Background

DPI was borne out of a paper on “Youth Partnership to achieve the MDGs in Africa.” The paper was meant to be presented at the first African Youth Leadership Summit in Dakar 2004. DPI builds on the multi-sector, multi-disciplinary network of young leaders who are working on various initiatives towards sustainable community development.

Since 2004, we have been working to promote the effective participation of young people in national and international policymaking processes. From October to November 2004, we conducted an online consultation on Youth Participation at the XIV International Conference on AIDS and STI in Africa which took place in Abuja in December of 2005. We came-up with a report on the challenges on youth participation with recommendations on possible solutions, lessons learned from previous conferences, possibilities youth activities at the confehrence, and frameworks for post conference youth activities. You can download the report titled: Young People of Africa: Time to Act! We are currently supporting and facilitating a five-week online consultation of over 100 young people from across Africa on “Youth Leadership in the 21st Century” through which we will gather concrete comments and inputs towards the October 2005, African Development Forum in Addis Ababa.

Mission statement

To build the capacity of young activists and their organizations for effective, innovative and pro-active social change and development actions, and empower them for sustainable livelihoods. Development Partnership International is a model youth-led non-profit which seeks to redefine youth activism by empowering young people involved in social change and development initiatives so that they have the skills required to make their initiatives more meaningful and beneficial to their communities, while connecting them with networks and opportunities that will help them retain respect, recognition and relevance at both the international and national levels.

Vision

To positively impact on the community, while retaining respect, recognition and relevance at the national, regional and international levels.

Goals and Objectives

•		To develop the capacity of young activists and youth led non-profit institutions with relevant skills to strengthen their efforts towards change and development.
•		To mobilize and build a broad based multi-sector partnership of young professionals in order to draw from the expertise and collaboration to address development and health challenges of their communities.
•		To develop strategies that will strengthen the involvement of young people in decision making processes at the local and international levels.
•		To identify, package, showcase and reward outstanding initiatives of young people which are geared towards development