Executive Coordinator of the Strategic Youth Network for Development Ghana (SYND) has encouraged the youth to contribute their quota to the development of the country.

Chibeze Ezekiel made these comments at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) and 2nd anniversary celebration of the Youth in Natural Resources and Environmental Governance (Youth-NREG) Platform.

According to him, it is imperative that the youth champions mobilisation strategies that ensure that their voices are heard when it comes to the formulation of policies.

Mr Chibeze sees this as an essential means through which national policies at the grassroots level will benefit since young people contribute a bulk of the country’s human resource.

“We want to get to a point where our actions have a bearing on the lives of people at the local level,” he indicated while explaining the rationale behind the setting up of the Youth-NREG.

He believes this is crucial for the holistic progress of the nation is to be achieved, especially in the area of environmental sustainability.

Various departments of SYND took turns to deliver reports on their activities over the past year at the June 19 event.

The Youth NREG Platform is a youth-oriented platform dedicated to young people working or interested in any field relating to the Natural Resources and Environmental sector with the aim of influencing policy and decision-making processes. 

SYND’s Communications lead, Gifty Agbenyefia highlighted key strategies adopted in disseminating information as far as the Network's dealings are concerned.

These ranged from publicity of events from partners, online campaigns against illegal logging of Rosewood, Youth in RE project, an online campaigns for ACCESS coalition, and the Youth in Climate Action project.

They also facilitated a development of engagement strategy for Climate Action in Ghana and the Climate Finance project among others.

Policy team Patricia Agyekum, also brought the gathering up to speed with what her outfit has done over the period.

Her presentation encapsulated outdoored policy paper, capacity building workshop at ACEP, Educational Materials for children on Climate Change, Development of Policy papers on the NDC's of Ghana and another paper on Vulnerability to Climate Change in Ghana.

As part of Youth-NREG’s 2-year anniversary, citations were presented to partners that have supported the advocacy work of the Platform. These partners include the World Bank Group, Forest Watch Ghana, UNDP and French Embassy.

Participants, volunteers and guests joined in celebration ash the celebratory cake was cut to climax the milestone.

Also at the anniversary were representatives from the World Bank Ghana, Education Ministry, Forest Watch Ghana, Green Generation Ghana and NAPPC.

The Strategic Youth Network for Development (SYND) was established in September 2008 with the aim of contributing to youth development interventions in Ghana.