Introduction

We are very pleased to report to you on the outcomes of the Youth Leadership Symposium on Youth Leadership towards Sustainable National Development and as well share with you what ideas we have as next steps and future looking plans. We would like to thank the Rivers State Ministry of Youth and Economic empowerment for their huge participation, which serves as great inspiration and likelihood for possible future collaboration, and the Center for Development Support Initiatives (CEDSI) for their support towards making the event a success.

The symposium was a successful dialogue which brought together over 50 young leaders from five states of Nigeria and the federal capital territory, to reflect on key National Development issues; Education for all, Health, Environmental sustainability, Employment/ Entrepreneurship and Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D), and to seek ways in which young people can complement the ongoing efforts of government as enshrined in the National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS) which encapsulates and draws from the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The symposium is part of the bigger picture of our Youthful Visions for Nigeria Tomorrow Initiative through which we hope to collect, document, interpret and translate the visions of young Nigerians into concrete action plans for implementation of community projects and as indicators towards the achievement of our set National Development priorities and objectives. We are in the process of collecting essays from young people aged 10 – 30 on “the Nigeria of my dream” in three categories of 10–14, 15-24 and 25-30 years. We will support the participation of the authors of the best essays from each category at the Nigeria Youth Leadership summit, which we are organizing during September 1-2, 2005 and the best essay in the 10-14 years category will be read by the author at the opening of the summit.

 

Opening Session & Plenary

The opening session was chaired by British Council Consultant and State Adviser to the Universal Basic Education Programme – Dr. Dele Osah-Ogulu, Prof. Ebi Awotua-Efebo, Chair University of Port Harcourt ICT Task Force was keynote speaker and Resource Person and Mr. S. Jaja Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Economic Empowerment was also in attendance. Presentations focused on the importance of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), and the need for them to serve us guiding frameworks for youth action at the local level. The various levels of development programming were identified and highlighted as well as the need to meaningfully engage youth in programme implementation at all levels. ICT as a tool for youth entrepreneurship and national development was front and center at the opening plenary. Although relatively new to our national life, ICT has transformed traditional ways of doing things and is a cost effective and sustainable tool in engaging young people in social entrepreneurship as well as for-profit initiatives, which will foster poverty eradication and development. It was also highlighted that for development to take place in the nation, the young people need to dissociate or disengage themselves from anti-social behaviours and imbibe behaviours that will support and ensure peace and development.

Goodwill messages were entertained in the course of the meeting and each speaker reechoed the importance of youth action and patriotism for national rebirth, social change and development. The importance of NEPAD as a key strategy for Africa’s renewal was reiterated and participants were encouraged to participate in the Global Day of Action Against Poverty, an advocacy initiative to pressure the G8 on issues related to debt cancellation and increased aid for Africa.

 

Thematic Working Group Sessions

Five working groups, each focusing one thematic issue, were formed; each working group had two co-chairs (a youth and an experienced professional) and a secretary. Each group discussed issues related to their theme, as they relate to Nigeria and how young people can be practically involved in furthering progress along governments policy objectives and international development frameworks. Below are summaries of key issues identified in each working group and the way forward.

 

1. Education Working Group

Co-chairs: Dr. Dele Osah-Ogule, BC/UBE Consultant/Adviser
Dr. Kinanee Joseph, Head Educational Psychology Escort
Secretary: Godfrey Olukpe

The working group identified that the following should be possible purpose for Nigerian Education today.
• Education should be a platform or process of identifying the innate potentials of individuals and helping to realize such potentials as well as develop them;
• Education should empower individuals with skills and provide information/advice on how best these skills can be utilized or harnessed to profit the individual;
• Education should promote character development;
• Education should help an individual to adapt to his environment.

Education should achieve the following:
• Development and facilitation of national integration
• Enhancement of independent capacity building and freedom
• Involvement of Youth in policy making and policy development processes;
• Development of economically independent and self employed people;
• Domestication of good international policies/programmes by law.
• Creation of the conducive environment for development.

 

2. Youth Employment/entrepreneurship working group

Co-Chairs: Mrs. Clara Princewill, Director Ministry of Youth
Mr. Adebayo Samuel, Director Media and Strategy DPI
Secretary: Iniabari Okon

Youth employment is a very big issue in Nigeria and as such, any discussion around it is usually huge and interesting. The group identified the following as the bane of youth employment/Entrepreneurship in Nigeria.
• Mismanagement of funds meant for youth entrepreneurship/skills acquisition programmes;
• Inadequate statistics on unemployed or employed youths which makes planning of youth entrepreneurship initiatives, very difficult and often unsuccessful;
• Everyone is seeking to work in the government service;
• Tribalism and man-know-man syndrome: a situation where only people who are linked to employee seeking organizations/institutions get the jobs, even at the expense of more qualified people and to the detriment of the job.

The group having identified as stated above, therefore made the following recommendations;
• Job centers should be created where job seekers can submit applications for placements;
• Effective monitoring systems should be put in place to track retirement dates of civil servants in order to make adequate plans for their exit and replacement:
• The youth should look inwards and see what kinds of skills they have or private endeavours they can engage in and not depend on government;
• Funds should be made available to support young people who have good business plans for entrepreneurship efforts;
• Guidance and counseling services should be provided on a large scale to support youth seeking job information.
• Youth should be involved in employment policy-making processes.

 

3. Information and Communication Technology

Chair: Chibuzo Nwachukwu, Director, ADNET
Secretary: Kenneth Tawo-Odu, Hope World Wide Nigeria

The working group identified key questions to which they sought to provide answers:
1. What should be done to ensure that everyone has access to the Internet?
2. What are the basic tools required?
3. What should be done to ensure access to ICT at the rural level?

In responding to these three fundamental questions, the working group made the following observations and recommendations:
• That Nigeria has a great need for re-orientation as enshrined in the NEEDS and ICT is one key tool through which to do this effectively;
• That Nigerian youth are getting more and more engaged in social change and development efforts and ICT remains the most viable tool through which they can share lessons learned with each other;
• That ICT should be integrated into the educational sector to make teaching, learning and student assessment easy and effective;
• That schools should develop websites to share information about their school, their students and events in the community where the school is based;
• That to excel in the use of ICTs, young people need to respect the intellectual property of others and obey copyright laws;
• That youth should carryout ICT awareness/education initiatives in their communities using various media including arts and the media;
• That ICT investors and ISPs should make cost of access/connection cheaper and as well deploy their services to the rural areas to ensure universal access;
• That special websites to serve as a user guide for young people should be developed and regularly updated to ensue that they always find new, interesting and educating things to do over the Internet.

 

4. Environment Sustainability Working Group

Co-chairs: Hon. Lot Young, NEPAD Youths Network
Mr. Mpaka Lawson, Community Outreach Director DPI

The environment sustainability working group identified and discussed key issues related to the environment including: pollution, deforestation and social decay of air, water, soil, vegetation, economic trees, flora and fauna. The group identified the biggest problem with environmental issues as the lack of enforcement of environmental laws and lack of adequate policy frameworks to address certain issues related to the environment.

The working group therefore recommended as follows:

• NGOs should partner with relevant agencies and government to ensure that laws and regulations are effectively enforced and complied with;
• Environmental education/sensation on waste management systems should be periodically carried out through the media to create awareness and a sense of responsibility to environmental safety in the citizenry;
• Pipe borne water should be adequately treated before being distributed to consumption sources in order to avoid disease out break resulting from consumption of polluted water;
• Environmental impact assessments should be carried out before the implementation of any projects that are likely to have negative impact on the community are carried out:
• Both government and other stakeholders should carry out periodic assessment of industries and oil companies’ compliance to environmental standards.

 

5. Health Working Group

Chair: Elisha Harry, Coordinator Life Line Organisation
Secretary: Joel, Member, Development Partnership

Although the group’s work was broad based involving disease prevention and policy issue on a wider spectrum of health issues, the focus was more on HIV/AIDS. As it appeared, most of the working group members had been working on HIV/AIDS related issues and hence had more to share within that field. As a result, the group’s work focused on HIV/AIDS prevention strategies and the way forward in ensuring access to HIV/AIDS Information, education and services, access to ARVs and the need to scale-up current interventions to meet the needs of young people.

 

Conclusion

This document and the findings within it were the result of the outcome of the June 15 symposium at Taland Place Port Harcourt Nigeria. This document was used as the basis for the Youth Leadership Summit that was held in September 1-2, 2005.

A second summit in this conference track is now being planned in an effort to encourage a national dialogue with visionary youth leaders, professionals, and activists. This summit will focus on burning contemporary development issues, promoting youth involvement, and participation in evolving practical solutions to national development problems. In 2006, from July 4-5, we will focus on Youth Leadership towards better Health and sustainable Development.

Port Harcourt, the garden city and Nigeria's oil capital, will be the centre of attention for the second time for youth leaders across the country. Youth leaders, activists and professionals, government officials and the development community will meet for an inter-generational dialogue on Youth Leadership towards better Health and sustainable Development. The Nigerian Youth Leadership Summit is organised annually by Development Partnership International. For more about the event go here and how you can participate go here.

A version of this report in MS Word is available on the web.

Please email any comments to our Media and Strategy Director:
adebayo@developmentalpartnership.org or dpi@developmentpartnership.org