President Paul Kagame yesterday, met with 32 Global shapers, a global network of local communities set up one year ago by the World economic Forum (WEF).This relatively new community – the Global Shapers Community –  provides youth with a global platform to shape the future – integrating the personal, community and global dimension.The Global Shapers Community is diverse in demographics, geographical areas and sectorsThe meeting took place ahead of the official opening of the WEF in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.Local communities are called hubs; globally there exists 157 hubs with more than 1200 members. Global shapers have representatives in Sub-Saharan Africa consisting of 38 hubs and an additional 12 from North Africa. The leaders are under the age of 30 and gather on a regular basis to engage in activities and projects to benefit their local environments.President Kagame expressed his gratitude to the leaders and urged them to have self-belief, in order to handle tasks that will shape the continent."This gathering of Global Shapers from our continent gives me great hope of the direction our continent is taking and I think a lot is going to happen on the basis of your efforts as young people who feel it’s their responsibility to handle tasks and place Africa where it wants to be. It’s very encouraging. Thank you for that."If I can be real with you and speak about my own situation, the challenges I have faced; having to build a country from scratch there are two things we have to do or encourage. To be a good leader, there has to be a clear message; definition of a problem, how to deal with the problem and a demonstration to show what needs to be done and then, put systems in place to keep people accountable.

Never leave things to chance. I learn a lot of things as I go along. I think it is important to emphasise to young people to never assume that you know, always assume that you don’t know. Always listen and learn.’’According to the African Development Bank, over 60% of Africa’s population is below the age of 24. People under the age of 30 constitute more than half the world’s population, and Africa has the fastest growing and most youthful population in the world.