New youth policy will address challenges of Ghana’s young people – NYA CEO

The chief executive officer of the National Youth Authority (NYA), Sylvester Tetteh, says the Authority will soon outdoor a reviewed National Youth Policy, which has been designed to address the concerns of young people in Ghana.

Speaking at the launch at the Ministry of Information Press Centre in Accra of International Youth Day (IYD 2020), an annual United Nations event celebrated on 12 August each year, Tetteh said the newly revised policy will have a ten-year implementation period spanning 2021 to 2031.

“In this policy, we have added an implementation plan so that it not just a policy without timelines and not just a policy without action as to when you are starting the implementation of the policy,” the NYA boss said. “I believe that it is a document that every well-meaning Ghanaian will embrace.

“We are waiting for the presidential review and finally it will be launched,” he said.

Ghana and IYD 

In his address at the press briefing, Sylvester Tetteh noted that the global theme for IYD 2020 on 12 August is “Youth Engagement for Global Action”. However, the local theme for Ghana, he said, hinges its focus on “Promoting Youth Engagement in Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19: the Need for Youth Innovation and Creativity”.

“The local theme was developed to encourage young people in Ghana to be at the forefront of efforts to alleviate the effects of COVID-19 on our socio-economic, cultural and political lives,” the NYA boss said.

IYD 2020

IYD 2020 will aim to shed light on the need to enable the engagement of the youth by making local, national and global institutions more inclusive. This will help strengthen young people’s capacity to achieve global action and their relevance to change worldwide.

This year’s IYD seeks to put the spotlight on youth engagement through three interconnected streams. The first is engagement at the local/community level; second, engagement at the national level (formulation of laws, policies, and their implementation); and third, engagement at the global level.

The date 12 August was first designated International Youth Day by the UN General Assembly in 1999. It serves as an annual celebration of the role of young women and men as essential partners in change, and is an opportunity to raise awareness of challenges and problems facing the world’s youth.

Wilberforce Asare / Asaase Radio

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