Centre for Social Advocacy and Development calls on govt to restructure Ghana's youth development machinery

At the end of the 2022 maiden programme planning session of the Centre for Social Advocacy and Development (CENSAD) we call on Ghana Government to adopt a mainstreamed and integrated approach to youth development.

This is in appreciation of the complexity and cross-cutting nature of youth development in contemporary times. Such an approach would frame youth development as a priority and consider the youth as active partners in development.

As such, all sectors of society are required to take responsibility as well as contribute meaningfully, rather than the current situation where there is a certain deficit conception that perceives young people as a problem needing one-sided intervention.

While we commend the government for the current implementation of adhoc measures such as the Nation Builders Corps, the Youth in Afforestation, the National Entrepreneurial and Innovation Programme and the recently announced You-Start Programme, CENSAD believes that the adoption of an integrated and mainstreamed approach to youth development is the surest way to curb the myriad of challenges confronting the Ghanaian youth. Such an approach will further contribute to promoting the fundamental human rights, physical and reformative development of young persons, including women and persons with disabilities.

The following are the key policy prescriptions we appeal to the government to adopt while realigning current approaches such as the Nation Builders Corps, the Youth Employment Programme, Youth in Afforestation, the National Entrepreneurial and Innovation Programme and the National Service Scheme.

Government should expedite action on the formulation of a new National Youth Policy to ensure coherence and coordination among government agencies and makes it mandatory for all Ministries, Departments and Agencies, as well as District Assemblies to take national priorities in respect of youth development into consideration in planning their annual, short-term and medium-term activities.

An integrated approach will provide for an inclusive and uniformed programme of action for youth development across all sectors and ensure that policy priorities are translated into plans, budgets and targets. A mainstreamed and integrated National Youth Policy that is in tune with current demands would engender realignment with existing government interventions and create an opportunity for the leveraging and harnessing of resources for youth development from all sectors including Non-Governmental Organizations, Civil Society, Development Partners and the private sector.

CENSAD further proposes the establishment of a separate Ministry for Youth Development distinct from the Sports Ministry. This will strengthen the institutional framework to facilitate mainstreaming of youth development across all sectors. Merging youth and sports development as a Ministry has not yielded the desired result, hence the call for decoupling of the status quo. A distinct Ministry for Youth Development to yield the desired outcome in view of the fact that there will be strengthened between state agencies implementing youth development programmes and policies and non-state actors.

CENSAD further advocates the aggregation of all youth-related government agencies and programmes under a single National Youth Development Authority mandated to coordinate the youth development efforts of the Government. In this regard institutions such the National Youth Authority, Youth Employment Agency, the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme, the National Service Scheme among others must all be collapsed to form a stronger National Youth Development Authority to ensure policy implementation coherence at the youth development front. Such an Authority will play the appropriate function and role as the fulcrum of all the multifaceted and multi-stakeholder attempts to harness the resultant demographic dividend of the youth bulge in a well-coordinated fashion to achieve the broader vision of a Ghana Beyond Aid. The current system where various youth development initiatives are spread across different sectoral agencies creates coordination problems and difficulties in harmonization.

In the meantime, CENSAD calls for expedited action to develop a Legislative Instrument (LI) to ensure the operationalization of the National Youth Authority Act (939) of 2016. As a coordinating and implementing agency, the NYA’s coordination role is constrained by the lack of L.I. to operationalize its activities. It is difficult to coordinate other state agencies and charge the required fees for statutory services without existing legislation to back its actions.