Accra, Ghana//-World Bank has launched Ghana Youth Voices, a branch of the World Bank Youth to Youth (Y2Y) community, which aspires to assist in strengthening the country’s youth community engagement with the World Bank Group (WBG).
Speaking at the launch in Accra, the World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Pierre Laporte in a speech read for him by Patrick Mullen, Program Lead, Human Development said the Bank is for the Ghana Youth Voices Chapter that must be representative and inclusive of the diverse youth stakeholders.
These according to him include diverse geographical locations across both rural and urban areas, ethnic communities, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability.
Mr Laporte added: “We also expect the Chapter to support a systematic engagement of youth in dialogues with WBG teams on issues related to the Bank’s support in Ghana, and to leverage the platform to share reflections on WBG country partnerships as well as on the design, implementation, and evaluation of WB interventions”.
The Youth Voices Chapter must also enable informed young people to actively communicate to the Bank what they believe the development challenges that affect them are, what their views and proposed solutions are.
They should also inform the youth of Ghana about the vision and work of the World Bank Group and engage them in dialogues and debates, among others.
The World Bank Group’s Ghana Country Partnership Framework 2022 – 2026, emphasizes support to economic transformation with the creation of more quality jobs for youth through skills and entrepreneurial development, access to finance, investment climate reform and quality infrastructure.
The World Bank Group is also deeply committed to collaborating with the government of Ghana through the new Country Partnership Framework to address spatial and other inequalities, improve socioeconomic conditions, he said.
Currently, the World Bank is working with the government on a new operation that would support some aspects of the YouStart programme, according to Mr Laporte.
The World Bank, he noted , is already supporting the implementations of various programmes and projects that aim at addressing and removing some of the binding constraints of youth employment in the country.
The Country Director for Ghana was quick to add that the Ghana Jobs and Skills Project supports skills development and upgrade and job creation for Ghanaians.
The project helps the government to better respond to the imperative of creating more and decent jobs for the youth and rapidly growing the labour force.
“It also recently launched the Gulf of Guinea project which targets vulnerable communities in the north to proactively prevent the spread of conflict from the Sahel, reduce vulnerability to climate change, and strengthen local institutions.
The project recognises the need for a multifaceted approach of investing in community level infrastructure that effectively responds to local needs and improves local economic opportunities, youth inclusion, digital innovations whilst strengthening local institutional capacity,” he noted.
Mr Laporte concluded: “Towards this end, we look forward to collaborating with you to build a strong partnership with targeted youth groups on strategic shared areas of interest such as education, employment, climate change, and capacity building in a win-win situation.”
