By Roselyn Phiri

Lilongwe, September 17, Mana: Youth and Society (YAS) and Youth Decide Campaign (YDC) are geared to host National Youth Conference under the theme “the state of governance and youth development” on September 21 to 22, 2022 at Bingu International Convention Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe.

In an interview with Malawi News Agency (Mana) on Saturday in Lilongwe, Chairperson for the Conference, Mwandida Theu said the main agenda was to create a platform for youth and government to cross- examines the state of governance and youth development in the country.

“There are so many issues about youth development and governance and this platform is meant for us to interrogate with government on how we can move forward, the conference is also intended to make sure that we come up with a solution based paper which can be then submitted to the State President,

We are not only interrogating with the government but also coming up with recommendations that can be brought forward for the government to act on them,” she said.

YAS Executive Director, Charles Kajoloweka said there are several issues affecting young people, general population and the government which need to be scrutinized.

“Specifically, we are looking at the state of economy barely in mind the current economic situation Malawi is currently in and also issues of law and corruption,” he said.

Kajoloweka added that there are serious areas of concern when it comes to issues of inequality, poverty levels, human rights issues, media freedoms and the overall civic space that need to be probed.

“What we are doing is to create a platform for key stakeholders to state of economy and governance and the anticipation is that the stakeholders that we are inviting are going to be solution focused because at the end of the day we need to come up with policy proposals that the government should focus on.

We are creating a platform for the government to account its performance since they took the government in 2020 because they promised a lot through their manifesto and that it’s high time we really intensified demand for accountability on the election commitment that they made to the people of Malawi and particularly young people,” he explained.

Kajoloweka said a communiqué would be presented to the President, judiciary and  National Assembly.

“The expectation is that all the key stakeholders will be open minded to create a space for a robust and constructive dialogue on the state of governance and youth development in the country,” he emphasized.

The National Youth Conference is an annual event and this year will be the first time convening over 160 delegates including youth NGOs, activists, government official and other stakeholders to deepen dialogue on the issues of state governance and youth manifesto

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