On the occasion of International Youth Day, 12th August 2021, Youth Bridge Foundation (YBF) congratulates all youth worldwide, particularly youth in Ghana. YBF applauds you for your immense contribution to nation building and encourage you to embrace opportunities for developing yourselves including volunteering, internships and skills development.
As a youth-focused civil society organization, we wish to use the occasion to also commend Government for its efforts to empower the youth through youth policies and programs. However, we wish to call attention to the ad hoc character of youth policymaking, and reiterate our call to government to align youth policies with the long-term national development plan to ensure sustainability going forward. In our view, this is the only way youth policies will stand the test of time, even after a new political administration is ushered in.
We are pleased to note that this year’s theme for International Youth Day is “Transforming Food Systems: Youth Innovation for Human and Planetary Health”. It is imperative that youth everywhere bring their innovation and talent to bear as the world grapples with hunger, poverty and health issues. We admonish the youth to form partnerships in order to take advantage of synergies to tackle these problems of our time.