EVA appointed secretary to the National Technical Working Group on Youth Development
Education as a Vaccine has been made the secretary of the Health and HIV/AIDS sub-group of the Technical Working Group on Youth Development. The Federal Ministry of Health is the chair of this subgroup, and these appointments were given during a One-Day National Technical Working Committee on Youth Development.
The workshop was organized by the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development in collaboration with United Nations Population Funds (UNFPA) to review the process of implementation, challenges and way forward as it relates to the National Youth Policy.
Young people account for one-third of Nigeria’s population, yet, indicators in education, health, and employment sectors report that the development status of young people in Nigeria is generally poor characterized by lack of quality education, skills acquisitions and life skills.
The Technical Working Group is a combination of experts from MDAs and CSOs and the Office of the Vice-President to facilitate the coordination of programs for young people to have access to quality education, good health, skills acquisition, and life skills that will help them deal with challenges of life.
The Technical Working Group whose secretariat is domiciled at the Ministry of Youth and Sports Development will use the National Youth Policy as a guiding document for its operations.
To facilitate the activities of the Working Group, various sub-groups were set up. According to EVA’s Team Leader Advocacy and Policy Influencing, Patrick Enwerem, the Technical Group will meet twice every year with sub-subgroup meetings held before each of the two meetings, to orchestrate plans towards the furtherance of the Working Group.
“As a member of the Technical Working Group and the subgroup on Health and HIV/AIDS, EVA will push for issues that affect adolescents and young people, especially young girls to be prioritized in the youth development programmes by the relevant MDAs, particularly, as it relates to their sexual and reproductive health and rights”, Patrick said.