Youth leaders tipped on funding for development projects

Nov 22, 2018

This year’s theme was Youth Political and Economic Inclusion: Scenario for Sustainable Regional Integration

The German Development Cooperation (GIZ) has pledged to provide funds to finance youth development projects across the East African Community (EAC) as one of its contributions to regional integration.

Dr Kirsten Focken, the GIZ program manager in Tanzania, said youth should submit their concepts for funding consideration.

She revealed that since 2016, the organisation has so far provided over $1m to various projects proposed by different stakeholders in East Africa, through technical and financial support.

This was contained in his statement to over 150 youth leaders attending a five-day Youth Leadership Summit 2018, dubbed YouLead 2018.

The annual summit, which opened at MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MS TCDC) in Arumeru district near Arusha in Tanzania, was organised by the EAC Secretariat in collaboration with MS TCDC and funded by GIZ for the second consecutive time with the hope that it would deliver new insights, perspectives and create valuable connections.

This year's theme was Youth Political and Economic Inclusion: Scenario for Sustainable Regional Integration.

It attracted youth leaders from the six EAC partner states including Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi and hosts Tanzania and civil society organisations.  

The statement was released by Duncan Karari, the communications manager for GIZ-Support to EAC Integration Process and distributed to youth representatives and journalists at the function.  

According to Focken, GIZ and EAC in 2016 created what is termed the Incubator for Integration and Development in East Africa (IIDEA), which she said provided a new approach where youth can access funding for their innovative cross border concepts.

"We strongly urge youth to submit their concepts for funding consideration," she stressed, adding that through "positive examples more young people will be able to benefit from integration of East Africa."

She urged EAC governments to accelerate the implementation of important policies, which he said would allow people to move easily in the region, trade goods and services or exchange ideas.  

She stressed that ending extreme poverty by 2030 and raising the general standards of living in East Africa required a stronger youth voice and participation in EAC processes.

"Leaders have a real opportunity to make a difference and transform East Africa into an industrial upper income region through improving the key determinant of the region's competitiveness, which is its human talent; the skills, knowledge and experience of its youth," the statement read in parts.

The youth movement, according to Focken, has failed to have a bigger impact on the EAC integration process.

She said this was mainly because of a lack of an organized structure that can collect the views and opinions of the youth regularly, lack of a self-financing model for its activities and weak leadership succession plan.

She gave the example of a successful global youth movement, the ‘Model United Nations', which he said has been in existence for over three decades and doing well.

She challenged the youth to stop "expecting change in governance to come easy", but work towards the change they need.

She said the way to go for the youth in the EAC region was through "Inventing new solutions through technology, benchmarking standards with other more developed nations and creating better sustainable policy advocacy structures."

The summit was attended by members of the East African Legislative Assembly including Kennedy Musyoka, David Ochieng from Kenya, Denis Namara and Anna Adeke Ebaju from Uganda, Ernest Kamanzi from Rwanda, Furaha Peneza Upendo from Tanzania, Natalie Boulcy the UN deputy resident co-ordinator and UNDP representative in Tanzania, local leaders and civil society representatives from cross the region.

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