Ms Esther Cobbah, Board Chairperson of the National Youth Council (NYC) on Tuesday called for the active involvement of the youth in decision-making to tap their experience for national development.
She said: "I do not believe that the youth are leaders of the future" adding that their level of thinking made them match policy makers.
Ms Cobbah, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of STRATCOM Africa, an image and communication management group, was speaking at the opening of a four-day Adult Forum of the ongoing Africa Regional Scout conference in
Accra.
The conference, attended by 178 members from 37 countries including Zimbabwe, Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Uganda, is to draw up a resolution to be adopted and used for the empowerment of young people on the continent.
It is also to draw up strategies and policies to guide youth development activities for the various national scout associations for the next three years.
Ms Cobbah said that the involvement of the youth in decision-making would ensure the development of a well-structured framework for the
transformation of the country.
He said the continent was well endowed with natural resources but due to the seemingly lack of sound policies as a result of poor consultation,
its people were still afflicted with poverty, disease and high maternal mortality rate.
Ms Cobbah said the NYC had recognized such a deficiency and decided to focus on developing a sense of direction and nationalism in the youth,
grounded in the national agenda, youth education for employment and entrepreneurship and youth health, sexuality and environment to empower them
to demand the best from the country's leaders.
" The NYC will therefore in the next three years focus on these areas with the hope and belief that the youth of this nation will be empowered, educated, given a sense of direction and given the requisite information to
help them make informed choices" she said.
She said the challenges of national development, which had defied the older generations, would be overcome by the youth and asked them to exhibit the courage that would empower them to create the better world that Africa deserved.
"I am looking to the dynamism of youthful leadership, committed to important human values, to stand up against the ills of our societies,
including the menace of narcotic drugs" Ms Cobbah said She said the resources lost through corrupt practices were the very ones needed to improve the education and create job opportunities for the
youth, the reasons that the youth had not only a key stake but responsibilities to stand up against the ills being committed by the older generations.
Ms Cobbah commended the various national scout associations for instilling the values of duty to God, others and self in the youth adding
this would make them fit to take up the button to champion the national cause.
Mrs Jemima Nartey, Deputy Chief Commissioner, Ghana Scout Association said the scout concept had remained a focal point in the development of the
youth by training and instilling in them values needed for their personal and national development.