By Iddi Yire, GNA
Accra, April 9, GNA - The Ghana Youth Development Enhancement Programme (GYEDEP), a Coalition of civil society organisations has urged government to set up an umbrella body to coordinate the activities of state youth agencies.
The Coalition said this would help avoid duplication of their activities at the district levels.
According to the body, coordination of the activities of state agencies such as the National Youth Council (NYC), the Youth Employment Agency (YEA), the Ghana Youth Employment Development Agency (GYEDA) and the Youth Enterprise Support (YES) under one umbrella body would empower them to mobilise the youth to go into entrepreneurship and other ventures.
GYDEP membership include the Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA), Youth Empowerment for Life, Centre for Development and Policy Advocacy, Nkonya Youth Association, National Network of Youth Groups and the Ghana Federation of Disability Organisation.
Mrs Theodora Williams Anti, the GYDEP Coordinator, made the appeal in Accra in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sideline of a courtesy call by the Coalition on Mr Emmanuel Asigri, NYA Chief Executive Officer.
The aim of the visit was to congratulate Mr Asigri on his new appointment and to share their challenges and recommendations with the Authority.
The visit also took the Coalition to the YEA, where they were received by Mr Agya Yaw Nsiah Aboagye, the Director of Research and Planning at the Agency.
Mrs Anti described the group as a Coalition of youth organisations, with a mandate of monitoring youth related agencies, particularly government agencies.
She said their aim was to ensure that these agencies work according to their mandate, and also ensure that corruption was limited as much as possible, whereas, resources were allocated to youth development in the country.
Mrs Anti, who is also the Programme Officer of FOSDA, said the Coalition had observed that government institutions at the district levels were under resourced whilst "some are non-existent and the youth do not even know about them”.
On behalf of the Coalition, Mrs Anti recommended that there was the need for agencies particularly NYA, GYEDA, YEA and YES, to come out strongly under one umbrella to mobilise the youth to help advance the youth empowerment agenda of government.
Mr Asigri said the NYA remained committed to putting systems and programmes in place to foster the advancement of the country’s youth, which was one of the top priorities of government.
He said the Authority would collaborate with other youth agencies, to initiate programmes that would bring total transformation in the youth front.
He said the transformational agenda would cover job creation in both the formal and informal sectors.
Mr Asigri noted that both the NYA and the YEA had realised that they could not work effectively as independent bodies who were aiming at improving the standards of the youth, without collaboration.
He said the new National Youth Authority Act, which was passed in December, 2016, gave the NYA the opportunity to share in the funds that the YEA got from communication tax.
He said the Authority had considered immediate programmes in the Information and Communication Technology sector.
“We hope that as we move on as heads of these two agencies we will continue to collaborate and carry out more of the modules and activities together, and not giving it out again to private hands, where we know of the history behind what happened in the past," he said.
Mr Asigri, said the Authority was committed to implement the NYA Act.
He tasked the various youth organisations championing the development of the youth, to redirect their focus from advocacy to the practical things that would be able to bring them direct livelihood.
Mr Stephen Mensah-Etsibah, Director of Organisation and Programmes at NYA, expressed the need to initiate programmes to support the course of the youth.
He tasked the youth to invest in their own economic empowerment.
GNA
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