Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has urged the youth in Africa to prepare themselves adequately to take up the mantle of leadership of the continent. He attributed Africa's current problems partly to the lack of resourceful leaders to get the transformation the continent required, particularly visionary leadership skills which were necessary to bring about an enormous change in the lives of the people. Former President Kufuor gave the advice at the 2011 Transformational Leadership Conference organised by Young Professionals and Youth Coalition (YPYC) Initiative, a network group of professionals, in Accra. It was on the theme, “Grooming Leaders for the 21st Century Challenges.” As part of the conference, a number of individuals and institutions were awarded by the coalition for distinguishing themselves as leaders in their respective fields. They include Vice-President John Mahama, Former President Kufour, Pearl Essu-Mensah, Deputy MD of UT Bank; Bice Osei Kufuor, President of MUSIGA; Samuel Agyeman, a journalist; Nana Dwomoh Sarpong, Zoomlion Ghana and Beige Village. Former President Kufour encouraged the youth to be serious with their studies, acquire the appropriate knowledge that would help them harness the human and natural resources to develop Ghana and the continent in general. In a speech read on his be-Vice President encouraged the young professionals to continue to improve their capacity to become credible leaders in their respective fields, saying that was the only way to take advantage of opportunities in the 21st century. “ Being enthusiastic and focused will not only help the 21st century leader to have passion and be self-motivated, but also be in a position to take advantage of available opportunities. “This, however, will not be possible unless we develop our capacities,” he said. He commended groups such as YPYC for providing the platform to equip and prepare young people to effectively face the challenges that confronted them in their various professional endeavours. Andy Osei Okrah, President of the coalition, said the formation of the group was informed by the need to nurture the talents of young professionals into productive ventures for national development. “There is an urgent need to empower young people to seize the opportunities and reposition themselves to be imbued with the new bundle of strong leadership skills and tools to accelerate actualization to deliver total national development,” he said.