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FINDING OUR VOICE: - A CALL TO THE STAND UP AND TAKE ACTION CAMPIGN, 2008
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

From the 17th to the 19th of October 2008, the Stand Up And Take Action Campaign will happen. An initiative of the United Nations Millennium Campaign, an inter-agency initiative of the United Nations, mandated to help citizens hold their governments to account on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, and the Guinness World Record.

This will be the third year running for the campaign, a call to the global citizens to show solidarity against poverty and the structures that make it a global reality, and in support for the Millennium Development Goals. In it the call is to beat to last years record of 43 million people who stood up in solidarity against poverty will be highlighted.

Sub Saharan Africa is a sub-region still undergoing development stages in consolidation of democracy, Human Rights and Good governance. Therefore in general the region is facing challenges to compliance fully with Human Rights instruments as enshrined in UN convention, and Declarations.

In the context of this rights there are special groups that are not always accommodated in terms of policies and participation in particular youth and women. Despite breakthroughs that have been made at African Union level by adoption of the African Youth Charter, very few countries have ratified the African Youth Charter and there is urgent need to advocate for the ratification and Domestification of African Youth Charter.

The ratification of the African Youth Charter forms a basis for proper articulation of youth rights and obligations of the state at national level and through regional facilities that will develop a comprehensive regional Youth strategy to deal with youth issues as provided in the African Youth Charter.

It is the youth and women of the world who understand the problems affecting the society. The challenges facing the African society today are well articulated and summarized in the eight Millennium Development Goals. However, the State and its different apparatus must be taken into task to be transparent and accountable to the taxpayers. If there isn’t clear leadership dispensation in Africa and across the world, then the Eight MDGs shall become illusive just like many other government projects and policy articulations without any tangible effort to realize them.

It is in this regard that the Stand Up & Take Action 2008 seeks to mobilize African youth to act as vanguard and checks to these apparatus and of the governments and to actively involve themselves in policy formulation and implementation from the grass roots, to national level up to the regional level.

We seek to raise awareness of the problems affecting the society and in a nutshell summarized in the Eight MDGs and check and pressurize all institutions toward formulating and implementing policies geared toward realizing the MDGs. Besides checking the functioning and operations of policy makers, the campaign confirms that to have a meaningful change in Africa, there is a need for a generational change in the leadership realms. Focused and visionary young leaders must spearhead this change.

In this regard, the call for the youth, to join in their droves and build to the global psyche of the campaign cannot be underscored. This further seeks to mainstream the young men and women of Africa into active socio-economic and leadership affairs of this continent. This shall be realized through building the capacity of the youth to participate within electoral processes and other processes touching directly on the livelihoods of the youth.

Moreover, the youth should be involved in active processes of transforming the societies from participating in environmental conservation and protection, agricultural production, community development sports and talents development to mention a few.

The question and the call of the Youth involvement in the Stand Up & Take Action Campaign is that of globalising hope and for addressing the youth as leaders of today and not tommorrow. This is a focus that should be further highlighted as we engage with the campaign least we will wallow in a miasma of confusion and deceit, always surbordiante to structures that do not highlight our needs.





September 16, 2008 | 8:59 AM Comments  0 comments

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