‘Involve youth in decision-making’
To ensure youth empowerment, the government needs to formulate an action plan to implement the National Youth Policy 2017, speakers at a webinar urged. They also called for the formulation of a 'Youth Council' to ensure youth empowerment.
The calls were made at a webinar titled "Implementing National Youth Policy 2017: Concerns of Diverse Young People to Address", jointly organised by Dhrubotara Youth Development Foundation (DYDF) and ActionAid Bangladesh.
"Young people constitute a large population of Bangladesh, but they are not being involved in the government's budgetary allocation and decision-making process," DYDF executive director Amiya Prapan Chakraborty Arka said.
"In absence of political will and administrative initiative, the whole thing (the policy) will remain halted at the formulation stage and will not be of any use for the development of the youth," Nazmul Ahsan, manager, Action Aid Bangladesh said.
On behalf of youth development organisations of Bangladesh, speakers also recommend reviewing and re-evaluating the youth budget in a realistic standard, considering especially the plights of marginalised youth.
Several recommendations were also made to emphasise inclusion, so that young people, irrespective of age, ethnic identity, physical disability, locality, income class, and gender can participate.
Youth representatives also recommended that apart from the Ministry of Youth and Sports, every ministry should work by effectively prioritising the youth, while the Ministry of Youth and Sports should be separated.
Besides, alongside the government, financial institutions, banks, domestic and foreign donor agencies should take separate youth-friendly programmes, speakers said.
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