Chineme Okafor
11 November 2009
Abuja — The Federal Ministry of Youth Development recently moved to sanitise the activities of the numerous Non Governmental organisations (NGOs) that specialise in youth advocacy, when it hosted a one-day national conference of youth NGOs in Abuja.
The conference sought to devise a new framework of relational and operational structure of youth NGOs in Nigeria with sustained conformity to best practice that will improve existing models of youth NGOs, which will strengthen youth participation in national development.
According to the ministry, the forum, which had representatives of existing youth NGOs, organised private sector, and donor agencies, was necessary and timely as government is in need of structurally efficient partners in its youth development agenda.
The ministry stated that the growing proliferation of youth oriented NGOs as a result of the recent focus of government on youth concerns was no longer acceptable to the ministry, adding that non-compliance with registration requirement have become rampant and intolerable.
The lapses experienced with these unstructured youth NGOs, according to the ministry, include lack of stability, management deficiencies, unspecialised operations, unethical financial accountability, bias localisation, and non coordination within the sector.
These, the Ministry said, reveal lots of shortcomings and opportunities, as well as challenges to the ministry, which is often at mix with the decision of partnership in the implementation of programmes.
In his opening speech, the Minister of Youth Development, Senator Akinlabi Olasunkanmi, said that government is aware of its role in the institutional status of NGOs even with the non interference principle in place.
He stated that the NGOs have a duty to conform to best practice model to achieve the mutual goal of youth growth, just as the conference is expected to create an alignment of strategies and synergy among stakeholders to achieve the best model.
He further stated that it was time to address the subject of institutional status of such NGOs to guarantee that newly approved policy framework and its goals for the youth will be realised.
The Minister enumerated the features of such models as specialisation of focus and operations, localisation of activities for maximum impact, transparency and accountability, non politicisation in advocacy, ethics in operation, capacity building and mentorship from established NGOs to budding ones.
He however advised participants to show commitment in deliberation, expecting that the conference will enhance strict adherence of NGOs to set standard, and regulations, create an improved coordination mechanism between the ministry and youth NGOs.
He also expected the forum to provide an environment for the specialisation of NGOs to maximise opportunities available, and determine a trusting model of relationship between the ministry and stakeholders.
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