African youth, governance conference ends

The 10th African Youth and Governance Conference (AYGC), held on the theme: "Mobilising Africa's youth to build a continent beyond aid", has ended, with a call on governments to include the youth in the development and leadership processes.

The conference, which was held in Accra, gave the youth a platform to deliberate on key thematic areas, including education, governance and leadership, employment and entrepreneurship, gender and inclusion.

They also deliberated on the environment, the rule of law, foreign affairs and Diaspora youth affairs, after which they made recommendations for the future.

Recommendations

Speaking at a press conference to climax the AYGC last Friday, the President of the AYGC 2018, Princess Sekyere, recommended that African nations standardised the process of educational curriculum design devoid of political ideology and ensure that all stakeholders had an input in the policies formulated.

"Looking at the example of Ghana, qualified Diaspora youth can return to the continent through the national service programme and act as human resource," she said.

She emphasised the need for the youth to be involved in their communities, even before they reached 18 years.

"Make volunteering and community involvement mandatory for students at the secondary level.

Also, schools are encouraged to collaborate with organisations in an attempt to mediate the volunteering process for students," she added.

On PWDs

Princess Sekyere urged each African country to commit to collecting systematic disaggregated data on women and persons with disability and share a centralised database, so that African researchers and policy makers could effectively access the critical information.

She also advocated free and accessible public transportation for PWDs through infrastructure financing and knowledge sharing.

The Deputy Vice-President of the AYGC 2018, Aarthi Burtony, urged African governments to make sure policies that favoured PWDs were enforced.

A PWD herself, she complained about the way PWDs were neglected, especially when they wanted to move on the streets, and called for a transportation system that favoured PWDs and enable them to walk without the help of others.

Impact

For his part, one of the delegates from the Diaspora, Chukky Ibe, said he was going to share his experiences from the conference with his compatriots back home in order to be useful to his community and society at large.