Engage duty bearers through advocacy – PPAG, IPPF to youth
The Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG), a non-governmental organisation in collaboration with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), has urged the youth in the country to use advocacy to engage duty bearers and demand accountability for their rights.
Speaking at a day’s training session for some selected youth in the country in Accra on April 30, 2021, the Executive Director of PPAG, Abena Adubea Amoah said engaging duty bearers through advocacy would help the youth in the country to demand better accountability.
She noted that through advocacy, the youth as well as young people would be able to influence policies as well as issues that affected them directly.
She pointed out that with the advent of social media, there were a lot that the youth could use such platforms to achieve in terms of demanding accountability from public office holders.
Madam Amoah noted that young people had significant roles to play in the development of any country and Ghana was no exception, explaining that when the concerns of the youth were addressed, it would help to the youth to contribute to national development.
Workshop
The youth advocates training workshop brought together about 50 people drawn from several youth networks from all over the country.
The event was aimed at equipping the participants with the needed advocacy skills as well as to expose them to the various platforms they could use to engage duty bearers effectively and efficiently.
The PPAG boss pledge that PPAG and IPPF would continue to groom young people with the needed skills to enable them demand accountability from duty bearers and also contribute to the development of their communities and the country as a whole.
Efforts
“We are mindful of the need to empower young people to exercise their agency and demand their rights to information and services that enhances their life, assures their well-being and prepares them for the life ahead in adulthood,” Madam Amoah said.
For her, “our concerted efforts to strategically prepare, groom, equip and make them ready now and for the future is a commitment that we cherish dearly and are happy to make all the investments required for a smooth sail in their lives.”
She noted, for instance, that “for the past 54 years and still counting, PPAG has put in place several structures and opportunities to equip, prepare and provide the appropriate platforms for young people to engage in the discourse and actions towards national development.”
She explained that it was important to engage the youth in decision making process because “when they are meaningfully engaged in the crafting or development of policy and programmes, they also commit to the effective implementation, monitoring and evaluation efforts to ensure results.”
Madam Amoah added that by engaging the youth in the decision making, it would make them to become more active and participative adults to secure future improvements in the country.