The Northern Regional Secretariat of the National Youth Authority (NYA) has held a special joint Parliamentary sitting for the Northern and Upper West Regional Youth Parliaments to discuss challenges and successes in the implementation processes of the National Youth Policy.
It also provided the platform for authorities of the NYA and some Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to brief members on measures put in place to ensure the rapid implementation of the National Youth Policy.
The motion tabled before the house for discussion was: ‘A Year of Implementation of the National Youth Policy: Successes, Challenges and Way Forward; The Perspective of Government and CSOs’.
It was supported by CSOs including Norsaac and the Regional Advisory Information and Network Systems (RAINS).
Mr Abubakari Alhassan Bawa, Speaker of the Northern Regional Youth Parliament, speaking during the sitting in Tamale said after one year of the launch of the reviewed National Youth Policy, it was important for young people to begin to ask questions about how government was committed to fulfilling its part of the policy, hence the sitting.
He said the policy represented the hopes and aspirations of the youth including ensuring their economic empowerment, addressing issues of unemployment and promoting their health behaviours, hence need for government to expedite action on the policy.
Mr Pius Enam Hadzide, Chief Executive Officer of NYA noted that the National Youth Policy identified one of the barriers to youth empowerment as access to finance, saying the government had invested about GHS 10 million into its YouStart Programme to create one million jobs for the youth.
He said the erstwhile National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI) had undergone Parliamentary review and had now been refocused and refinanced into the new performing Ghana Enterprises Agency, which was currently supporting many young people with finances that they needed to start their businesses.
Mr Hadzide added that the National Entrepreneurial and Innovation Plan had also been created to offer both technical and financial support to the youth to advance their businesses
He said, ‘Our monitoring and evaluation have recorded that we are on the right direction to ensuring that Ghanaian youth under the policy are empowered to contribute to national development.’
He appealed to CSOs, NGOs and stakeholders to continue to support the government in its quest for youth empowerment.
Mr Mumuni Sulemana, Northern Regional Director of NYA said the Youth Parliament was geared towards providing the platform for young people to discuss, dialogue and advocate development and other issues that affected their holistic growth.
He said the initiative, implemented by the NYA, was first piloted in the Upper West Region to empower the youth to be confident and active participants of the national development agenda.
Mr Sulemana urged the youth to avail themselves on such platforms to ensure that topical issues of concern were brought to the attention of duty-bearers for redress.
Mr Alhassan Mohammed Awal, Executive Director of Norsaac said as part of efforts to support the development of the youth, its Power to Youth Programme had reached out to over 40,000 youth directly with knowledge on social norms, skills development.
He said, ‘We have also influenced about 40 CSOs to reposition themselves and adopt the Meaningful and Inclusive Youth Participation and Engagement (MIYPE), one of our programmes breaking job and gender stereotyping, as provided to thousands of young people.’
He called on the NYA to prioritise coordinating its interventions to ensure that reports were shared and discussed for the effective implementation of youth-led initiatives.
Source: Ghana News Agency
