Paper By Edford G. Mutuma

Chairperson
Africa Youth and Adolescent Network on Population and Development
17th November 2006

The Chairperson,
Honorable Ministers,
UNFPA Africa Region Director, Madam Fama Ba,
My fellow youth Delegates, Distinguished guests
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Let me start by stressing from the onset my gratitude to the African Union, the ECA, UNFPA and other UN agencies and partners of Africa who have contributed to making this forum possible, your bringing young Africans together at this forum, marks a clear indication of your commitment to the effort of improving the lives of young people in Africa . This forum is strategically organized at a time my peers and I in Africa have the knowledge and belief that we can (and must) shape the course of our destinies in our continent through policy advocacy as we are being bombarded with numerous external factors that have the potential to jeopardize our well being.

We are now empowered with the confidence that we can change the course of our destinies and also that of our nations and continent. We strongly believe that the future of Africa and Africa’s best chance to find lasting solution to some of its most pressing problems lies in today’s youth and by creation of equal opportunity for both young women and men and empowering them to be equal citizens of the world.

Our actions today as young people will determine the future of mother Africa in few years to come. Young people regardless of sex, race or religion need the capacity, support and opportunity to lead and develop skills that will propel them to take on leadership roles at all levels so as to realize a peaceful and prosperous Africa.

My contribution today is to look at cluster 2, which is Youth and Social Development and raise issues which we can voice out as young people during the forum and the positive contribution young people are offering in the Africa towards social transformation. Madam Fama Ba, has spoken about the importance of young people and the value we add to society as agents of development, social transformation and the need to work with young people in all sectors of our society from family level, community level, national and regional level. Our challenge here today, as young Africans is to answer how we are going to create an enabling environment for young people to live in and contribute effectively to the social progress of our countries and the continent.

Today adolescents and youth represent the biggest generation in human history. Our transition to adulthood is to be understood in the larger developmental context. Increased poverty, social inequalities, low quality education, gender discrimination, widespread unemployment, weakened health systems and rapid globalization are the realities within which young people grow. Of special mention as madam Fama Ba alluded to is the HIV and AIDS pandemic, which has virtually made young people today, the first generation growing up with the disease.

The scenario is a mixed one. Exposure to mass media and fast inroads into technology has meant that young people in Africa are rapidly connecting throughout the world. We are sharing more ideas, values and symbols, and we are no longer passive. The Youth are organizing and networking themselves in both formal and informal ways. A global youth culture has emerged and youth are contributing to the construction of global and local cultures.

Governments and development partners in Africa have a unique opportunity to invest in young people. For example, investing in delaying age at marriage and first birth can have a direct impact on reproductive health and future population growth. As this new generation outnumbers that of our parents and that of the generations that follow, investment in social services for young people can ensure that we get better education, delay family formation, and enter into paid market. We are therefore better prepared to confront poverty than our parents. Investing in young people can enable us to develop skills and abilities for contributing to the development of society. This makes it important that young people are treated not as problems but as assets and opportunities to be nurtured.

Culture and intergenerational Relations

We need to build and support intergenerational alliances to proactively work on making young people as effective participants of Africa ’s social development and to open the doors for young people. We need to create Safe spaces in order to bring together young people with adults to discuss and promote mutual understanding about young people’s concerns and to create concrete strategies for youth adult partnership. These safe spaces will serve as forums for adults to listen to young people and vice versa, for adults and young people to freely express their views, and to gain the support of adults to act on behalf of young people, in partnership with the young people themselves. This space should promote intergenerational alliances that will function not only as a platform for building support on young people’s issues, but as operational teams that will strategize and integrate young people’s issues into policy and programming processes. From our culture point, our adult partners have the important responsibility of passing on the best cultural practice to young people today.

We believe that culture and tradition are important aspects of African society and it gives us an identity as Africans. Therefore, cultural and tradition is a good tool to improve the lives of all individuals in our great continent. However, we must promote culture that does not abuse or infringe on our people’s rights. Our challenge today is how we are going to have that Africa consciousness of which will make our children and youth to be proud Africans.

Girls and Young women
Girls and young women in Africa have an enormous impact on the well-being of their families and societies – yet their potential is not realized because of discriminatory social norms, incentives, and legal institutions. And while their status has improved in recent decades, gender inequalities remain pervasive. Women, although largely engaged in many sectors of the economy, they are not equally integrated into the monetary economy. This has resulted in many of vulnerable to some cultural practices, HIV and AIDS, early marriages, abortions and defilement and lead to the high numbers of girls dropping out from schools. We have to invest greatly young women’s education and we need to go back to school and acquire more skills to have more assets in the employment market. Africa today, needs more political and social commitment to equity and we should struggle to create uniform access to education with focus on primary level for both young women and men. And equitable distribution and access to resources, leadership, education and public health care beginning at primary level and reinforced secondary and tertiary systems.

Youth and Children
Children and youth are Africa’s most precious and greatest asset in terms of human resource and the contribution we give to our families, communities and national development. We need to come up with interventions on how our governments and development partners can improve the status of young people in Africa. These can be done through promotion of human rights, greater access to meaningful education which enables young Africans not only to count 1-10 but which can make them earn a living a compete for money making jobs. We have to look at process of elimination of child labor, involving children and youth in conflict resolution and most importantly providing them with evidence-based programs to fight HIV/AIDS.

Youth in Religious Settings
In Africa most young people live and contribute effectively in different kind of religion setting. Namely; Christianity, Islam, and our own tradition religious briefs. This has contributed significantly to the well being of young people and the society through the creation of peace of mind and social stability. But at the same time our religious briefs has in some way divided us as one people. Young people in Africa need to work with the vision of developing Africa regardless of our religious belonging.

Risks and Opportunities for Youth in urban and Rural Settings
The negative economic situation in many African countries has adversely affected efforts to improve the status of young people in both urban and rural Setting. The young people in urban areas in a way have privilege to facilities but due to competition and over population in urban areas, this has lead to challenges like streetism, lack of accommodation, unemployment and HIV/AIDS.

Young people in rural areas have limited access to social and health services and this has been a direct result of under-development in our rural areas, with countless young people in Africa today having limited opportunities to contribute to our continent’s development. This segment of young people lacks everything including the basic information on RH and services. Many programs hardly reach this segment of young people living in remote areas where road conditions are very poor and other communication means do not exist. They are exposed to local practices that put them at risk of bad reproductive health. They are barely part of discussions concerning their issues.

The biggest problem for us now is the question of HOW to deal with it? We appreciate the numerous attempts by African governments to eradicate poverty and develop our rural areas but we know also that many of these strategies are not tailored to harness youth capacity.

Youth Volunteerism
Young people in Africa are contributing a lot to the social progress of our countries. Many organizations working on the continent can not mention there progress without mentioning the contribution of young people? In most African countries including Zambia and many more where the HIV/AIDS has reduced is mainly through youth peer education and volunteerism. We need to release the significance of volunteers and outline how we can attain there services. We should recommend systems that we ought to use in recruiting and retain youth volunteers to improve there quality. This should include volunteer management system that include appreciation and appeasing them in turn inculcate the culture of free participation on decision making and making young people experts of what they volunteer.

Youth Participation in Social Transformation
Looking at youth participation, we know that we as youth are not homogenous. From a gender perspective, young men and women may not have the same opportunities to participate or to take leadership around issues that affect them. So in our strategies, we have to be cognizant of that. We believe good mutual working partnership of young men and young women, because we believe in the importance of separate and collective initiatives and strategies targeting young people. As young leaders, we have an opportunity to model leadership that is not gender-neutral or gender-blind, but rather we have to promote leadership that takes gender issues into consideration and seeks transform existing models that perpetuate inequalities.

As we understand more of the way society is made and how people interact with one another and how discrimination against women manifests, how people learn and how households and communities respond to gender imbalances. Information collection and dissemination is integral to forward looking. Planning for the future and improving our responses gender discrimination is dependable on the flow of reliable and sound information to today’s young men and women.

We need collective actions, and effort by men and women, adults and youth, boys and girls as well as individual assertiveness. Therefore the greatest contribution in creating equal world for young women and young men is to improve their capabilities, Knowledge, skills, attitudes and competencies as the foundation of all forms of youth and social development. I challenge you as you go into the session to give specific action oriented recommendation on how youth can contribute to social progress and transformation.

Let’s grow together!

I thank you.