African Youth Charter provides roadmap for youth engagement – International Migration expert

Romola Adeola, a Steinberg Post-doctoral Fellow in International Migration Law and Policy, has advised the African Union to use the African Youth Charter as the platform for engaging African youths.
Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria in Nairobi, Adeola said the charter, already adopted by the AU, provides the roadmap on how youths should be involved in development processes.
She stressed that youths should not just be consulted, but should be meaningfully engaged in the implementation of development programmes.
Adeola said: “Youths should not just be consulted; if it is just consultation without more, it can be tokenism and such tokenistic kind of consultation would only result to youths giving their views, but not having a meaningful part of the engagement process.
“AU and member states should meaningfully engage youths in the implementation of planned programmes.’’
Adeola recommended that youths should be engaged through the social media and other youth platforms on the continent.
She noted that youths in different parts of the world, including Africa, had played significant roles in processes that resulted to key transformations.
Adeola noted that youths participated in the political revolution in Burkina Faso as well as the Arab Spring.
While acknowledging governance deficits in Africa, Adeola, however, advised youths to initiate actions that they could leverage on to make the desired positive impact on society, rather than engaging in complaints that do not provide solutions.
She said: “Those who love the social media could use such platform to write articles to sensitise the people, while those who are interested in entrepreneurship could partner and use their skills to generate business that can create employment for the youth.”
On the issue of migration of youths, Adeola said: “You don’t have to migrate to other parts of the world to access opportunities that are available on the continent.
“Why should you use so much resilience to struggle to cross the Mediterranean, whereas you can also use such resilience to create change for ourselves on the African continent.
“Those societies were also built on the knowledge, vibrancy and competencies of young people.?”