A Project dubbed Action for Youth Development (AfYD) also known as “Our City Project” has been initiated by Star Ghana Foundation to empower the youth in New Juaben municipality to actively take part in governance processes for their needs to be addressed and demand accountability.
The district league table of 2020 rated New Juaben South municipality as one of the 10 least performing districts in governance in Ghana.
The score indicated a poor performance in the implementation of the Assembly’s action plan for development which impacted on quality of service.
The “Our City Project” funded by BOTNAR Foundation which falls under phase II of the Action for Youth Development seeks to strengthen the capacity of the youth in New Juaben South to deepen their involvement in governance at the assembly.
It is to enable the various youth advocacy groups in the Municipality to present their proposals to the duty bearers so that they can align their development agenda with the initiatives of the youth.
Some of the youth groups selected as implementing partners are Divine Mother and Child Foundation (DMAC), Bibia B3 Y3 Fine (BBF), Youth Parliament and AFES.
Speaking to Starr News in Koforidua, the Programs Manager, Action for Youth Development Project at Star Ghana Foundation Dr. Ernestina Tetteh said, the 3 year project will bring a paradigm shift to participatory democracy and build a municipality where young people are well informed and have the competencies and capacity to engage in governance process for the needs and interests to be factored in decision making.
“A number of processes have gone on. We call it a grant making process because we are going to give grants so we first of all engaged the National Youth Authority and asked about the existence of youth groups and then after that we engaged with the planning officer of the municipality, if the municipality also had any youth group that we could engage so when we get the list. We further asked them to submit an expression of interest for the project, they submitted and we met all of them here to do project development workshop.”
She continued that “they submitted their ideas to us and the team of experts that we have brought they got feedback from us then after the two days we gave them experts to help them put the ideas they’ve brought the input they got from us into fully developed proposals and they had their accompanists to hold their hand throughout the development process so they developed their proposals, they developed their performance plans and they also developed the budget for their projects.”
Dr. Ernestina Tetteh explained that the project has two sides which are demand and supply to ensure developmental intervention and policies addresses needs of the youth in action plans of the assembly.
“The project has two sided what we call the demand side so that the young people who are demanding services who are going to work but we also have the supply side they have to meet where the young have otherwise development will take place so we brought in the supply side to hear what the demand side have to say so that they can also craft interventions that will align to what the young people are asking for. So, the essence of today’s meeting was to showcase all the processes that we have gone through to arrive at today’s point to also allow the duty bearers to hear what the young people intends to do so that they align their development agenda with the initiatives of the young people,” she said.
The Action for Youth Development (AfYD) project with a focus on the youth as the primary target will strengthen the capacities of youth led/based organizations to mobilise, represent and engage constructively with duty bearers to sustainably address their needs and priorities in decisions and resources distribution.
Dr. Ernestina Tetteh was hopeful proposals of the selected youth groups are viable; the proposal addresses the objective of the Action for Youth Development project dubbed “Our City Project. The Our City Project aims to have a municipality where young people are informed and have the competencies and capacity to engage them in the governance process in their interest so that they influence governance for their benefit.”
The MCE for New Juaben South, Isaac Appaw Gyasi welcomed the project stating that the assembly is ready to work hand in hand with the youth who form the majority of the population to deepen their involvement in governance and decision making which will ultimately bring development.
He bemoaned that over the years the assembly had struggled to get the youth to develop interest in happenings at the assembly to share ideas and opinions therefore excited this project will whip up the interest of the youth.
He also urged the youth to lobby development through their Assembly members to address their community needs.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Kojo Ansah
