By Kabuye Ronald
United Nations resident coordinator in Uganda Susan Ngongi Namondo has said that youths must be engaged and fully involved in the Sustainable Development Goals and the National Development Plan since this cannot be fully achieved without their active participation.
Susan made the remarks while closing the five days training for the African United Nations Youth Delegate Program (AUNYD) where 20 best selected youths out of 500 acquired knowledge on how things are done at the National, regional, continental and United Nation level but also to select the two youths that will be part of the Uganda’s delegation that will represent the country at the UN General assembly later this year.
Susan said that their involvement will help them benefit and also solve replication going forward before advising them to learn about the structural and the system of the world which requires a lot reading.
She also revealed that Uganda is still behind on SDGs because of some global challenges like covid 19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine which increased commodity prices, inflation and debt issues, the country’s internal challenges hence affecting development plans.
His Excellency Hans Von Schroeder, the deputy ambassador of Germany to Uganda which also funded the project said that their interest is to see the growth and development of Uganda and Germany politically, economically and socially.
Fredrick Broers, the project coordinator at CRISP one of the funder of the training said that the project is a follow to a project they launched in South Sudan and now expanding it to 5 other countries including: Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Sudan with the aim of having a large delegation of youths representation at the United Nations.
Broers said that after the assessments, they will select two candidates who will represent Uganda to the UN general assembly in New York however, all the 20 trained fellows will keep engaging with them doing outreach campaigns across the country, presenting the program but also gathering what the youths want to be represented at national and UN general assembly.
Richard Baguma Tinkasimire, the United Nations Association of Uganda UNAU Secretary General which organized and convened the meeting said that the training was just a kickoff of activities to empower Ugandan youths to take up leadership roles at the global as well as the national level.
He said that they want the youths to be champions for development and transformation, to propagate the gospel of the Sustainable Development Goals and to be able to work within Uganda’s and regional’s development frameworks, to take development to the grassroots particularly among the young people.
