Introduction

This article asks a simple but profound question: what conditions make this world worth ageing in?

For answers, I spoke to young people whose lives are unfolding within very different political, social and cultural realities, yet whose hopes and concerns reveal both striking commonalities and striking differences.

In the first week of June 2026, I attended the World Expression Forum (WEXFO) in Lillehammer, Norway, as a journalist. I was accompanied by my son, Damilare Williams-Shires, also serving as a journalist.

Outside the Scandic, Lillehammer, it was raining.

Inside the hotel, I had the privilege of hosting a group discussion with members of WEXFO's Young Experts and Young Voices programmes. These young men and women are leading lights of democratic activism in their countries of origin, study or residence: Norway, Poland, Serbia, Sweden, Kenya, Spain and Germany.

Inside a beautifully upholstered side lounge, I listened quietly, recognizing with every speech why WEXFO exerted such a pull on them: striking confidence, intellectual articulacy and clarity of purpose. Each person possessed them. I also recognized each person's commitment to being respectfully heard - unsurprising in a forum devoted to democracy and freedom of expression.

WEXFO ended on 3 June. A week later, after a brief stay in the UK, I returned home to Lagos, Nigeria. Using the same set of questions, I conducted a second series of interviews, this time in writing.

My Nigerian respondents consisted of four winners of the Gabi Williams Memorial Prizes and one MPhil/PhD researcher at the Centre for Sustainable Development (CESDEV), University of Ibadan.

They are all recent graduates of either the University of Lagos or the University of Ibadan. At their respective convocation ceremonies, I watched each receive not only large, ornate certificates but prize money surely worth a small fortune to any student anywhere in the world. Whatever socio-political or economic turmoil may have been unfolding outside those auditoriums, these rising stars collected prize after prize to the thunderous applause of well over a thousand hatted and gowned graduates, family members, friends and faculty. Such wide-eyed hope and excitement filled those halls.

As they march bravely through university gates, what does the world have in store for them? What inheritance will be placed in their outstretched, hopeful hands?

Sustainability is Inherited

Sustainability is inheritance. It is the structural legacies of the past and the structural bequests we leave to future generations. Sustainable development involves negotiating, navigating, modifying, building upon, destroying and replacing them.

Integrated into my reportage are brief historical and political overviews of transformative moments and defining issues in the respondents' countries spanning the past 30 years - the average lifetimes of the speakers. To present their responses as isolated thoughts would be to miss the opportunity to tell not only a richer story but also the sharper truth that emerges when personal testimony is situated within the historical events, social movements and civic struggles that have shaped - and continue to shape - their generation.

Against these two canvases, one historical and one personal, readers are invited to reflect upon each speaker's words.

In this world we have bequeathed to them, what do our youth believe is worth preserving, worth repairing or reinventing so that life remains worth living - and worth growing old in?

What, in their view, gives quality and value to life in their various countries?

What conditions make these countries and this planet worth ageing in?

My Narrative Approach

Not every response is reproduced. I have carefully curated what these young people shared, guided more by instinct than by design. From their mosaic of views and passions, I sought to build an illuminated vista of a world worth ageing in, to display recurring patterns, unexpected convergences, revealing differences and to draw attention to stand-out moments in our conversations.

What a privilege it is to have been entrusted with this conversation between brilliant young people. Their origins span continents. Some gave me their surnames; others I simply forgot to ask. At WEXFO 2026 there was so much coming and going that it was often difficult to pin anyone down - for long.

Section 1

The Global Mood of Youth
The Wider World via WEXFO

They were from remarkably different national and cultural backgrounds: Indonesia, Norway, Germany, Spain and Poland. Adding an important diasporic dimension to the conversations were Sarah Adekoya, a Norwegian medical student of Nigerian descent, and Obel, a Kenyan writer, performance artist and sound designer resident in Sweden.

A 23-year-old Norwegian politician, Kajsa shared her personal experience of attitudes towards gender and youth within Norway's political landscape while also drawing on the Serbian protests she witnessed and which form the principal focus of her Master's thesis.

Taken together, the WEXFO discussions revealed a striking harmony, moving between various forms of inequity and a perceived psycho-cultural disconnect between older generations and the young. Tomasz Wn?k's renewed hope whenever he sees young people becoming politically engaged corresponds with Kajsa's enthusiasm about the youth-led protests in Serbia.

Yet important distinctions also emerged.

From Germany, Timur Katsakoff describes a broader political fatigue, not only among older generations but increasingly among young people themselves. Emma, from Spain, reflects upon the difficulty of bringing governments and youth into meaningful dialogue.

One concern repeatedly surfaced: the lack of dignity and equal treatment afforded to LGBTQ+ communities and, whenever there is economic or political upheaval, their scapegoating, which Kai Mata describes as “cyclical... the weapon and blueprint used throughout history.”

Maja Tywonek, a coordinator of the Polish Parliamentary Youth Council who works in education, mental health and LGBTQ+ rights, broached the subject of the sexualization of little girls:

“It’s just like super harmful for little kids to be pointed out for wearing too short dresses. What is a too short dress for a five-year-old girl?”

The atmosphere shifted noticeably with Emma giving expression to the frustration and helplessness they both feel:

“We don't control the narrative and that's the worst part... men see us that way and we just can't do anything about it. If I could, I would do something about it and I would lock up these men that are sexualizing us when we're very young.”

At 18 years of age, Norway's Emma Jensen, a youth advocate with the Baltic Sea Region Youth Forum (BSRYF), is already compiling an impressive track record. It includes using survey results from a sample of more than 500 young people to make recommendations to the governments of Northern Europe, and participating in a succession of meetings at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.

Having been part of an organization dedicated to environmental politics, the issue was high on her agenda in envisioning a world worth ageing in. She argues against dependence on oil—a finite resource—advocating instead for sustainable energy sources: hydropower, wind power and, perhaps, nuclear power.

She was cautious, however: “I won't say much about that. I'm against it, but it might be something in the future if we can ensure it is sustainable and if people understand its 50-year time limit.”

With the exception of Emma Jensen, whose contribution is significant, the environment was barely a discussion point. Sarah appealed for societies to be structured in ways that sustain democracies as well as nature, while Timur, a social sciences student at France’s Sciences Po, made a fleeting reference to climate debates in Germany.

That climate justice was not debated and discussed, startled me.

That immigration was totally missing, was equally stunning.

During the WEXFO discussions, Sarah's and Emma's contributions alone substantially overlapped with the views expressed by the Nigeria-based respondents.

Emma emphasized the responsibility of youth “to question systems and make them better.” The overlap sharpened when she acknowledged that she is “lucky to be European,” calling on her contemporaries to “look (as our duty) further from our realities.”

Silently, I wondered how many young Europeans felt the same way - that they have a duty, or a debt, to pay for their good fortune as Europeans.

And just how lucky is she to be Spanish? For the past two decades, Spain has been navigating recovery from the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, the Catalan independence movement and increasing political polarization. Frustrated young Spaniards for whom daily life has been drastically restricted structurally, by the 2008 housing crisis, have become known by sociologists as the ‘lost generation’. Many young people, even over the age of 30, are forced to live at home, depending financially on parents and grandparents for daily subsistence. No wonder they have been at the forefront of housing campaigns, movements for improved employment opportunities, climate activism – the country has entered an era of critical water shortages due to prolonged droughts and rising global temperatures. Feminist mobilization is high on the agenda as the youth of the country continue to demand social and economic justice.

And yet Emma calls herself fortunate – perhaps because the challenges at home have not deterred the democratic machine from persistently spinning on the axis of the will of Spain’s – polarized - people?

Here she was at WEXFO 2026, one of Spain's politically engaged youth, advocating alongside Sarah, who has testified to the “huge responsibility to future generations” that their generation bears.

“We must strive to be strong and live sustainably,” argued Sarah, “not just with nature, but also in the way we structure our societies, a way that enables democracies to be sustained... that allows voices to be heard... and people to survive and live well.”

In closing, although there was remarkably little substantive overlap with the Nigerian respondents, it is noteworthy that Joshua Adeyeye's opening sentence is a call for youth to be allowed to lead. Throughout the interview, his responses evoke the very spirit that conceived and sustains WEXFO's Young Experts and Young Voices programmes: cultivating a new generation of globally connected young leaders committed to defending freedom of expression, strengthening democracy, and shaping more open, inclusive and resilient societies.

In Nigeria

None of the Nigerian youth raised the specific inequities and deficits discussed by Maja, Emma, Kai, Tomasz, Timur, Kajsa or Obel. Given Nigeria/Africa’s special needs and inheritances, given our conservative (some argue reactionary) socio-cultural landscape, should these divergences and silences altogether surprise us?

Joshua Adeyeye, Seun Ajileye, Pelumi Olatunji, Mercy Okwumabua are all currently based in Lagos, while Abdulazeez Shomade lives in Ibadan. What they have articulated is a much broader range of developmental concerns which include an expected emphasis on infrastructure and human capacity development. A welcome surprise was Abdulazeez and Joshua’s inclusion of critical thinking as (vital and dangerously overlooked) infrastructure.

The priorities of these newly-minted professionals include combating the japa syndrome - the mass migration of professionals also known as the brain drain. They address the hope of technological advancement, need for equitable and inclusive digital access, and the urgency of combatting AI and social media misinformation. Top of mind for Seun is the need for societal transformation, and to redefine—or at least clarify—what it means to live well and what should truly matter in life.

Abdulazeez’s invocation of SDG Agenda 2030 comes as no surprise given his pursuit of an MPhil/PhD at the University of Ibadan’s Centre for Sustainable Development (CESDEV). The sustainability framework encompasses everything that the participants in this project address from the wider world via WEXFO through Lagos, Nigeria.

Everything includes the question of media literacy which he is so right to raise as a crucial requirement in this age of mis- and disinformation. Media literacy possesses serious implications for reportage on ethno-religious and political unrest which he references also, recognizing their power to disrupt the peace and progress and to stunt the growth and prosperity of the nation. Both he and Pelumi table the jugular of nation-building: the rule of law and institutional accountability.

The pair of them – one an historian and researcher, the other a sustainability advocate and scholar - are the only two Nigerian respondents to address Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). They argue unequivocally for the revival of African Indigenous Knowledge Systems as a viable source of development solutions. They do not propose IKS as an alternative to Western approaches but as an equal partner within a broader network of strategies for building sustainable communities.

Like Norway’s Emma Jensen who is, ‘striving for a kinder, happier, sharing culture world”, the two Nigerian women, Mercy, at Law School and Seun, a medical doctor at the start of her vocation, stand out also for centering the flourishing of the human soul. Seun emphasized the essential role of compassion in human development and healing, Mercy who is faith-based, insists that spiritual growth is an essential element in human and societal flourishing.

Section 2

Voice, Agency and Democratic Inheritance

The call for their voices to be heard was a recurrent theme of the interviews. Regardless of nationality, profession or political context, almost every respondent spoke about voice: the right to participate, the right to be heard, the right to shape the future, and the responsibility to leave behind institutions capable of hearing those who come after us.

A major take-away from these conversations is that interpretations of democracy vary according to the historical inheritance of each generation.

For some respondents, democracy means resisting authoritarianism or corruption. For others, it means reforming institutions from which the people they were created to serve have become alienated. Others understand democracy through the lens of dignity and representation: the basic expectation that every human being should be able to exist publicly without fear, exclusion or discrimination.

As I deepen my reportage, I integrate brief sketches of the historical and political landscapes that have shaped the speakers' lives. These are the canvasses against which their personal stories are best understood.

Germany

Germany's generation of young adults has grown up amid debates surrounding immigration, climate change, democratic resilience and the resurgence of political extremism. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has fundamentally reshaped Germany's security and foreign policy, while youth movements have become increasingly active in climate activism, anti-racism campaigns and the defence of democratic institutions.

Timur Katsakoff is eighteen years old.

“I want to grow old in a world where there is still optimism.”

His greatest concern is not simply political disagreement but political resignation.

He worries about an increasingly familiar divide between generations. Older Germans, he says, often express frustration with politics before retreating into the belief that the future no longer belongs to them.

“It's not my world anymore.”

Timur understands that this withdrawal represents as much of a democratic danger as political extremism itself. A healthy democracy, he knows, requires every generation to remain invested in the common future.

Serbia and Norway

Kajsa's reflections reveal an unexpected contrast.

As a young Norwegian politician and political scientist whose Master's research focused on the Serbian protest movement, she expected to witness democratic mobilization in Serbia, whose recent history has been marked by civic protest, democratic mobilization and student-led movements demanding greater accountability and institutional reform.

In 2025, hundreds of thousands gathered in Belgrade, continuing a tradition of popular protest that has shaped the country's democratic identity since the fall of Slobodan Miloševi?.

But for Kajsa, the demonstrations became something much larger than a political event.

She had not foreseen the tireless energy of the young people leading them. What surprised her even more was the relationship between the younger and older generations. She watched older people galvanized into joining the protests by the passion, focus and conviction of the youth.

An intergenerational union.

"There were 300,000 people in Slavia Square," she said, with lingering astonishment in her voice and face.

It wasn't simply the scale of the protests that moved her, but the confidence older generations placed in the young.

"Those older people had so much faith in the young people... they really believe that the young people are the ones that are going to change this world."

Returning to Norway, she found herself confronting the opposite experience.

Not feeling heard.

Despite being an elected politician and a trained political scientist, she felt that people saw only her age. She recalled a sixty-year-old politician laughing at her for expressing what she believed was an honest and informed opinion.

This contrast in her experiences begs a curious, but crucial question:

Do societies with long-established democracies become less willing to trust their young than societies still struggling to strengthen or deepen their democracy?

Poland

Poland's democratic inheritance carries the memory of nearly fifty years of communist rule, followed by democratic transition, accession to NATO and the European Union, and, more recently, vigorous public debate over judicial independence, media freedom and democratic accountability.

Tomasz Wn?k belongs to a generation that inherited democracy rather than fought to establish it.

Yet he does not regard democratic participation as something to be taken for granted.

Having entered public life at the age of fifteen through the Parliament of Children and Youth before later serving on Poland's Youth Parliamentary Council, he finds hope not in institutions themselves but in young people who choose to enter them.

"What gives me hope is to see young people engaged."

At WEXFO he encountered participants from countries where democracy remains an unfinished struggle. Their willingness to continue speaking—even travelling to the international arena despite threats of imprisonment—reminded him that democratic freedoms survive only when people continue to exercise them.

Emma (Spain) and Kai Mata (Indonesia) echo his conviction. Their responses to the final question I posed carry a memorable poignancy.

“I want a child born today, reading my words fifty years from now, to know this: that raising their voices always pays. Even though it may be scary and you may face a lot of consequences... take the risk. Do it with fear.”

Kai imagines something even more extraordinary.

“I would want them to feel so shocked that fifty years ago people felt like they couldn't speak. That our pride was considered protest. That celebration had to be considered rebellion back then.”

I mustn't leave out Tomasz's other concern, one as contemporary—and as integral to democracy—as the freedoms he seeks to preserve: polarization and extremism amongst young people.

He understands that his generation must defend democracy not only from authoritarianism but also from the divisions that threaten democratic societies from within.

Nigeria

The telecoms deregulation of 2001 led to the introduction of the GSM and transformed Nigeria into one of the world’s fastest-growing mobile technology and digital economy markets. The transformation birthed vast and ever-growing populations across the nation, of the cohorts we now know as “digital natives”. But since the return to civilian rule in 1999, the country’s democratic journey has unfolded alongside persistent insecurity, institutional weakness and repeated public demands for greater accountability. Youth movements, particularly #EndSARS protests of October 2020 against police brutality and bad governance, demonstrated the willingness and the capacity of young Nigerians to shape national conversations about governance and justice.

Therefore, of the topics broached during the Nigeria conversations that came as no surprise, the first is the desperate need for equitable digital access in the country. “If these problems are not addressed” laments Pelumi Olatunji, “many talented young people could be left behind while the rest of the world moves forward”.

The consistent location of hope primarily in stronger institutions, was what I expected, with only two - the women - placing even greater emphasis on personal and spiritual development as drivers of nation-building.

The simplest democratic proposition expressed anywhere in these interviews was made by Joshua Adeyeye, recently called to the Nigerian Bar.

“I want to grow old in a world where the youth are allowed to lead.”

Leadership should never be the exclusive preserve of older generations. He proposes lower financial barriers to political participation and annual leadership training that would equip young Nigerians to assume responsibility rather than merely wait their turn.

Historian and 2025 Top 100 Africa Future Leaders awardee, Pelumi approaches democracy from a historian's perspective. His concern is the restoration of the rule of law to civic and political life.

“When confidence disappears from courts, legislatures and public institutions,” he argues, “trust in the entire democratic system begins to collapse.”

The society he hopes to build is one “where no one is above the law.”

Abdulazeez Shomade, who is pursuing an MPhil/PhD at the Centre for Sustainable Development, University of Ibadan, extends Pelumi's argument further. Passionate about decolonial environmental thought, climate justice and critical international relations, he believes Nigeria's enduring problems arise because institutions depend upon personalities rather than systems.

He would like to grow old in a Nigeria where governments measure success not only through economic growth or electoral cycles but through the condition of public institutions, schools, forests, rivers and opportunities available to future generations.

For him, democracy itself becomes sustainable only when institutions are strong enough to outlive the politicians who temporarily occupy them.

An alumna of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Seun Ajileye, winner of the Dr. Gabisiu Ayodele Williams Prize in Community Health and Primary Care, similarly frames investment in healthcare, education and public institutions as investment in people.

“Strengthening institutions is among the greatest responsibilities our generation owes to the generations coming after us.”

Yet Seun builds a case that reaches beyond viable systems, budgets and sound administration. In her short experience as a medical doctor, she has learned that:

“Success is not measured solely by professional achievement... but also by the impact we have on others and on the resilience we build in the face of uncertainty.”

Democracy Beyond Elections

Like Seun, Mercy and Norway's Emma Jensen, other respondents broaden democracy beyond elections and government.

First, a brief sketch of transformative moments in Kenya and Sweden helps explain why Obel, a Kenyan performance artist, writer and sound designer, has made Sweden his home.

A landmark in Kenya’s recent history must be the 2024 Gen Z-led protests. Their grassroots activism via Twitter (now X) and TikTok forced the withdrawal of the government’s Finance Bill. Considered punitive and exploitative, the bill proposed sweeping tax hikes on basic commodities and digital services.

Also transformative, momentous even, was Kenya's 2010 Constitution. It created one of Africa's strongest Bills of Rights, protecting civil and political rights, economic and social rights, environmental rights, the rights of persons with disabilities, consumer rights, children's rights and women's rights. But LGBTQ+ rights, still highly contested, were ignored.

By contrast, Sweden where Obel now lives, has become, over the past three decades, a global leader in gender equality and LGBTQ+ rights, introducing gender-neutral marriage, strengthening anti-discrimination legislation, and expanding legal recognition and protections for transgender people.

Obel was formed in a country which maintains its denial of equal rights for his community, even as it makes democratic advances. Living in Sweden with its starkly contrasting legal protections, will inevitably have broadened his understanding of democracy. It is no wonder that for him, democracy begins with the body itself.

Through his work as an artist, he continues to fight for the rights of LGBTQ+ Kenyans.

“I'm hoping to grow old in a world where people's bodies are not legislated against.”

Obel's words echo Maja, who would change many things in Poland, but first among them would be LGBTQ+ rights.

Working at the intersection of music and advocacy in Indonesia, Kai Mata likewise rejects inherited systems that perpetuate exclusion by turning already marginalized communities into convenient political scapegoats.

Conclusion

The young people I spoke to at the Scandic Hotel, Lillehammer, in the afternoon of 2nd June 2026, and their counterparts in Nigeria, share not only a common inheritance of institutions, protests, constitutions, wars, memories, silences and voices, they stand united in rejecting democracy as a sterile constitutional arrangement.

With origins spanning continents, whether addressing the need to reduce inequalities, strengthen institutions or the need to place the flourishing of the human being at the centre of nation-building, it is clear that, for each of them, democracy has become a moral imperative. One that insists people are listened to and heard. One that exhorts people to question, challenge and participate; to remember and to respect. One that refuses to leave others unheard.

Perhaps it is Emma, working to bridge government and youth in Spain, who expresses the democratic responsibility of her generation in its most direct form:

“Youth have a responsibility to question systems and make them better.”

So that they may bequeath to those yet unborn a world worth ageing in.

It is not conflict, or disagreement or uncertainty, that these young people seek to avoid in the world they envision. As activists and advocates, what they seek is a world in which every generation strives to leave behind stronger institutions, deeper justice, greater compassion and wider freedom than it inherited. Listening to these young people should remind us all that sustainable development is ultimately not about projects, or policies or even goals. It is about inheritance and about what we choose to not carry over; what we choose to leave behind so that we guarantee posterity a better future in the world they will receive.

Sustainability is about whether those yet unborn will one day thank us for the world we placed in their outstretched, hopeful hands.