By Bernard Yaw Ashiadey
The 3rd African Youth and Governance Conference (AYGC) has been launched in Accra.
This year’s event is dubbed the African Youth Economic Forum, and takes place under the theme, Dialogue and Mutual Understanding: Our Year Our Voice, which was adopted by the UN in celebration of its 2011 International Year of Youth.
The conference seeks to evaluate five economic development focus areas: education, ICT, natural resources and environment, employment and entrepreneurship, and agriculture. These areas have been identified as key catalyst for sustaining growth and prosperity.
At the launch of the conference, which begins from August 10th to 12th at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Programmes Manager and Senior Research Officer, Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Mr. Kojo Asante, said the focus and aim of the conference is to get the youth who form the majority of the population into economic development.
“With the highest birth rate of any continent, Africa’s population is projected to grow to two billion by 2050. More than half of Africa’s population is under 25 years and 36% of the working-age population is made up of young people between the ages of 15-24 years in Sub-Saharan Africa,” he said.
He added, because of the youth bulge on the continent, the number of young people looking for work and other life supporting opportunities such as quality education, good health and proper housing is expected to increase by 28%.
This therefore puts enormous pressure on policy makers to develop policies that can take advantage of the youth to propel the development of the continent. Failure to address youth employment issues will have serious consequences for Africa’s economies and societies.
Several countries in the region have identified youth employment as an important challenge in the development agenda, particularly as these relates to the issues of skills development, the growth agenda and empowerment agenda.
The continent has therefore developed the African Youth Charter which has been signed by 37 countries and also introduced other policy initiatives to address the problem.
“Africa therefore has the opportunity to build a workforce to bring the development that we want. The aim of this conference is to groom the youth into becoming intellectuals and entrepreneurs who will develop the continent to match up to the status of the developed world,” he said.
The conference, will submit its deliberations and recommendations to the October 2011 African Forum in Addis Ababa with support of the UN Economic Commission for African for consideration and appraisal.
Mr. Seth Oteng, the Executive Director, Youth Bridge Foundation also added that, the forum will take the form of discussions between the youth and experts in economic development.
“The discussions and sessions will be very detailed so that participants can benefit immensely from the conference. The experts will be having one on one session with the participants, this will make the participants learn more and the experts can also impact their knowledge accordingly,” he said.
Panelists for the opening session are expected to get to the bottom of the key challenges to taking advantage of the Africa’s youth bump and ways to address it. Panelists will discuss the challenges and opportunities around the five focus areas of the conference.
The Head of Corporate Affairs, rLG Communications, Mr. Samuel Fletcher, said rLG is interested in youthful activities and Information Technology and will therefore present its knowledge to the participants through the provision of laptops, mobile phones and internet access for browsing.
The conference will be attended by 250 participants from about 37 African countries. Some of the moderators include Dr. Lloyd Amoah, Ashesi University Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, Joy Fm, and Roland Agambire, rLG Communications, Dr. Anthony Cudjoe, UNDP and UNFPA. The Guest of Honour is the Vice President. John Dramani Mahama.
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