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Nigeria has been appointed member of the Commonwealth Ministerial Review Panel charged with the responsibility of assessing the effectiveness of the Commonwealth Youths Programme.
Nigeria has been appointed member of the Commonwealth Ministerial Review Panel charged with the responsibility of assessing the effectiveness of the Commonwealth Youths Programme.
The country bagged the panel membership at the Commonwealth Youths Ministers' meeting held recently in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It joins six other member states from the Pacific, Asia and the Caribbean regions on the panel.
Nigeria's Youths Development Minister, Senator Akinlabi Olasunkanmi, would join his counterparts from the six other countries on the panel to meet and consider the progress of implementation of Commonwealth Plan of Action for Youths Empowerment.
A press statement signed by the Press Secretary to the Minister, Mr. Goddy Enwerem, revealed that the panel had its first meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka with an appeal to the Directorate of Commonwealth Youths Programme to ensure speedy implementation of the plan for th youths empowerment in the Commonwealth region.
According to the release, policy positions of which the panel wants speedy implementation include bringing youths matters into the mainstream of national development.
Head of Nigerian delegation and Minister of Youths Development, Senator Olasunkanni, was quoted as telling the panel and the larger ministerial meeting that Nigerian government has crafted a National Youth Development Agenda with a United Nations Technical Mission and has been adjudged as one of the best in the world recently.
Olasunkanmi later presented a 30-page country report in which he listed the various youths development initiatives of Yar'Adua administration. He told his colleagues that the seven- point agenda of President Umaru Yar'Adua is to ensure a milly-sectorial investment in the youths sector.
Aside being elected into the ministerial panel, the Nigerian minister secured technical assistance for the country in areas of mainstreaming youths concerns in all aspects of governance, International Youths Exchange through the Commonwealth youths exchange council and the exchange of skills and best practices through the Commonwealth Royal Society and the Commonwealth policy studies.