Marine base, Kpor and Okana: Youth Groups Pay Advocacy Visit to the Special Adviser to the RSG on Employment Generation.

… Urge Accountability and Transparency in Youth Employment Programmes

By Our Correspondent

The Rivers State Government headed by Nyesom Wike has been urged to entrench transparency and accountability in the youth employment and empowerment programmes in Rivers State.

The call was made in Port Harcourt recently when an NGO known as Centre for Environment Human Rights and Development, CEHRD led a group of Youth Networks – Marine base, Kpor and Okana Youth Leadership Networks to the special adviser to the Rivers state government on employment generation on advocacy visits on 12 April 2016 at the State Government Secretariat.

The chairman of Marine base youth leadership network who facilitated the advocacy visit on behalf of CEHRD and the networks explained to this publication that the meeting was part of a youth empowerment project being implemented in Kpor, Gokana LGA, Marine Base, PHALGA and Okana, Abua/Odual LGA by the organization with support from Nigerian Stability and Reconciliation Program, NSRP which is aimed at reducing violence in the society through a reduction of unemployment.

During the visits, representatives of the three networks urged the Special Adviser to advise the government on the need to strengthen the existing employment and empowerment processes to make them more transparent, accountable and Inclusive and also spread the reach to each local government by establishing Liaison offices/desks in the 23 local government where youths can go and get up-to-date information on what the government is planning and doing with concern to the youths in the state.

The Special Adviser to the governor on employment generation was told that the system of using Rivers State National Youth Council and The Local Government Chairmen to select beneficiaries for empowerment may continue to lead to abuse of the process and sabotage the essence of the programmes as the true beneficiaries may not be selected because the process may be unduly influenced.

The Adviser was told to advise the governor and other stakeholders involve in youth employment to consider various channels of advertisement of their programmes, including mass media, and posting on dedicated notice board at each local government/Liaison office/desk to ensure that the information is widely disseminated.

The groups made case for special preferences to be given to the physically challenged and other vulnerable members of the society as they may not be in position to compete favourably with others.

The Special Adviser to the Rivers state governor thanked the networks for the visit and for their interest in promoting transparency, accountability and inclusivity in youth employment programmes and building peace in the state.

He promised that a memo will be made to the governor to update and revalidate already existing data base of unemployment youths and weed out those names that have been employed while including new names.

This ‘new electronic’ database of the unemployed youth will include the sex, age, certificate, skills, etc. of unemployed youths in the state and when concluded the to be continuously updated list will minimise the challenge of doubt in selection and encourage transparency, accountability and inclusivity in the process.

According to the special adviser, the memo will include reinforcement to earlier memo sent to the governor on creation of Liaison offices/desks in the 23 local governor areas to cater for the proposed registration of the unemployed youths and others need of the youths in the state thereby improving access to information about youth employment and empowerment programmes and strengthening of the process.

To be included in the memo is the need to partner with community based NGOs who will partner with government to support the process.

He promised to advise the governor appropriately as well as other government stakeholders involved in the youth employment and empowerment process to include various advertisement channels to reach a wider audience of youth especially in the riverine areas and hard to reach villages and locations in the state. He asked that the network should always visit and be in touch regularly with the ministries as they will need to work with them to achieve the goal of a transparent, accountable and inclusive youth employment and empowerment programmes in Rivers State.