Kenya

"PAN AFRICAN YOUTH SUMMITS "

Millennium Villages Project component
Above- Right-MDG Icons that have been Africanized by the Regional Service Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Above left:, Dr. Djibril Diallo, Co-Chair of the summit and Director of the UN New Office of Sport for Development and Peace, is pictured at the centre holding the MDG ball conceptualized by UNDP Kenya. The ball was used for team exercises at the Morrocco summit.

Third Pan African Youth Summit- October 2006 New York

Estimates indicate that one in five youth live on less than $1 a day and that as many as 45% live on less than $2 per day. These statistics take on an added significance when they are considered against the many dimensions of poverty, as reflected in the Millennium Development Goals: hunger and malnutrition; lack of access to education and other basic services; high exposure to diseases; unsafe environment and lack of participation in decision-making. Read the agenda of the 2007 summit.

Although only one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) specifically mentions youth, a closer look will reveal the fact that young people are at the core of every goal. UN Youth Spokesperson for MDGs in Kenya is Mr. Ben Omondi. Click here to read the Standard Newspaper clip for January 11, 2007 on Youth MDG ambassador in Kenya.

The aim of the MDGs is to create a better future for today's young people, as illustrated in the agenda below. Youth recounting their experience and work towards achieving the MDGs by 2015 will be the main focus throughout the Summit, using sport and culture as entry points.

Second Panfrican Youth Summit-August 2005

Second Pan African Youth Leadership Summit was held 18-23 August 2005 at the Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. With theme “From Awareness to Action,” the Summit endorsed sport as an entry point for mobilizing African youth for practical initiatives, many delegates are working on projects using sport to help reverse the deadly HIV/AIDS epidemic, help at-risk youth and to promote peace and tolerance in areas torn by conflict.

“I am very happy that delegates from every African country, embodying the African Union’s young leaders, unanimously adopted the Ifrane Declaration at the conclusion of the summit,” said Dr. Djibril Diallo, Co-Chair of the summit and Director of the UN New Office of Sport for Development and Peace.

This Summit is a collaborative effort by several UN agencies and international organizations -the UN New York Office of Sport for Development and Peace, the UNDP Regional Bureaux for Africa and Arab States, UNDP Morocco Office, the Kingdom of Morocco, and the Global Peace Initiative of Women. For more details contact Karima.zerrou@undp.org

Background on the Africa 2015 Pan African Youth Conference (first conference held in Dakar, Senegal).

The Pan-African Youth Leadership Summit is part of the Africa 2015 initiative of the United Nations Development Programme, which was launched in 2003 to boost ongoing efforts and trigger new ones to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) all over Africa, using HIV/AIDS as an entry point. Initial components of Africa 2015 brought together cultural and sports leaders throughout the continent to partner with the United Nations in endorsing these goals. In January 2004, top African soccer teams took to the field at the 24th African Cup of Nations in Tunisia, and in doing so brought the message of the Millennium Goals and stopping HIV/AIDS to tens of millions of spectators via television. Soccer superstars Ronaldo and Zidane have enlisted in the initiative to protect as many from the epidemic as possible.

The goal of the Youth Leadership Summit was to provide opportunities for leadership, to identify and tap leadership potential, to educate youth on the critical issues and to enable them to develop their own plan of action for the decade ahead. The youth leaders presented their own vision of development goals for their region and was incorporated into a youth plan of action to the African Union for implementation.

By targeting HIV/AIDS, the initiative also aims to help achieve the other goals -- eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development