Pakati's Project Associate, Josias Ambeu, attended the Pan-African Youth Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in April 2019. The forum provided more than 400 young people from across Africa to share ideas, debate issues, and influence how the African Union (AU) invests in Africa’s youth.
At the forum, ONE interviewed Josias about the work he has done and his insights and the interview in full has been posted on their website. Josias was also at the event to connect with Aya Chebbi, the AU Youth Envoy, about the work being done by Pakati and how it is shifting young leaders to the centre of the African development narrative.
ONE is a global movement campaigning to end extreme poverty and preventable disease by 2030, so that everyone, everywhere can lead a life of dignity and opportunity.
Josias' message for Aya was that Pakati and its collaboration platform can be used by governments as a resource to find skilled young people who can support government in its mandate. For example, when the Minister of Agriculture needs a specialist in agriculture, they can contact those young people who are doing great things in agriculture and get their ideas on what could improve the sector in their country.
He said that Pakati wishes to engage with the AU Youth Envoy and collaborate. He went on to say that governments need to collaborate with initiatives such as Pakati which addresses directly how to translate individual programmes into a pooled resource that seeks to provide a critical mass to issues facing the continent. Josias said that a lot of leadership initiatives are training young people, but without the continent seeing change or real impact. By affording them the opportunity to work together, young people can contribute, rather than what is currently happening where they are just not getting those opportunities to do so, yet.
Other topics touched on in the inteview included youth activism, youth development, and the AU's goal of having opportunities for at least one million young Africans by 2021. Josias also found that his ability to speak both English and French saw him being used as an impromptu interpreter, something he wasn't expecting!
The full interview can be read on the ONE website.
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