Angola will host the fourth edition of the African Youth Games from December 10 to 20, a continental multi-sport event organised by the Association of National Olympic Committees of Africa -ANOCA- that will bring together young athletes from the 54 African National Olympic Committees. The competition will form part of the qualification pathway for the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic youth event ever to be staged on African soil.
The 2025 edition will be held for the first time under a multi-city model, with competitions spread across Luanda, Benguela, Lubango, Huambo, Moçâmedes and Caxito, featuring a programme of 33 sports and an expected participation of more than 3,000 athletes. ANOCA President Mustapha Berraf underlined that the Games “represent a school of life, where African youth express their talent, creativity and capacity for resilience”.
From Rabat to Luanda: the evolution of the African Youth Games
The history of the African Youth Games began in Rabat in 2010, with the participation of 40 countries, just over 1,000 athletes and a programme of 16 disciplines. That first edition was already linked to the preparation for the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, following a single-city hosting model.
Four years later, Gaborone hosted the second edition in 2014 with around 51 countries, more than 2,000 athletes and a programme exceeding 20 sports on the road to the Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games. The definitive leap in scale came in Algiers in 2018, with close to 3,300 athletes, 54 participating countries and up to 30 sports, also serving as a qualification route for the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games.
Angola 2025: more cities, more sports, a new hosting model
The 2025 edition introduces, for the first time, a fully decentralised hosting model, with six host cities and an organisational deployment unprecedented in the history of the event. Unlike the three previous editions, which were concentrated in a single capital, Angola’s organisers are opting for a territorial distribution of venues supported by newly built and renovated infrastructure.
This approach is also framed within the context of the 50th anniversary of the independence of Angola, turning the Games into an institutional showcase for the host nation and a long-term sporting legacy project, as underlined by Mustapha Berraf, President of ANOCA, who stated: “the facilities are not just infrastructure, they are a living symbol of what Africa can achieve when it believes in its youth”.
The sports programme of Angola 2025 will be the most extensive in the history of the African Youth Games, with 33 disciplines compared to the 16 featured in Rabat 2010. Alongside traditional Olympic sports, the programme will include urban disciplines such as breaking, beach sports, and traditional African games such as Kiela and Wela, integrated into a modern multi-sport framework.
A direct gateway to Dakar 2026
The African Youth Games Angola 2025 will once again serve as a platform for qualification and preparation for the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, with final eligibility criteria to be defined by the respective international federations in the coming months. For many athletes, the event will represent their first experience in a high-level continental multi-sport environment.
Beyond competition, ANOCA has introduced for the first time a digital platform designed to connect spectators across the continent in real time, as well as the Champions of Tomorrow programme, aimed at identifying and supporting emerging talents beyond the Games themselves. “Africa will no longer be a spectator at its own event — it will be the main actor,” Berraf stated in his institutional message.
The Angola edition will also enjoy the support of the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, and is positioned as a tool for continental cohesion, with the joint participation of all 54 African nations in a single sporting, educational and cultural framework on the road to the historic youth Olympic debut of Dakar.
