Commemoration of International Youth Day: Agriculture, key to transforming nation — NYA

Agriculture is key to ending unemployment, poverty, hunger and social vices in the country, the Upper East Regional Director of the National Youth Authority (NYA), Francis Takyi-Koranteng, has said. 

He, therefore, stressed the need to support the youth with the necessary resources and equipment to enable them to venture into agriculture to help better their lot and also ensure food security in the country.

“Providing the necessary knowledge, skills and tools, as well as creating an enabling environment would not only attract the youth to good agricultural practices, but also make them key actors in the agriculture value chain,” the director added.

Mr Takyi-Koranteng was speaking at a youth in agribusiness summit to commemorate the International Youth Day in Bolgatanga, last Saturday.

It was organised by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) as part of the organisation’s Feed the Future Ghana Policy Link, Market Systems and Resilience (MSR) and Mobilising Finance in Agriculture (MFA) projects.

It was on the theme: “Empowering youth agripreneurs as drivers for innovation and sustainable economic growth”.

It was aimed at empowering young people with entrepreneurship and innovative skills in the agricultural market systems.

Theme

The director said that the theme for the summit was in line with the theme for this year’s International Youth Day (IYD) celebration which was: “Green skills for youth: Towards a sustainable world”, and added that “the market systems and resilience project for the youth in agribusiness and what it intends to achieve are captured in the Sustainable Development Goals, One, Two and Three”.

August 12, every year has been set aside by the UN as the IYD.

The day is dedicated to the youth across the globe and also focuses attention on issues impacting their lives.

Mr Takyi-Koranteng also said that the project fell within the economic empowerment and financial inclusion framework (Ghana National Youth Policy 2022-2032).

While thanking USAID for the support, he also appealed to land owners to offer dispute-free lands to the youth who were interested in farming.

Support

The deputy Team Lead of Demand Generation, a USAID project, Joseph Gyapong, said his outfit had already supported some 5,400 youth with $1.7 million to help them grow their businesses.

“We believe that we have not done enough and, therefore, looking forward to support the youth to be investment ready and get more financial support to transform their businesses,” he said.

The Country Lead of Feed the Future Ghana Policy Link Activity, Yunus Abdulai, also said that their focus was to work with the government at all levels to improve policy formulation and implementation and also ensure broader involvement of stakeholders.

“One of our foundational objectives is to ensure that the government and policy actors target the youth in policy design and implementation,” he added.

Mr Abdulai further explained that the dialogue was to give opportunity to the youth to voice suggestions on what can be done to address the problems they faced in the agricultural sector.

Writer’s email;gilbert.agbey@graphic.com.gh