognition of qualifications, protections for migrant workers and investment in the institutions that train them. African regional bodies should also make intra-African movement easier for students, entrepreneurs and professionals while protecting labour rights.
Finally, governments need better data. A country should know how many citizens leave for work, study or family reunification, which skills are departing, how many return and what conditions would encourage them to stay. Without that evidence, “brain drain” remains a slogan and policy becomes guesswork.
Africa’s young people are not abandoning the continent because they lack loyalty. They are responding to the opportunities available to them. The central question is whether African states will treat their departure as an individual choice or as evidence that the development contract has failed to offer enough people a future worth choosing.
