The Nigerian Youth Climate Action Network (NYCAN), an initiative of Connected Development (CODE) has urged the federal government to focus on initiating policies that are youth oriented, with specific focus on promoting the concept of green economy in Nigeria.
According to the chief executive of CODE, Mr.HamzatLawal, the government must start looking inward in fine tuning measures of engaging the youths to actualise the nation’s aspiration of economic diversification and facilitate the vision 20-2020 objective.
He disclosed that his organisation have been nominated alongside seven other countries namely Argentina; USA; India; Slovenia; Hungary; Croatia and Liechtenstein by the European Union (EU) to participate in a project that is expected to benefit over 1, 500 Nigerians on sustainable development.
The project which is branded: Sustainaware2014, is aimed at raising awareness on the importance of sustainable development and inspire youths to become green entrepreneurs. It is also expected to produce a youth manifestos that will guide policy makers on how to formulate youth empowerment programmes to further spread the message of sustainable development globally.
Other benefits expected to be achieved when the project is implemented will include developing and stimulating young people to work on the topic of environmental health; train youth workers on how to lead local days (LD) of action for sustainability among Young People with Fewer Opportunities (YPFO) and share knowledge among participating countries about the different approaches to non-formal education on sustainable development around the world.
“This is a win-win for everybody,” he said, appealing to young Nigerians to view the project as a unique opportunity to enable Nigeria champion the gospel of green economy across Africa.
According to him, “This is an avenue for young Nigerians to engage in the process of diversifying the economy, so we can now lead and our leaders will follow in championing the gospel of sustainable development.”
Lawal, who represents Africa in the implantation Board of the project urged the government at all levels to brass up and enact policies that will support the various efforts aimed at addressing climate change issues and youth empowerment in Nigeria.
He acknowledged that Nigeria has very fantastic policies, however, lamented that the issue is implementing these policies to impact on Nigerians meaningfully. “We have low marks when it comes to implementing our fantastic policies. So, I will say the Nigeria government have done well when it comes to the African contest but there is still more to be done, and to achieve this they just have to engage Nigerian youths.”
