S7 Ep24: Leonard Wantchekon on youth and governance in African cities

This is an episode from VoxDev's new podcast series, Ideas in Development. This series has a separate podcast feed , where you can find every episode of Oliver Hanney and Kurtis Lockhart's conversations on cities. YouTube: Apple Podcasts: Spotify: Audioboom: Substack: VoxDev: Are African cities a powder keg of restless youth – or the most promising place to build prosperity, peaceful politics and shared civic life? Leonard Wantchekon joins Ideas in Development to argue that African cities should be seen as a youth opportunity, not a youth problem. We discuss recent unrest in Kenya and Tanzania, his work showing that clientelism is overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon, and that deliberation and decentralisation are the institutional minimums African cities should be reaching for. Leonard then lays out what deliberation, decentralisation and a renewed urban culture could do for the next generation of African city dwellers.

You can listen to S7 Ep24: Leonard Wantchekon on youth and governance in African cities online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

S7 Ep24: Leonard Wantchekon on youth and governance in African cities is an episode from VoxDev Talks by Audioboom.

This episode is 55:06 long.

This episode was published on May 8, 2026.

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