Mr Pius Enam Hadzide, Chief Executive Officer, National Youth Authority (NYA) has called for the empowerment of youth and women to enable them actively to participate in decision-making.
He also reiterated the need for their opinions to be welcomed and considered in the decision-making process.
Mr Hadzide made the appeal at the close of the 2023 Annual Meeting of the Working Group on Women, Youth, Peace, and Security in West Africa and the Sahel (WGWYPS-WAS) in Accra.
Established in April 2009, the WGWYPS-WAS is an inclusive platform for experience sharing, analysis, and participatory evaluation of initiatives and efforts in the West African and Sahel region for the promotion and implementation of the UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000), 2250 (2015) and subsequent ones, on the involvement of women and youth in conflict prevention and peacebuilding mechanisms.
The aim of the week-long Accra Meeting on the theme, “Unconstitutional Take-over of Governments and Transitions in the Sahel Region,” was to strengthen the understanding and coordination of action in the implementation and follow-up of UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000), 2250 (2015), and subsequent ones on women, youth, peace, and security.
“As a Working Group on Women, Youth, Peace, and Security in West Africa and the Sahel, it is crucial to involve the youth extensively in your best practices across your respective countries,” Mr Hadzide stated.
He said commended the election of a Rapid Response Team as a pragmatic way of Strengthening the WGWYPS-WAS’s role in promoting peace and security in West Africa and the Sahel countries.
“When our youth are secure and protected, there will be a reduction in violent extremism.”
He noted that the unfortunate coup d’états and transitions occurring in West Africa and the Sahel had underlying causes, which ECOWAS, the UN, and other stakeholders should provide substantial support to prevent their vulnerable youth and women from suffering the consequences.
He said the irony and tragedy were that the youth were both the perpetrators and victims of conflicts of any kind.
He said it was easy to blame leadership as a general proposition, but Africa’s problems had lingered for long, and its malaise goes deep.
“Our economy’s neo-colonial structure has not changed, so how can we expect a change when we keep doing the same thing repeatedly?
“How can we change an unfair international economic order that continues to maintain values, and practices that sustain the dominance of certain states, entities, and interests to the detriment of the fundamental freedoms and development needs of the vulnerable global population?” he asked, adding that the answers to these questions would be key in part, to the solution.
He noted that the complex challenges faced by West Africa and the Sahel demanded innovative and collaborative solutions; adding that conflicts, fragility, and insecurity persist in various forms across the subregion, threatened the well-being of the people and hindering progress.
These challenges he explained demand the urgency of prioritizing the active involvement of women and youth in peacebuilding and security efforts.
“Military coups are never the solution; they rather make the situation worse by creating divisions and undermining the command structures in the defence apparatus, dislocate the economy further and create a new elite whose main purpose, as we have seen, is to grab power and wealth.”
Mr Charles Abani, the UN Resident Coordinator in Ghana, called for an increase in the number of women in political leadership positions such as Members of Parliament (MPs).