In a bid to guarantee a meaningful future for Lagos youth, the State Government has reiterated commitment towards developing and empowering youths for productive engagement and better leadership.
The government said that youth’s strength and their collective ability to bring development to any state when properly groomed and empowered for the future was reasons the Babajide Sanwo-Olu-led administration had included plan for youths in the THEMES agenda.
In the agenda, the government stated that plans have been initiated towards preparing the youths for their betterment and task of nation-building.
Addressing participants at a one-day sensitisation workshop for the youths in Lagos, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Youth and Social Development (MYSD), Yewande Falugba, added that the present administration had embarked on a massive investment in youths as a way of actualising its THEMES agenda.
At the workshop organized by the government in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), yesterday, Falugba explained that the state government decision to accord youths priority attention was due to their vibrancy and potentials to bring about huge development and social progress in any economy.
The permanent secretary, who was represented by the Director for Administration and Human Resources, Adewunmi Ogunsanya, stated administration at inception realised that there was need to harness youths potentials for Lagos development and immediately designed policies and programmes that would address their needs.
She said: “With more young people concentrated in low and middle income countries, developing nations need to harness the strengths and advantages of having a surge in the youth population”.
In her presentation, UNFPA representative, Blessing Ashi, who spoke on ‘Young People and Demographic Dividend’, suggested that the state government design additional policies that would support Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the state.
Aside from that, Ashi appealed to the state government to allocate adequate funds to health, education and employment sectors to address youths needs in Lagos.
Earlier, Deputy Director, Lagos Bureau of Statistics, Basit Baruwa, explained that essence of the programme was to create a platform that would afford youths opportunity to have a meaningful engagement on the activities happening in their state.
Baruwa, who spoke on ‘Overview of Demographic Dividend in Lagos State’, added that the platform would help youths address issues in three major sectors, health, education and employment, of the state.
According to him, the youths constitute 43 percent of the 27million people in Lagos State, and as such in order to properly leverage on the demographic dividend, there is need for the State to put in place health policy, labour policy, education policy as well as good governance that could serve as a catalyst to break the cycle of generational poverty through a favourable economic environment.
While urging the youths to utilize the knowledge that they acquire at the programme for themselves and the state, Director for youths and social development in the ministry, Femi Adetoye, described UNFPA as a worthy partner of Lagos State Government in building the youths through policy formulation and financial support.
