The Ho Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Divine R.K Bosson, has called for effective private-public partnership (PPP) to develop the potentials of the youth in the municipality, to ensure a healthy life among them.
Mr Bosson said, the role of the PPP was part of a collective effort to promote youth development to enable them to face the future with hope.
The Ho MCE was speaking on the theme: “Building a young people inclusive city, Therole of the private-public partnerships” at a three-day event organised by a Ho based non-governmental organisation (NGO), Node Eight Foundation in Ho.
According to him the youth were endowed with skills that needed to be developed for the overall development of the country.
He noted that the youth were gifted with energy, creativity, and dynamism which were essential in driving economic growth and social development in a conducive environment that would promote their welfare, safety, and security.
Mr Bosson observed that youth inclusive city, was the one that actively engaged the youth to effectively participate in the decision-making process, prioritised their well-being, and provided them with access to available opportunities that would promote their growth and development.
He said PPP could only succeed in promoting a youth inclusive agenda, if the partners mobilised resources and expertise, to provide the necessary support for the youth to enable them to leverage the strengths of each of the partners and to create innovative solutions that would address the unique needs of young people.
The Managing Director of Node Eight Foundation, Mr Courage KomlaAsase, said a three-year development programme for the youth in the Ho Municipality had been carefully drawn, to prepare them adequately to take up available opportunities in the area.
Mr Asase explained that as part of the youth development programme, young people would be engaged frequently to identify problems that militate against their growth and development as well as to identify available opportunities that they could take advantage of to develop.
He further explained that after soliciting the views of the youth in the Ho Municipality, as well as identified their challenges and opportunities; a non-political manifesto would be developed as a guide to develop the youth to live in a healthy city of Ho, where opportunities for their development would be made available and attractive to them.
Mr Asase stressed that the non-political manifesto would include the aspirations of the youth, available opportunities and identifiable problems that worked against youth development, and such problems would be addressed to encourage them to become active participants in the decision-making process.
He said the objective of Node Eight Foundation was to collaborate effectively with the Ho Municipal Assembly and other agencies and organisations to promote youth development in a peaceful city, where youth employment problems would be removed and creation of opportunities that would allow them to stay and work in the area.
FROM LAWRENCE MARKWEI, HO
