Sylvester Mathew Tetteh
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Ghana in collaboration with National Youth Authority (NYA) has held the first phase of an idea pitching process dubbed “Youth Innovation for Sustainable Development (YISD) challenge” under the Youth Connekt Platform to select 16 winners for the award of $5,000 each to support their enterprises.
The 16 winners are expected to undergo business mentorship and 9 weeks of support services to test, validate and scale up the selected innovations from January to February 2020.
The award ceremony is slated on 14th December, 2019 in Accra.
In a speech read on his behalf, the UNDP Ghana Economic Specialist, Kordzo Sedegah, said Youth Connect Platform is a youth engagement platform with different layers that was brought into existence in 2016 by the Government of Rwanda in partnership with UNDP and was launched in Ghana in June, 2019 following the success stories of the initiative.
He indicated that the Innovation for Sustainable Development Challenge is in line with the goals of the Youth Connect Ghana to give young Ghanaians innovative minds to come up with brilliant ideas to contribute to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The Deputy Chief Officer of NYA, Nelson Owusu Ansah, gave an overview of the requirement and selection process, indicating that the competition cut across the 16 regions in Ghana with a targeted age of 15 to 35 years.
He disclosed that the regions were demarcated into Zone A and Zone B, with Zone A comprising of Oti Region, Bono Region, Bono East Region, Savannah Region, Northern Region, North East Region, Upper East Region, and Upper West Region.
Zone B comprises of Central Region, Greater Accra Region, Volta Region, Western Region, Western North Region, Eastern Region, Ashanti Region and Ahafo Region.
Mr Ansah revealed that out of 336 applicants, 16 finalists were shortlisted in Zone A and 23 finalist were shortlisted in Zone B amounting to 39 finalists.
The Zone A 16 finalists who pitched their ideas in Tamale and will be further scrutinized and the Zone B 23 finalists will be pitching their ideas on 10th December, 2019 in Koforidua.
The Chief Executive Officer of NYA, Sylvester Mathew Tetteh said the NYA is ready to support young people in diverse ways and expressed gratitude to UNDP for their support.
He encouraged the youth to be creative and also call on private investors to come in and support or invest in these ideas.
By Eric Kombat, Tamale