By Fehintola Adewale and Ene Samuel, Abuja |
26 October 2023 |
2:10 am
Speaking yesterday during a discussion at the Abuja People’s Assembly, the Project Manager, Network of Youth for Sustainable Initiative, Shadrach Akpem, said that insecurity and the high cost of living in the country were restraining youths from contributing significantly to the development of their communities.
He said: “The group has stood firmly about the need to centralize conversations around young people as far as achieving the sustainable development goals is concerned.
“We have had very laudable initiatives from the SDG play book which is a locally developed material that is supporting young people, other groups and also organizations that are driving the sustainable development goals in ways that they can actively find ways of implementing it in its most basic ways.
“The group have done several other initiatives targeted at improving livelihood of young people from 2021 till date, while partnering with international labour organization around the skill for employment program where about 90 young people have been empowered with indemand digital skills, and we provided some level of internship for them to be able to build capacity and fend for themselves.”
Similarly, Research Lead, Connected Development, Augustine Okere, stated that
in the face of multifaceted challenges facing the achievement of SDGs, Connected Developments plays a vital role in accelerating progress towards the global goals.
“As a country, Nigeria struggles with insecurity, health care, education and climate challenges, Connected Developments remains steadfast in commitment towards mobilizing change and fostering sustainable development across Nigeria with an unwavering support towards grassroots level, community driven initiatives, to advocate and move for transparency in terms of government spending and accountability across multiple sectors by harnessing innovative technology, collaborative partnership with MDAs, committee members and also government institutions.
“Connected Developments has effectively mobilized communities and stakeholders to actively participate in the implementation of SDGs aligned projects and programs. Hence: it was awarded the UN SDG mobilizers award in 2019. However, the journey towards the SDG attainment has not been without challenges in Nigeria.
“Nigeria continues to grapple with persistent challenges across ensuring access to quality education, inadequate health care infrastructure, insecurity and impact of climate change in vulnerable communities amongst others.
“In addition to this, the issue of funding the SDG is generally known as a challenge in Nigeria and these challenges have orchestrated concrete efforts towards all stakeholders to ensure that there is meaningful progress towards the sustainable development goals in 2030.”
Also speaking at the event was Project Manager, YouthHubAfrica, Shamaki Dallon, who stated that the goal was to bring young people to the center stage of development across Africa so that they can give them skills, create opportunities where they are able to develop themselves to the maximum.
“Partnering with youth organizations especially in the non-profit sector is something that is at the centre stage for us. So, we do as much as possible to ensure that we collaborate, partner with people who have the same focus and goals with us to see how we can better the society.
“We have to localize what we have gathered over the years and then, transfer to young people to encourage them to be very resourceful and very innovative.
“So, for the SDG, it is something we have done since we came on board because our existence is about 10 years now. We are equally at the fore front when it came up and since then, we have been working towards seeing that goals, particularly those that we can work with are what we have actually worked with.”
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