The two-story home in Nairobi, Kenya, that New York Times journalists have rented since the early 2000s had some notable features when my family moved in three years ago: banana, guava and avocado trees; a thatched, mud-walled hut in the garden built by a former Times reporter; and a small library of books about Africa collected over several decades.

I dove in. Yellowed reference books like “Sub-Saharan Africa: 1996” were reminiscent of a world before Wikipedia. The biographies of famous people were juxtaposed with those of the forgotten. A handful of admirably obscure works, such as Church and State in Ethiopia, 1270-1527, seemed entirely untouched.

But the most common type of book was one that purported to describe the state of Africa, usually in blanket terms—and, more dangerously, attempted to predict its future. These books fell into two categories: In one category, titles alluded to dysfunction and conflict, such as “Africa in Chaos.” In the other case, the titles sounded optimistic, almost Panglossian. For example: “Africa Rising.”

The sparring topics highlighted how difficult, even foolhardy, it was to make far-reaching statements about Africa, a continent that often defied self-proclaimed experts, usually foreigners.

It might seem strange, then, that my next big story idea was in danger of falling into exactly the same trap.

It started with a single fact. In 2022, I learned that the average age in Africa was 19 years old – far lower than on any other continent. The global average age was 30 years; in Europe and North America there were 41; In parts of East Asia such as Japan it was as high as 48.

I had a remarkable statistic. But how could this become a story?

My first impulse was to focus on 19-year-old Africans from a variety of countries and backgrounds and explore their lives, fears and dreams to describe the forces reshaping the continent. But this device would have disadvantages. At 19, most of us are still trying to figure out what we want from life. Young Africans are no different.

I thought deeper. Searching databases published by the Population distribution of the United Nations—giant spreadsheets dating back to 1950—I found two data points that at first seemed uncomfortably fit together.

It turned out that although the average age in Africa was the lowest of all continents, it was still increasing: as recently as 1989, the average age was 16 years old.

Nevertheless, Africa’s population aged far more slowly than other regions, largely because the continent had the highest birth rates in the world. While the population shrank in Europe and East Asia, it continued to rise in Africa – so much so that by 2050 a quarter of the world’s population and a third of people aged 15 to 15 are expected to live in Africa 24.

It came at a time of breathtaking change that would reshape not just Africa but the world.

I had a story.

Others, like Edward Paice, the director of the Africa Research Institute in London had already recognized this trend. In 2021, he published “Youthquake,” a book detailing youth emergence in Africa. I spoke with him and other experts who were both excited and concerned about this momentous shift.

At our annual Africa team meeting in Nairobi, other Times reporters shared their ideas about these changes and how they could lead to a series of stories.

Still, it would be difficult. I was searching for straws in the wind of a demographic hurricane. But journalists don’t easily reach for the crystal ball. We feel more comfortable Using history to inform the present. We are cautious forecasters.

And the demographics, the science that shapes these forecasts, has often been misused or misunderstood. For decades, Africans have borne the brunt of Western fears of overpopulation. A 1960 Time magazine cover titled “The Population Explosion” The focus was on a bare-breasted African woman clutching a child. In 1994 the writer Robert D. Kaplan founded predicted that the growing population in West Africa would lead to anarchy.

Nevertheless, population forecasts for 2050 are largely reliable, experts say. It would be stupid of me to ignore them. As I traveled and reported across Africa over the next 18 months, I discovered evidence of the youth boom everywhere.

After a coup in Burkina Faso last year, I met a man in his late 20s who had spent a decade traveling from one West African country to the next, doing odd jobs – in gold mines, on farms and on fishing trawlers. He was the embodiment of a generation struggling to find consistent work.

In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, I choked on tear gas as young pro-democracy activists, many of them women, violently clashed with riot police during demonstrations – a sign of the new era of protest led by young Africans frustrated with their old ones , often autocratic leaders.

And in Kenya, I met young people full of ambition and intelligence, many of them running start-ups, representing a side of young Africa that often doesn’t make the headlines: a restless energy driven by ambition, innovation and a heady sense of purpose for innovation probability.

Colleagues also found examples. Elian Peltier, a West Africa reporter for The Times, took a taxi with a young rapper in Ivory Coast. Dionne Searcey, who wrote a book about women’s lives in West Africa, found an inspiring university student in Senegal. Vivian Yee from Egypt spoke to a student outside a school in Cairo.

Hannah Reyes Morales, a freelance photographer, traveled to five countries looking for young people in college dorms, at fashion shows, at religious ceremonies and even at a horse race. The scenes of joy, excitement and strife she captured reflect this heartbreaking moment of change.

The result was “Old World, Young Africa”. which was published last month online and in a 40-page special section in print. In the coming weeks, other Times reporters will publish more stories about the surprising impact of Africa’s youth boom.

What it will ultimately bring – boom, bust, or something in between – will likely vary from country to country and region to region.

As my little library shows, capturing all of Africa in one book or article is a difficult, if not impossible, task. Is demography destiny? It depends on who you ask.

Yet few doubt that an epochal change is underway on the continent – ​​and our goal is to track the biggest changes step by step.