Youth and Sports Minister, Ms. Akua Sena Dansua,
said on Tuesday that Africa's hope of renewal would remain a dream unless adequate investment was made in the youth to properly empower them for the future.
She said a significant portion of the youth, who constitute about 40 per cent of Africa's population, have low levels of Civic Competence and Empowerment (CCE), making them a convenient tool or mere stooges for all manner of undesirable counter productive activities.
The Minister said this in a speech read for her at the Partnership meeting of Africa Alliance and the 9th ordinary general meeting of the Youth
Men's Christian Association (YMCAs).
The five-day meeting is being held on the theme: "Empowering the young people for the African renaissance."
Ms. Dansua lauded YMCA for the concern about youth development and the effort being made to discuss the issues with the aims of generating workable options, which would be used to build the capacities of the youth.
Touching on the Africa Union (AU), the Minister said the Union had developed a policy framework for a Youth Charter, which prescribed
responsibilities to member states for the development of the youth.
She said the youth charter sets a framework to enable policy makers to mainstream youth issues in all development policies and programmes to provide a legal basis for ensuring Youth presence and participation in government structures and forums at national and continental levels.
"My ministry is ready to work with NGO's such as YMCAs to address the myriad of youth problems and to involve them more in the decision making process of this country", she added.
She said the national youth council and the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) were specially designed to mitigate the youth unemployment in the country.
Mr. Clifford M. Sileva, President of Africa Alliance of YMCAs, said the meeting was not about the money, but about strategies and future directions and who were first, and how to add value to each other before talking about what to do.
Dr. Emmanuel Osafo, Chairman of Ghana YMCA, said through the support of partners, YMCA Ghana had been able to draw a 5-year strategic plan, which is currently under implementation.
"We are building the capacity of staff to handle the new vision we have set for ourselves and are indeed grateful that we are able to do this through our partnerships with the YMCA of Greater Toronto, Minneapolis and the CVJM of Germany", he said.
He urged the partnership to take decisions that would be of mutual benefit, and also useful to be criticized for the actions they take as
leaders rather than being blamed for their inactions.