By Leonard Masauli

Kajoloweka (2nd Left)- LDCs must invest in Youth, PIC Leonard Masauli MANA

Doha, Qatar, March 6, Mana: About 46 Youths participating in the Least Developed Countries conference in Doha, Qatar, says time has come for African leaders to harness and leverage the youths’ skills in their respective countries in order to achieve meaningful strides towards sustainable development.

During a Youth forum discussion at the LDC conference on Sunday, Malawi Youth representative and Executive Director for Youth and Society (YAS), Charles Kajoloweka said time has come for leaders in the Least Developed Countries to utilise the youth skills to achieve a transformative change in their respective countries.

“Young people are the heart of achieving the Malawi 2063 but to achieve that there is need for our country to invest in youth power so that they become a social capital for development. Malawi 2063 agenda is youth centric and this is the right way to achieve development.

“No country can move forward aside the youths and this need to be addressed by flipping the script, from fear to hope, unemployment to employment, poverty to prosperity, conflict to peace and this will change the narrative to use their skills for a transformative change,” said Kajoloweka.

Kajoloweka said aside this, Malawi needs to invest more and diversify its economy by focusing on issues of mining  in line with the fundamentals of Malawi 2063 which focuses on urbanisation, Commercialisation as well as industrialisation.

He said Malawi therefore should cast the net wide and use the LDC conference to expand on partnerships and learn from other countries on how they are doing on their economies, and  translate the conference resolutions into actions that will benefit Malawi.

Minister of Information Moses Kunkuyu said the conference in Doha gives hope and huge desire for Least Developed Countries to move to being middle-income countries with commitments made by developed countries.

“Malawi is also committed to move towards graduation and exit from the LDC, now that we are exiting from being the Chair of LDC, fighting corruption is key towards migrating from the LDCs.

 Malawi is such a country which has stuck on corruption and we cannot keep doing this for ages. It is like pouring resources to a basket that has holes. We must unite to fight against corruption and poverty,” said Kumkuyu.

The Youth Forum at the 5th United Nations among others, discussed stimulating efforts regarding empowerment issues amid the sufferings from insufficient resources, to combat epidemics and escalating debts, which has led to a decline in developmental progress of their respective countries.

The 46 Least Developed countries have a total of about 242 million youths.

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