Yiaga Africa has harped on the need for consistent engagement with government at all state level to ensure that its policies and decisions are youth and gender responsive.
Director of Programmes, Yiaga Africa, Cynthia Mbamalu said this during a Live Virtual Studio Citizens Town hall on Youth Responsive Service Delivery and Development organized by Yiaga Africa, calling on all stakeholders to play their roles to build a Nigeria that Nigerians can be proud of and call their home.
She said, “Democracy is about the people at every level of government. State assembly play a very important role in governance at the local level because they make laws that operate within the state level.”
She said if development is not happening at the state level, it cannot happen at the national level. “Thus we need to start engaging the state assembly to deliver on their mandate to meet the needs of the people and providing oversight to ensure that the executive is delivering on its mandate”.
The Live Virtual Studio ‘Citizens Town Hall’ focused on conversations around youth and gender responsive service delivery and development with an overall goal of identifying clear strategies for mobilizing young people and insights to harness the creative energy of youths towards youth and gender responsive development and accountable governance in Nigeria.
The program supported by Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) through Action Aid Nigeria, played host to arrays of stakeholders from State Assemblies, Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, Civil Society Organizations and Youth groups.
Speaking on the opportunities explored by state lawmakers for youth and gender responsive service delivery, Chairman, Nasarawa State House of Assembly Committee on Youth and Sports Hon. Musa Iyimoga said the assembly is doing its best to ensure young people have a space in decision making process.
According to him, the Nasarawa State Assembly will pass a bill to establish a commission to empower young people and make them self-reliant.
Also speaking during the program, Chief Executive Officer of Connected Development, Hamza Lawal reiterated the need to have informed data in order to plan for a gender and youth responsive service delivery.
He said “I believe that if we can leverage on the power of young people in sharing information and knowledge. For instance, we were able to get data by invoking the Freedom of Information law and we took this data to some of the communities.
“In doing this, we built capacity of young people who became champions and now asking the right questions’’, he said.
Speaking on the Nigerian Youth Investment Program, Head of Governance and Development at Yiaga Africa, Ibrahim Faruk, said, we always ask a question around how far young people have been consulted around areas to empower them.
He said, “Lawmakers need to answer the question about how budget and policy processes respond to the need of young people as it fits our needs not just what they come up with in their chambers”.
In her reaction, network and social mobilization department from Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development ,Amina Muhammed said, young people’s voices count and their participation matters in every intervention, because the youth are the constituency managed by the ministry.
She said beyond the NYIF, there are leadership empowerment program through the National Youth Council of Nigeria and the Nigerian Youth Parliament that serves as training ground for young people across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
