The Second Nigerian Youth Leadership Summit held in Enugu has ended with a call for increased funding to the health sector. Organised by Development Partnership International, the summit is an annual national youth capacity building meeting and inter-generational dialogue, which brings together young leaders and professionals from various backgrounds to discuss critical issues on youth leadership and sustainable national development.

This year's summit focused on youth leadership towards better health and sustainable development, and brought together youth leaders from 17 states and the FCT, young Nigerians in the Diaspora, international health development experts, private sector and representatives of the United Nations system. In his opening speech, the Executive Director of Development Partnership International Mr. Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima, reiterated that the year 2006 was the most strategic year for youth to focus on health and development issues, owing to the overwhelming emphasis that has been laid on health during the year 2006 through the Abuja +5, the UNGASS +5 events in New York and the World Health Assembly. He said young people hold the key to national health and sustainable development planning, considering their roles in raising awareness and focusing attention on critical policy issues on health development. Chair of the Opening Ceremony Prof. C. O. Nwaorgu, emphasised the need to empower the youth in order to assist them in taking appropriate decisions on issues that relate to their sexuality.

Keynote speaker at the summit, Chief Dumo Lilu-Briggs, CEO of DLB Concerns, underscored the importance of education in developing youth who can take effective leadership and ensure better health for all. He wondered what level of leadership the nation expects from youth who are poorly educated and in some cases illiterate. His position was corroborated by Dr. James Garofalo Vice President Academics of the ABTI American University, who highlighted the importance of an enabling environment for young people to access education and stay in school until they graduate, as a key to effective learning and intellectual development. Education is the key to sustainable national development. Dr. Viola Onwuliri, Africa's representative to the governing Board of the International AIDS Society emphasised the need for youth to abstain from sex the surest measure to protect themselves from HIV infection.

The summit featured key speakers from UNFPA, UNAIDS, Mr. Rosanwo Tunde of the Nigerian Youth in the Diaspora Network and Mr. Martins Ilo, Economic Adviser to the Enugu State government. In declaring the summit open, Enugu state Commissioner for Youth and Sports Development, Mr. Bethel Onyenyiri, praised the organisers for putting the summit together and expressed hope that the summit will yield desired results.

The summit ended with the adoption of the Enugu Youth Declaration on health and development, which called for a public-private sector partnership to improve funding for health infrastructure and medical supplies. The declaration also called for increased funding from the National budget to health, with particular reference to the African Union Declaration on AIDS, TB and ORID of 2001, which recommended 15 percent of national budget and called for the establishment of mechanisms to ensure that young people access the resources to implement their innovative programmes to ensure better health for all. The date and venue for the next summit will be posted on www.developmentpartnership.org in the coming months.

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 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!

I have been in Addis Ababa for about a week now, assisting the African Union with the process of organising the Expert group and youth meeting to discuss the Pan-African Youth Charter, the Pan-African Youth Federation draft concept paper, as well as a document on Culture, Education and Youth.

I have always longed to be in this City! I passed through it in July 2004 for the first time on my way to Thailand for the XV International Conference on AIDS, and the airport was so impressive, so I wanted to explore the city. However, I seemed most disappointed when I got here. Ethiopia has an ancient history as one African nation which never really was colonised by anyone. They fought wars and wars to keep their independence. I read in Nelson Mandela's "Long Walk to Freedom" how organised they were during the freedom struggle throughout Africa, and how instrumental they had been in providing military training to freedom fighters, but this does not reflect the true state of the Ethiopian people.

Many people are really very poor. I do not have any official figures but I see that unemployment here will be over 50 percent. So many beggars all over the place and as it stands everyone is vulnerable to some form of attack. I am very worried and I am thinking of an idea to help move this great African country forward. But come to think of it, Ethiopia is the center for regional integration in Africa. It houses the African Union, the Economic Commission for Africa and many important international organisations. So why are people so poor?

I have always had the opinion that many international development efforts pay alot of attention to logistics and process that they leave out the key components, which remain interventions that reach the people. It seems like many donors just expect a good report in writing and do not really care about impact in terms of how interventions reach the people. I have been sharing this with many young activists and they seem to share the same opinion.

I see great hope with the establishment of a Pan-African Youth Federation. I hope that this will be a great opportunity to move from rhetorics to concrete actions, from declarations to people based development programmes and from frameworks to community development initiatives.I really look forward to seeing this happen.

I was in Lagos this week, after a few hours in Abuja on Wednesday. I met Azubike and Onyiye at the airport and we moved together to Okota to meet star actress Hilda Dokubo at the Olympic Hotel.

Hilda is in Lagos doing what she likes doing, training young people who would become stars in their life time. She had been star and celebrity movie actress in Nigeria until she was called upon by the government of her state to become special assistant to the governor on youth matters. This appointment seemed like the major inspiration for street to star. She expleined time without number that as adviser to the governor, she met many many young people who have diverse problems on a daily bases, but noted with regret that these problems are always revolving around the same issue. This became the major force behind her new initiative.

Street to Star is her new project and it seeks to identify talented young people in the fields of music, arts and drama, groom them in various skills needed for effectiveness and provide the deals for outstanding ones among them to start their lives. The training will address all aspects of the fields being addressed including Crowd management, money management and fan management. This is indeed a way to move very many young people from the cradles of mediocrity to the palance of fame.

Since I was there, Hilda gave me the chance to address the young people at the meeting. First, I thought that I would tell them about HIV/AIDS, later, I thought that it might not be very relevant to what their immediate activity was, so I decided to tell them about street to star. I had worked with Hilda in developing the action plans, so at least I had a full knowledge of what the programme was about. I could not hold it! mANY stars were coming to address the young people, although it was mainly because of Hilda and her husband, it meant alot for these young people as they could never possibly meet these stars all their life time. I made sure I let them know that this was a life time opportunity, and they needed to make the best use of it!

Later on the same day, I was reflecting on the importance of Hilda's project. I soon realised that it was possibly the only practical way that people with some level of influence can contribute to the lives of others and make the world a better place to live in. My sister HILDA is moving street kids to stars, and I am very proud of her for this.