From July 4-5, 2006, young leaders, activists and professionals from accross Nigeria, the diaspora and the international community, will gather in Enugu for the second Nigerian Youth Leadership Summit.

Theme: Youth Leadership towards better health and sustainable development.

The Summit is an annual inter-generational gathering of youth and experts to address specific national development issues, with a view to finding the best solutions that meets our needs and yet fit into the international development agenda, as enshrined in the various international development goals and frameworks. During the first edition in 2005, the focus was on the NEEDS, this year the focus will be on health.

Registration: N3,000 for Nigerian Participants
$30 USD for International Participants and diaspora.

(This fee covers Lunch for two days, snacks and conference materials, participants will be expected to cover their own transportation and accomodation costs). We are currently in discussions with state governments and will explore other avenues to support youth to attend the meeting, however, we will encourage potential participants to seek their own funding to attend the summit.

Call for abstracts and workshops: We are calling for presentations and workshop sessions in any of the following areas: e-health, HIV/AIDS prevention, care, support and treatment, adolescent sexual and reproduscive health, maternal and child health, malaria prevention, health policy, international health agreements andframeworks and national health development research. We will greatly welcome workshops and presentations on innovative practices in Africa, Asia, Europe and the America's, on these issues.

More information will be available at www.developmentpartnership.org

For queries and enquiries, please contact DPI offices:
4 Eleme Road, off Eleme Junction, Port Harcourt 500001
Email: dabesaki@developmentpartnership.org or
Fax/ Phone: (+234) 084 751 002.
Mobile: +234 805 518 2526

See you in Enugu.

Addis Ababa, May 28, 2006 - The African Union today witnessed a landmark event with the official adoption of the African Youth Charter. The charter is both a political and legal framework and
serves the purpose of providing a strategic framework and direction for youth empowerment activities at both continental and national levels. It provides the basis for youth advocacy and supports young
people's efforts in achieving their rights and obligations from their governments and society.

The African Youth Charter has undergone various stages of development. An initial youth and experts meeting was held in January 2006, to discuss the first draft of the document and various recommendations were made. After the initial discussions, the draft charter was sent to member states for consultation and discussion at the national level. During May 22-28, youth, experts and ministers met at the AU Headquarters to discuss the final draft of the charter to make amends and adopt the charter. After critical discussions, the charter was adopted by youth, experts and ministers. The charter will be forwarded to the AU Heads of state summit in July for final adoption.

The Charter draws from various international agreements and commitments particularly: the International Conference on Population and Development Platform for Action, the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action, the World Programme of Action for youth to the year 2000 and beyond, the Millennium Development Goals, the Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and other such documents. It commits African governments to ensuring that issues affecting youth the areas of employment, sustainable livelihood, education, health, youth participation, national youth policy, peace and security, law
enforcement, youth in the Diaspora and youth with disabilities, among other, are adequately addressed within the framework of national youth policy and youth development programming initiatives. The charter also puts to rest the issue of defining youth in Africa.

Many African countries define youth based on their own circumstances, and what they consider most appropriate. However, the Charter defines a youth as any person between the ages 15-35. While the upper level seems on the high side, it creates adequate space to accommodate all the peculiar challenges that African youth face in their development process and in the process of integrating effectively into society.
The definition also creates space for younger generations to participation in decision-making and development processes.

Although the charter has been adopted, fundamental challenges remain that of its popularisation, ratification and implementation at the national level. The African Union has put in place a strategy for the popularisation of the charter and is working towards strengthening a youth structure that will support its implementation. However, the ball lies with member states and what they like to do with the charter at the national level. The AUC is working to strengthen the Pan African Youth Union (PYU) in order to ensure that it is functioning in its
optimum capacity and is most positioned to lead the process of implementing the charter. This will mean that the PYU will require some structural adjustments with its political and administrative structures and will work around absorbing new and dynamic membership in order to ensure that its activities are proactive and embrace all youth in Africa. The African Youth Charter is a unique opportunity to unite the youth movement in Africa to speak same language and move along the same strategic programming lines, it is hoped that this will be embraced.

DPI will be working with the broader youth movement in Africa to popularise the charter and to ensure that its components are integrated into the work of young people. A process to ensure that the Nigerian government ratifies the charter will be carried out in collaboration with the national youth council and other relevant youth bodies including the government. DPI will also work wit the PYU in its transition process in order to ensure that its restructuring and reformation process comes up with the best in order to position
African youth for effective leadership towards the renaissance of the continent.

At last African youth have a document they can call their own. It is hoped that this sense of ownership will drive action around the charter, and drive community level youth action to change the tide and support sustainable development efforts in Africa.

Today May 24, 2006, youth leaders from accross the African continent
adopted the draft Pan African Youth Charter and the strategy for the
revitalisation of the Pan African Youth Union. The charter is a strategic
framework that will provide guidance to national youth development
programming as well as serve as a legal basis for youth advocacy for
empowerment and participation in policy processes.

The PYU has been in existence since 1960s and has had several
limitations with its structures and composition. As thus, this revitalisation
process will position it to serve as the effective youth development
organisation in Africa that has a working relationship with the African
Union and will serve as the linkage between youth in Africa and the AU.

The documents will be sent to the experts from AU member states as
well as Ministers over the course of this week for consideration and
possible adoption.

I have been here in Addis Ababa for the past week working with the AU and UNFPA to finalise the draft Pan African Youth Charter. This will obviously be a landmark event in the history of African Youth. The documents will has been discussed by youth over the last day and half and will hopefully be adopted by the end of business today. Its quite inspiring to see this process come to an end. I have been neck deep in it since last November begining with the youth federation concept paper, and then the review of the charter and now hopefully to see its adoption and then maybe I will get involved with the popularisation process and implementation with my own government at the national level.

The charter is to provide guidance and strategic direction to national youth policy as well as serve as a framework by which young people can hold their governments accountable on national youth issues.I am personally convinced that this document having involved young people from the period of its development to the time of its adoption will definitely be a valid instrument in the hands of youth for the development of Africa.

I will keep you posted on progress by the end of tomorrow.

I turned 25 on April 23. This was a particularly important day for me for many reasons. By the United Nations Standards, I was not any more going to be youth, it was also an important opportunity for me to reflect on all my work over the last few years and try to find the best way ahead that will reflect the ideals of my organisation- Development Partnership International. It turns out that during this period, I was away to Toronto attending the IAC preparatory meeting. It feels not very good that I was not at home during such an important date, however, whichever way it goes, I would have been somewhere outside home. I was invited at the same period for a Microbicides Conference in Cape Town, so I had some course to say "it was not absolutely outrageous."

It was also good time to catch up with friends at TIG; Jeniffer, Mike, Nick, Franziska and the rest of the team. I gathered alot of inspiration from all the discussions we had there. Perhaps, this is what I would have been doing if I was at home, trying to inspire myself. I learnt alot from the way TIG is organised and hope to see how to reflect same structure at DPI back at home. During the 23, Dr. Viola, one of the key people in IAS organised a small get together for me. I was never there, I was hiding but my Birthday was announced in Plenary. I have never had such a treat.

Having returned back home, I am working on how to ensure that I put into practice what I saw at TIG. We are trying to be more project based and proactive with our programmes at DPI, we are updating our website and discussing new structures for our initiatives. We have recently put up a bulletin board and we are finalising setting-up a blog on our site. We are updating information in our resource center and we are working towards improving the ICT access at our office.

So much to have learnt for my 25th birthday!