{"id":2158,"date":"2019-05-08T23:59:15","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T23:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/?p=2158"},"modified":"2019-05-08T23:59:15","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T23:59:15","slug":"ayc-at-fifth-session-of-the-africa-regional-forum-on-sustainable-development-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/2019\/05\/08\/ayc-at-fifth-session-of-the-africa-regional-forum-on-sustainable-development-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"AYC at Fifth session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AYC\nparticipated in the Fifth session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable\nDevelopment held at Palais des Congr\u00e8s de la Palmeraie de Marrakech, King of Morocco\nfrom 16-18 April 2019, under theme: \u2018\u2019Empowering people and ensuring\ninclusiveness and equality\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Fifth\nARFSD is hosted under the high patronage of His Majesty the King, Mohammed VI\nand convened by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) in\ncollaboration with regional organizations and the United Nations System.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seeks\nto advance the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030\nAgenda and the goals set out in Africa\u2019s Agenda 2063. The Forum does so by\nproviding a multi-stakeholder platform for follow-up and review of\nimplementation progress and challenges, strengthening learning and advocating\neffective policy measures and actions to achieve the goals of the two agendas.\nIn so doing the Regional forum makes important contributions to strengthening\nmulti-stakeholder engagement and synergies, and thus promoting concerted\nefforts to implement and achieve the development goals of the two mutually\nreinforcing agendas. Four sessions of the Forum have been held since 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The\nAfrican Youth Commission took part in both the Preparatory and\nCapacity-Development Workshop for Major Groups and Other Stakeholders in the\nAfrica Region, and the main session of Africa Regional Forum. Represented by\nMr. Kawsu Sillah, Executive Secretary, AYC was part of MGoS rapporteuring team\nand round table panel discussion on promoting peer learning and the exchange of\nexperiences and lessons learned in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and\nAgenda 2063, with emphasis on selected Sustainable Development Goals for 2019:\n\u201cEmpowering people and ensuring inclusiveness and equality\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In his\npresentation, AYC Executive Secretary started by saying as far as\nimplementation of SDG 4 is concerned, at Member State level, there is Political\nwill to provide quality and relevant education for all. He cited the recent\ndevelopments in some countries as living testimonies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nmentioned that in The Gambia, in addition to its free primary education for\nall, the Government recently launched a project called \u201cSecond Chance\u201d an\ninitiative providing education opportunities for out-of-school children and\nyouth to attain basic education and livelihood skills; University tuition free\nfor all undergraduates in Liberia; Free primary and senior secondary school\neducation in many countries in Africa including Ghana, Sierra Leone, Rwanda\netc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Sillah\nsaid lessons learned throughout Africa is that young people are demanding for\nbetter education services and skills development for their peers, better wage\nfor teachers, and demand accountability from their leaders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With\nregards to emerging challenges, Mr. Sillah said even though young people\nwelcomed these initiatives as important steps for achieving SDG4, and more so\nto empower youth to become agents and champions for change, they challenged the\nGovernments to ensure that they do not only provide free education but equally\nensure the service providers offer quality and relevant education and skills\ntraining that correspond to current and future labour market needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sharing\nhis perspective on SDG 16, Mr Sillah said there are a number of measures in\nplace to engage the youth in promoting peace and security through preventing\nthem from violence, as well as encourage peer-peer foster dialogue to enhance\nyouth participation at the local, national, sub-regional and continental levels\nfor peaceful and secure communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His views\non emerging challenges were that even though those measures are in place, on\nthe opposite, young people are concerned about the volumes of violent conflict\nthat our continent is currently witnessing, state\u2019s inability to create or\nsustain economic opportunities for youth, corruption and mismanagement of\npublic and state resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said in\norder to address these man made challenges of our time, it is important to\ninspire and support youth to become the leaders of Africa, mentor them to work\ntogether with the older generation to create a sustainable future where a\nculture of integrity, good governance and zero tolerance to corruption will be\npromoted in all sectors of society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citing the\nlessons learned, Mr. Sillah said both Agenda 2030 and 2063 will be hard to\narchive if youth unemployment is not swiftly addressed, economic opportunities\nfor youth not improved, and the creativity, energy and innovation of Africa\u2019s\nyouth are not tapped into for the continent\u2019s political, social, cultural and\neconomic transformation. He noted that from Transitional Justice, to Peace\nkeeping, and to fight against corruption young people are contributing to the\nimplementation of SDG 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The\nFifth (2019) session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development\n(ARFSD 5) held under the theme \u201cEmpowering people and ensuring inclusiveness\nand equality.\u201d It carried out in-depth review of SDG 4 (quality education), SDG\n8 (decent work and economic growth), SDG 10 (reduced inequalities), SDG 13\n(climate action), and SDG 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions) and the\ncorresponding goals of Agenda 2063. The forum also undertake an in-depth review\nof SDG 17 (partnerships for the Goals) to address challenges and strengthen\npartnerships to develop capacity, harness science and technologies and mobilize\nand scale up finance to implement the goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The outcomes of ARFSD 5 will (i) feed into the 2019 session of the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) under the auspices of ECOSOC, which will be held in July 2019 focusing on the same theme and selected SDGs; and (ii) be used for policy advocacy, formulation and implementation at regional and national levels. Moreover, 2019 is of special significance given that for first time the HLPF under the auspices of the UN General Assembly (SDG or Leaders\u2019 Summit) will be held in September 2019. The ARFSD therefore offers opportunity for Africa to articulate its inputs to the Leaders\u2019 summit as well. Such inputs will include Africa\u2019s specific challenges in the implementation of the SDGs, gaps and levers of change to accelerate implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download the copy of MGoS Report & Proceeding.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Download the copy of ARFS2019 outcome document.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More about ARFSD, please visit:
https:\/\/www.uneca.org\/arfsd2019<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AYC participated in the Fifth session of the Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development held at Palais des Congr\u00e8s de la Palmeraie de Marrakech, King of Morocco from 16-18 April 2019, under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanyouthcommission.org\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}