JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Representatives of young people from East, West, Central and Southern Africa will come together from 23 to 25 April 2014 in Johannesburg to devise key strategies and tactics to influence the Post-2015 development agenda at the global, continental and national level.
Taking place at the Airport Grand Hotel and Conference Centre in Boksburg, the three-day workshop titled ‘From Voice to influence to Action: Strengthening Sustained Citizen Engagement in the Post-2015 Development Agenda’, is a critical step in a campaign initiated by African Monitor, called ‘Voice Africa’s Future’.
The initiative has used mobile technology and social media in six African countries as well as an off-line platform in four African countries to generate the perspectives, aspirations and key concerns of youth in the continent about the future they want to see.
Feedback from young people, presented in a document to be discussed at the conference, says that their vision for Africa “is a self-reliant and independent continent that prioritises taking care of its people, an economically diverse continent whose economy creates equal access and equal opportunity for all”.
The document, titled “The Youth Vision for the Post-2015 Development Agenda” adds: “change is urgent and necessary. Our freedom cannot be fully realised unless we are free from the shackles of poverty and conflict.
“Poverty, economic exclusion, violence, war and conflict must end in this generation”.
Launched in 2012 by African Monitor from the premise that it was important to create platforms for ordinary citizens to influence and shape the global development agenda, ‘Voice Africa’s Future’ has collected significant and critical data which has provided impetus for advocacy at
- national level in consultations with the United Nations and local governments;
- at continental level as part of the African Union process to generate a Common African Position on post-2015 and at the Africa Civil Society Organisation’s Working group on Post-2015; and at
- international level through various interactions with global civil society organisations and other structures of the United Nations.
The workshop is aimed at increasing the exchange and interactions between the youth from all over the continent and to develop a standard work plan that can be implemented by the campaign’s youth champions and the various countries’ National Focal Points.
In addition, it will forge a common position around the Post-2015 development agenda, provide training on advocacy and produce an advocacy work-plan.
Some of the topics to be discussed will be updates on the Post-2015 process at country level, mobilising financial and strategic resources to advance advocacy around the post-2015 agenda, media and communication tools to promote youth voices and creating mass youth mobilisation.
The Post-2015 Development Agenda refers to a process led by the United Nations that aims to help define the future global development framework that will succeed the UN Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight global development targets which come to an end in 2015.
For more information on Voice Africa’s Future, go to www.africayouth2015.org or www.africanmonitor.org.
About African Monitor:
African Monitor was established in 2006 as an independent continental body to monitor development funding commitments, funding delivery as well as the impact on grassroots communities and to bring strong additional African voices to the development agenda.
Its vision is for an African continent rapidly achieving its development potential, whose people live in dignity, in a just society where basic needs are met and where human rights are upheld and good governance entrenched.
ISSUED BY QUO VADIS COMMUNICATIONS ON BEHALF OF AFRICAN MONITOR
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