Youths Urged To Play Leading Roles In Cooperation Strategy

By Edith Wirdze

The Executive Director of the Cameroon Youths and Students Forum for Peace, CAMYOSFOP, Eugene Ngalim, has said youths' participation in the European Union, EU, the US and African Union Cooperation Strategy is vital for improvement of the Millennium Development Goals, MDGs.

He made the assertion in a training workshop that brought together Cameroonian and EU/US youths which held recently at the Yaounde International Relations Institute of Cameroon, IRIC, organised by CAMYOSFOP in collaboration with the African Youth Forum for Peace.

He declared the intention of CAMYOSFOP to see youths playing leading roles in shaping and influencing the development policies in their various nations and continents.It is against this background, he said, that his organisation established the partnership with the Global Youth Partnership for Africa, GYPA, an American-based NGO.

Ngalim emphasised that the EU-AU (African Union) Strategy is the outcome of the December 2005, EU Summit that adopted the "EU Strategy for Africa" setting out guidelines for a new Europe-African partnership in relation to peace, security and development based on notions of integration, solidarity and cooperation.

The process, he said, has been designed to lead to the adoption of a joint EU-AU strategy at the second EU-AU Heads of States Summit to be held in Lisbon-Portugal in December 2007.

According to Ngalim, a synergic relation between Europe/US and African youths is evolving as a result of the emergence of strong links between the civil societies of the continents.
It is within this context that the African Youth Charter was established in line with the World Program of Action for Youth adopted by the UN in 1995 and the 1998 Braga Youth Action Plan, working towards the achievement of the MDGs.

Representing the Minister of Youth Affairs, the Secretary General, Abdoulahi Mfoumbout, stressed the importance of the cultural and educational exchange programme, which would permit both American and Cameroonian youths to exchange the best practices and lessons learnt in the development pathway of their countries.