The meeting was to help deepen engagement with regional bodies, youth groups, youth organizations
and State institutions that focus on youth development with an overreaching goal to mobilize the youth, get majority of them to subscribe to the establishment of the ECOWAS Youth Parliament.

The consultative meeting which brought together youth advocates and groups, was organised in Accra by Foundation for Security Development in Africa (FOSDA) with support from OXFAM and Campaign for Human Rights & Development International (CHRDI).

Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Mr Solomon Okine, Acting Programmes Manager, FOSDA, said there had been engagements with the youth across the West Africa sub-region to ensure their commitment to seeing the vision become a reality.

He said there was more work to do to realise the dream of ECOWAS Youth Parliament, adding that all the efforts put in place were part of the growth process.

Some of the key issues discussed were Situational Analysis of Youth Participation in Decision Making in West Africa, National Perspectives and Expectations of Conceptual Framework, Roles of Youth Agencies, CSOs, and Leaders and Collaboration and Resource Mobilisation Strategies.

Youth participants who attended the two-day event were from 10 countries, including Benin, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

Mr John Azumah, Former Secretary General, ECOWAS Parliament, Abuja, Nigeria, said the youth parliament when established would be influential, be listened to, and its decisions binding on member countries and State authorities.

He said the youth felt that there was a gap and non-inclusion in the governance of the sub-region.

The Youth Parliament would help to get that voice in the governance structure and in the scheme of democratic governance in the sub-region.

Mr Azumah said an ECOWAS Youth Parliament was dependent on national youth parliaments and urged participants to liaise with their national governments to constitute youth parliaments in member States where members for the ECOWAS Youth Parliament could be drawn from.

The Youth Employment Agency Act, 2015, Act 887, of Ghana demands that Regional and District Committees be established to give a formidable front for youth participation at the local and national levels. However, youth advocates said those committees are not what Ghana could boast of.