NIYOA Hosts the 6th African University on Youth and Development
NAIROBI - The Africa Regional Office of the World Scout Bureau, in collaboration with members of the Network of International Youth Organizations in Africa (NIYOA), jointly hosted the 6th African University on Youth and Development in Nairobi, Kenya. Held from 26 to 31 January 2015, this university is part of the initiatives being implemented under the Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation programme of the Joint Management Agreement between the Council of Europe and the North South Centre in the framework of the Africa-EU strategic partnership.
The cooperation aims to strengthen the role of youth leaders and youth workers from Africa and Europe, empowering them and promoting their capacity to organise, network, take action and foster their participation in the Africa-Europe cooperation and global youth work.
It tackles the common misconceptions about the two continents, promoting global education approaches, addressing youth unemployment and building bridges for greater cooperation to enable young people to realise that they share a common future.
Through this cooperation, the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe (NSC-CoE) works in close partnership with NIYOA, the Pan-African Youth Union (PYU), the European Youth Forum (EYF) and the African Diaspora Youth Network in Europe (ADYNE).
More than 80 young people from national youth councils and international youth organisations from Europe and Africa attended three separate activities – the 10th Africa-Europe Training Course for Youth Organizations, the 3rd Annual General Meeting of NIYOA and the 3rd Africa-Europe Youth Platform meeting – that took place under the joint theme of “Youth Opportunities Unlimited.”
The training course, conducted through non-formal learning methodologies, aimed at building capacity of youth leaders in advocacy as well as increasing their awareness of existing realities and utilization of opportunities within the Africa-Europe cooperation and beyond to meet the needs of young people.
NIYOA, on the other hand, mainly focused on its strategic positioning in the post 2015 development agenda and the African Union Vision 2063 processes; identifying the gaps, opportunities and the roles.
The Africa-Europe Youth Platform provided an opportunity for increasing awareness of the overall framework of the Africa-EU strategic partnership; to assess the implementation of the 2012-2015 Africa-Europe Youth Cooperation action plan; to reflect about the role of the partners in its implementation; and to follow up on the 3rd Europe-Africa Youth Leaders Summit.
The African Regional Director of the World Scout Bureau, Mr Frederic Kama-Kama who was at the closing ceremony, urged non-governmental organizations in Africa to work together, as opposed to being competitors, for wider and greater grassroots impact in driving policy and processes on youth agenda.
“Increasing the opportunities for networking, information sharing, capacity building and training for young people and youth organizations is a key element in achieving meaningful cooperation and development of young people, regardless of whether they come from the global north or south”, said the chief guest Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Devolution and Planning in the Government of Kenya, Eng. Peter Mangiti. He also observed that civil society organizations have a great role to play in driving social transformation, promoting transparent governance and accountable leadership, and urged for the expansion of the platform for such organizations to be greater involved in positively influencing continental and global agenda.
