The journey of YEFL-Ghana in the review of the National Youth Policy

At YEFL-Ghana, we’ve been enormously fortunate to be part of the review of the National Youth Policy since 2019 led by the National Youth Authority. The journey has been sturdy deep, but we have remained steadfast to it.

To give you highlights,

In early 2019, we facilitated a regional consultative workshop in Tamale involving diverse stakeholders particularly young people to make inputs to revise the Youth Policy to begin 2020 – 2025 after its promulgation in 2010. After the regional consultative workshops and some select consultative meetings with other key stakeholders, we participated in the National Validation of the National Youth Policy in Accra. We are proud of this feat! In February, this 2020, we were graciously invited to make inputs to the Implementation Plan of the National Youth Policy and we gladly contributed to the process. In July, this 2020, we were again graciously invited to the validation of the Implementation Plan of the policy after inputs generation process from diverse stakeholders. We did our best.

To give you highlights of the policy,

The policy, with an overarching goal of “An empowered youth contributing positively to the sustainable development of Ghana”, has six (6) strategic policy objectives and six (6) priority or thematic areas namely; a) Economic Empowerment, b) Youth Health and Well-Being, c) Education and Skills Development, d) Youth Participation and Governance, e) Institutional Framework and Major Youth Programmes and f) Cross-Cutting Issues,

To give you a peek into the strategies which align with our organizational desires,

In line with our desire to facilitate the establishment of rural hubs to promote entrepreneurship, business development services and job creation for young people, the policy under its economic empowerment priority area will ensure that at least one youth enterprise incubator in each district is established. Young people will be equipped to serve as a cadre of BDS providers at these youth incubators.

The ambitious policy also wants to establish functional youth resource and mini Youth Centres in all districts for young people under the cross-cutting thematic area.