1st World Youth Meeting, Bari, Italy 19th – 21st January 2010

1^st World Youth Meeting, Bari, Italy 19^th – 21^st January 2010

Declaration of the Youth Delegates from Africa

We the delegates from African Countries participating at the first world Youth Meeting held from the 19^th – 21^st January 2010, in Bari Italy, recognize that we represent a larger community from our continent, we acknowledge the challenges affecting young people varying from youth unemployment, corruption,  poverty, lack of access to meaningful education, climate change effects, civil wars among others;

We appreciate the effort undertaken by the government of Italy, Puglia Region and development partners in organizing a meeting for young people in Bari to take active steps and actions that shall make us leaders of today and not tomorrow. We are also aware about the tasks and challenges ahead of us in accomplishing the great work started at this meeting; it is time for change, and a moment to redefine our future.

We take responsibility upon ourselves to advocate and lobby our African Union governments to meaningfully involve the youth in decision making processes through ensuring one third youth representation in the governance systems in our countries.

On poverty eradication, we shall demand national governments to establish youth funds that shall foster entrepreneurship among the youth hence the creation of job opportunities. The funds shall be managed by the national youth boards and must be accessible to all cadres of youth;

We shall urge our governments to promote mitigation and adaptation activities and programmes among the youth to tackle the problem of climate change as a need to pursue our survival. Development and implementation of national education policies for sustainable development shall be prioritized, in the same sense, the demand for a legally binding agreement on greenhouse emissions and adaptation in the upcoming UNFCCC COP 16 talks in Mexico.

On HIV and AIDS, we acknowledge the vulnerability of contraction of the disease among the young people population and the needed task to share information through campaigns and institutional networking to promote awareness on the prevention and control of the disease.

We the delegates from Africa, resolve to develop a network that will ensure planning, implementation and reporting among others of the said tasks; we shall practically support the Bari Youth action plan and declaration and share the global synergy to act together as global citizens.

Declaration  prepared by the delegates from the African Continent at the first World Youth Meeting in Bari, Italy

19^th to 21^st Day of January, 2010

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