Policy analyst Bright Simons has challenged young Africans to look beyond political slogans that dominate public debate and develop the ability to examine the evidence, assumptions and implementation behind government decisions.
Speaking at the Students and Young Professionals African Liberty Academy (SYPALA) 2026 in Accra, Simons told participants that those seeking better outcomes for their countries cannot simply follow politically popular positions. They must be prepared to do the harder work of understanding how policies actually perform.
His message was particularly pointed on issues such as natural resources, where politically attractive ideas can appear straightforward but become considerably more complicated when subjected to economic and policy analysis.
Simons argued that citizens who want to influence policy need to distinguish between the political objective and the means of achieving it.
A proposal may have broad public support, he said, without necessarily being the most effective way of achieving the desired outcome.
The challenge for young people, therefore, is to move beyond asking whether a policy sounds right and instead ask whether the evidence supports it.
“If your goal is not simply just to align but actually to get the best for Ghana or Kenya or Nigeria, then you can’t do what the average person does,” Simons said.
That requires research, he said, including going back to existing studies, examining how previous policies performed and testing the claims being made by politicians, governments and other influential actors.
The approach formed part of Simons’ wider explanation of his “Katanomics” framework, which argues that the transition from politics to policy creates a major accountability challenge.
Politics, in his formulation, is concerned with the “what”, what society wants. Policy is concerned with the “how”, the technical choices required to achieve those objectives.
Once an issue moves into policymaking, however, it can become divided into numerous specialised areas, making it increasingly difficult for ordinary citizens to follow.
That creates an opening for political slogans to dominate the conversation.
A simple message can attract mass support, while the detailed analysis required to determine whether it will work may attract only a small specialist audience.
Simons warned that young professionals who want to contribute meaningfully to public policy therefore need to be comfortable operating beyond the political headline.
They need to understand data, interrogate assumptions and examine the experiences of previous interventions rather than treating each new policy debate as though it begins from scratch.
He also stressed the importance of national learning, the ability of countries to identify why policies failed or succeeded and carry those lessons into future decisions.
Without that process, he argued, African countries risk repeatedly debating the same problems without accumulating enough knowledge about what works.
For a generation growing up in an environment where social media has made everyone a potential commentator, Simons’ message was also a warning about the difference between participation and informed policy engagement.
“Everybody’s a content creator. Everybody’s a broadcaster. Everybody has something to say,” he said.
The challenge, he added, is ensuring that public discussion ultimately connects to solving problems.
That requires more than producing opinions. It requires the ability to follow an issue from the political demand through the technical analysis and back into a public conversation that citizens can understand and scrutinise.
For young Africans, Simons’ message was not simply to enter politics, but to engage more critically with policymaking by questioning popular claims, examining the evidence and holding governments to account for their results.
