A capacity strengthening residential Boot Camp for youth leaders in policy formulation and implementation on democratic governance and socio-economic development was held from 14 – 18 December 2019 in Arusha, Tanzania.
The Boot Camp was organized by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Secretariat through its Joint COMESA – African Governance Architecture (AGA) project on Youth Engagement in Democratic Governance and Socio-Economic processes in Africa supported by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC).
The training was facilitated by MS-Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MS-TCDC).
The Boot Camp was officially launched by Honorable Hiwot Hailu, State Minister of Youth Cluster -Ethiopian Ministry of Women, Children and Youth and Mrs Beatrice Hamusonde, Director of Gender and Social Affairs at COMESA Secretariat.
The main objectives of the Boot Camp were the following:
- To enhance the capacity of youth to participate in democratic governance and socio-economic development;
- To increase youth participation and engagement in policy formulation and implementation; and
- To increase experience sharing among youth leaders from COMESA Member States;
The Boot Camp brought together 30 policy makers and youth leaders from 10 COMESA Member States including Ethiopia, Eritrea, Eswatini, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Each country was represented by two youth leaders (a male and female) and one policy maker.
During the Boot Camp policy makers and youth leaders from selected COMESA Member states interacted, discussed, and identified the key problems that limit or undermine the participation of the youth in democratic governance and socio-economic development processes and designed workable solutions.
The residential Boot Camp is part of the activities being implemented by the Joint COMESA-AGA project which falls under the COMESA Gender and Social Affairs Division. The project is one of the initiatives COMESA and AGA are implementing to operationalize the COMESA Youth Programme and the AGA-Youth Engagement Strategy (YES) in democratic governance processes.
The second installment of the Boot Camp is planned to take place in 2020.
Click on the links below for more details.