As part of Global Citizen’s vision and mission in Ghana, the international advocacy organisation in collaboration with the Youth Engagement Office, Office of the President of Ghana, organised a 1-day youth forum on Thursday 8th September 2022 at the Alisa Hotel in Accra-Ghana.
This interactive session convened young people, youth-led organizations, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and other key stakeholders to come together to dissect the prevailing issues and agree on a common vision and roadmap to mitigate and end the impact of extreme poverty on adolescent girls, the environment, and systems.
During this Forum, Global Citizen further highlighted the remarkable opportunity to demonstrate the power of advocacy, high-level convening power, and engagement with key stakeholders; Youth led organisations, Corporate Social Organisations, and youth activists to among other things:
- Provide a platform for CSOs to amplify their work to a large audience
- Facilitate an interactive session for youth voices to speak up and proffer solutions to the issues they care about in line with Global Citizen’s advocacy campaign.
- Ensure a strong call to action to Global Citizen Festival, Accra Ghana
- Mobilise the youth to join the Global Citizen clean-up exercise on September 10th
- Empower CSO partners to encourage their communities to participate in volunteer opportunities.
The moderators present at the Forum included Anita Aris King, I Said What I Said, Sika Ossai. To deliberate on the power of using advocacy and high-level convening power to effect desired societal changes, panelists with remarkable industry experience took turns to share their ideas. These panelists included the distinguished Humphrey Fellow (2022), Roselyn Adjei, the Director, Climate Change at Ghana’s Forestry Commission and also the National REDD+ Focal Point for Ghana, AF80 co-authors (tbc), Peace Corps, British High Commission, AIESEC, C40 Basics International.
The event which was in three-folds; – CSOs, activists, youth community leads, discussed their work, successes and challenges. Participants for the event during registration were invited to pose particular questions and priority issues they would like to see addressed during the roundtable discussions.
The forum covered a wide range of topics related to empowering girls, taking climate action, breaking systemic barriers that keep people in a cycle of poverty and defending civic space in order to reflect on young people’s contributions to these fields.
This fully attended forum invited 150 participants from across Ghana, including: Young people, primarily representing youth organizations, universities and youth groups, CSOs and Activists, INGOs – Foundations and donor agencies, Academics, Talent and the Media.