A civil society group, the Centre for Social Advocacy and Development (CENSAD) has implored the government of Ghana to adopt an integrated approach to mainstream policy interventions for youth development in the country.
“Such an approach would frame youth development as a priority and considers the youth as active partners in development.”
The group maintains the complexity and cross-cutting nature of youth development in contemporary times requires all sectors of society to take responsibility as well as contribute meaningfully rather than the current situation where young people are perceived as a problem needing one-sided intervention.
The group in statement after holding its maiden programme session recently said the government ought to be commended for implementing Adhoc measures such as the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme (NEIP), youth in afforestation, the Nation Builders Corps (NABCo) and the recently announced You-Start initiative.
The Executive Director of the Civil Society Group, Mr Muhammed Yakubu, however, reiterated the adoption of an integrated and mainstreamed approach to youth development is the surest way to curb the myriad of challenges confronting the Ghanaian youth.
He said such an approach will further contribute to promoting the fundamental human rights, physical and reformative development of young persons, including women and persons with disabilities.
In view of this, the Executive Director for the Centre for Social Advocacy and Development, gave some policy propositions for government consideration, which are as follows:
- Government should expedite action on the formulation of a new National Youth Policy to ensure coherence and coordination among government agencies and makes it mandatory for all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, as well as District Assemblies to take national priorities in respect of youth development into consideration in planning their annual, short-term and medium term activities. With an integrated approach, this will provide for an inclusive and uniformed programme of action for youth development across all sectors and ensures that policy priorities are translated into plans, budgets and targets. A mainstreamed and integrated National Youth Policy that is in tune with current demands would engender realignment with existing government interventions, and creates an opportunity for the leveraging and harnessing of resources for youth development from all sectors including Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Society, Development Partners and the private sector.
- CENSAD further proposes the establishment of a separate Ministry for Youth Development distinct from the Sports Ministry. This will strengthen the institutional framework to facilitate mainstreaming of youth development across all sectors. Merging youth and sports development as a Ministry has not yielded the desired result, hence the call for decoupling of the status quo. A distinct Ministry for Youth Development to yield the desired outcome in view of the fact that there will be strengthened between state agencies implementing youth development programmes and policies and non-state actors.
- CENSAD further advocates the aggregation of all youth related government agencies and programmes under a single National Youth Development Authority mandated to coordinate the youth development efforts of the Government. In this regard, institutions such the National Youth Authority, Youth Employment Agency, the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme, the National Service Scheme among others must all be collapsed to form a stronger National Youth Development Authority to ensure policy implementation coherence at the youth development front. Such an Authority will play the appropriate function and role as the fulcrum of all the multifaceted and multi-stakeholder attempts to harness the resultant demographic dividend of the youth bulge in a well-coordinated fashion to achieve the broader vision of a Ghana Beyond Aid. The current system where various youth development initiatives are spread across different sectorial agencies creates coordination problems and difficulties in harmonization.
In addition to this, the CSO further wants government to enact a Legislative Instrument (LI) to ensure the operationalization of the National Youth Authority Act (939) of 2016.
The advocacy group believes as a coordinating and implementing agency, the NYA’s coordination role is constrained by the lack of L.I. to operationalize its activities, saying that, it is difficult to coordinate other state agencies and charge the required fees for statutory services without an existing legislation to back its actions.
