At the beginning of March 2019, Towett Ngetich was at the marked the Youth – Pre-conference meeting on the African Health Agenda followed b the African Health Agenda International Conference.
As part of Restless Development and United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO at the Youth pre confernce meeting on the African Health Agenda), Three other youth advocates and I had the opportunity to voice our developed youth leadership, participation and accountability model to the thousands of other youth African youth delegates – all in attendance for the African Health Agenda International Conference.
Our session ran for two hours, in which we shared key aspects of youth-led accountability, which runs across our different works and spaces. I can confidently say that our presentation was the most engaging and relatable to the youth population.
Our mission was and is; equip youths from Africa to hold institutions accountable to their commitments to young people.
the main African Health Agenda International Conference was on the 5th – 7th March.
Under the same coat, supported by Restless Development and UNFPA ESARO we had a panel session on Youth-Led accountability. We broadly shared our experience, thoughts and models of youth leadership, participation and accountability to a room full of diverse nationalities, professions and interests.
I strongly recommend to each person reading this blog to click on the above link and more profoundly read through “Youth Leadership, participation and accountability 2.0″
I hope, someone somewhere, a young citizen is actively trying to hold a health stakeholder to account. I lay down possibilities of how as a young population we could join hands and proclaim a statement towards achieving Universal Health coverage for our populations.
We have a plan, a document – a guideline
The YLPA 2.0 Document was made up of young people from over 20 nationalities through consolation meetings. Recommendations listed in this document are just but a clear reflection of how our Africa’s stakeholders react to questions raised from the public, epically by young people.
The above document gives the young African citizen tips on how to query, track and disseminate information.
How do we implement the YLPA 2.0
First: read, analyze and understand.
Second: practice whatyou have read, stick to it and pass it across your youth networks. Knowledge is power, if all youth groups had a standard workable formula of holding key stakeholders accountable, then we would see a much quicker progressive change in the world!
As young people, we would more uniformly log our questions for answers.
We are in a boat, we all have row the boat in the same direction. This can only happen if we are in consensus, and this consensus can only be brought about by equitable knowledge distribution.
I want to dare whoever is reading to print one extra copy of the YLPA 2.0 and hand it to your partner, friend or youth leader, or share the document link to your friend.
If this happens, then your friend makes it happen, then the friend of your friend makes it happen, we will collectively achieve uniform distribution of knowledge! This empowers the young population to actively participate in holding health stakeholders accountable.
Let’s meet at the next conference more prepared.
As the #AHAIC2019 ended, my major question was, has the young person benefited from this?
Well, the answer is both yes and no.
If they were well prepared for the conference then yes, if not then, unfortunately, this did not favour them.
If we spread the model and knowledge, I am hopeful in the next conference young people will have the right cues at their fingertips.
We will know who to look for, what to ask, where to ask, among more.
We will be ready for that which is to come.
These are just but my thoughts; Towett Ngetich, a better, healthy world advocate.
