A non-governmental organization (NGO), Glowing Minds Initiative in partnership with Altruistic Humanitarian Aid Foundation has held a one day policy dialogue and co-creation session for youth in Niger State, with focus on New Niger State Youth Policy Domestication and Strategic Alignment.
The event held at the IBB Pen House, Minna over the weekend, had participants drawn across the twenty five local councils of the state.
In his opening remarks, the Executive Director, Glowing Minds Initiative, Shamsudeen Albdulrazak stated that the one day dialogue was aimed to collaboratively review, adopt and co-create actionable subnational policy priorities for the upcoming Niger State youth policy framework.
Albdulrazak explained that the session brought together youth leaders, state administrators, development practitioners and civil society stakeholders to anchor national provisions into localized implementation pillars.
He further stressed that the session is also to validate the views of youths, adding that Glowing Minds Lab had earlier held similar session for youths on policy development, and also trained youths to co-create solutions on how the future of youths in Niger State is going to look like.
According to him, “We choose youths for the session because seventy percent of Nigerians are youth, and by the year 2050, Nigeria will be the largest population in the world, and if we don’t invest on young people effectively, we are going to be in trouble, that is why we have to invest on youths now.
“And the best way to do that first before anybody can come in, government at all levels most show seriousness by making sure that there is enabling policy development environment and once that has been done, we would now have a level playing ground for every other persons.
“We urged the Niger State government to as a matter of urgency sign this document into law. Once that is done, we will now start pushing for the implementation”, he appealed.
Speaking to journalists shortly, the Director General, Youth Affairs, Niger State, Aminu Isah Dan Asabe, represented by the Senior Special Assistant on Youths Affairs, Mohammad Mohammad Alhaji, reaffirmed commitment of the Niger State government for the implementation of youth policy framework before the end of first tenure of governor Umaru Bago which he said was part of the new Niger Agenda.
“We are happy seeing the intellectuals coming together thinking on how to get things right for youths, we are happy to be associated with Glowing Minds Policy Lab”, the DG noted.
Earlier, the Head of Operations and Strategy for Altruistic Humanitarian Aid Foundation, Mohammad Bashir, disclosed that the foundation alongside Glowing Minds Initiative were trying to bring in the state government to ensure the implementation of youth policy and other SDGs in the state.
“For us as NGO, what we are doing now is to consolidate on what government are already doing and bring in those new ideas and new policies to drive Niger State forward, which is the Niger State youth policy implementation advocacy that we have been doing so far”, Bashir disclosed.
