Under this thematic area, three notable initiatives to promote decision making and leadership skills among the youth, readily come to mind.

These initiatives are:

1. Review of the 2010 National Youth Policy

2. Formation of District Youth Parliaments

3. Youth Volunteer Work Camps & Development

1.Review of the 2010 National Youth Policy

To address gaps in the 2010 National Youth Policy, the Authority under the leadership of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, has developed a Draft Reviewed Youth Policy.

Unlike the 2010 policy, this new document spanning 2021 – 2031 comes along with two important additional documents; a Policy Implementation Plan and Implementation Monitoring Framework to which we are grateful to our sector Minister for their foresight and support.

2. Formation of District Youth Parliaments

To ensure that young people actively participate in governance, One Hundred and Ten (110) District Youth Parliaments have been inaugurated. The remaining One Hundred and Fifty (150) Youth Parliaments have been established awaiting inauguration.

This is to afford young people the opportunity to participate in decision making processes at all levels of our governance structure.

Meanwhile two Regions, that is, Upper West and Northern, have their Regional Youth Parliaments fully established and inaugurated. The ultimate goal is to have a National Youth Parliament fully functioning very soon.

3.Youth Volunteer Work Camps & Development

To inculcate in the youth the spirit of volunteerism and patriotism whiles promoting national cohesion and integration, two (2) youth volunteer work camps were organized nationwide in 2018 and 2019 for a total of 1,100 young people.

These camps organized under three modules i.e. Infrastructure, Education, and Environment & Sanitation.

Under infrastructure, places of convenience, classroom blocks and CHPS compounds were constructed including:

1. A 12 seater public place of convenience at Nkrankese in the Adansi South District of the Ashanti Region

2. Two (2) 3 unit classrooms, an office and a store as well as a six (6) unit classroom with an office and a store were constructed in the Western North Region. A community library was also constructed at Akoom in the Tarkwa Municipality. Fourteen (14) other projects were constructed as part of the initiative.

Under the Environment & Sanitation module, activities undertook included:

1. Clean-up and tree planting exercises in the Central, Northern, Greater Accra, Upper East and North East Regions.

Under Education, vacation classes were held for Junior& Senior High School students in the Eastern, Western North and Northern Region.

Undoubtedly, the spirit of volunteerism in the young people has been revived and with the right framework in place, many youth will be committed to giving back to their society. It is on the heels of that, that the authority has taken steps to institutionalize volunteer work within the youth sector. In this regard, the Authority is embarking on two ambitious projects:

1.The development of a National Youth Volunteer infrastructure.

2.The National Youth Volunteer Programme (NYVP).

The target for this volunteer programme is to enroll 100,000 young people to volunteer in various sectors of the economy in the next three years and this is expected to commence soon.