Opinion: Donated books a key to building African democracy

The late Kofi Annan, the former United Nations Secretary General and a son of Africa, once said: “Literacy is quite simply the bridge from misery to hope.”

That sentiment is nowhere more important than among the youth of Africa, which has the youngest population in the world. Some 225 million Africans are between the ages of 15 and 24, a number that is expected to more than double in the next 40 years, according to the United Nations.