NYEP to mobilise youth for development

THE National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) is to be reviewed to serve as an instrument for mobilising and energising the youth for national development.
The Minister of Youth and Sports, Alhaji Muntaka Mohammed Mubarak, said such an exercise called for changes not only within the institutions spearheading the youth development agenda, but also the legal and policy framework that would ensure that the object set for the development of the youth were achieved and sustained.
Alhaji Mubarak, who made this known at a youth forum on the status of the National Youth Policy and the way forward in Accra, said there was the need to work on modern and development-oriented law on the youth to pave way for progress in the sector.
He said the present legal arrangement or instrument guiding the formation and management of various youth groups and the National Youth Council (NYC) had become dormant and could no longer sustain the present momentum to achieve much progress.
One significant item that was being considered in the new bill, he said was the setting up of a commission on youth, which he believed would give the NYC the autonomy necessary to function appropriately.
He said the NYEP was an important element that engaged the youth meaningfully in various facets of national development.
The Programmes Co-ordinator of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Mr Danaa Nantogmah, said a national youth policy to guide the development of young people in the country remained a challenge despite attempts by successive governments to formulate a national youth policy.
Mr Nantogmah was optimistic that the government would provide more opportunities to engage the youth in the decision-making process at both national and local levels.
The Executive Director of the Youth Network for Human Rights and Democracy in Ghana, Mr Prosper Hoetu, said if Ghanaians wanted a society of progress where there would be responsible citizenship, reduced unemployment rates, reduced crimes and anti-social activities, then there was the need for the government to invest in the youth through strategic and integrated interventions.