The National Youth Conference has attracted strategic institutional support from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Bank of Industry (BoI), European Union, and Zinox Technologies.
Other multinational firms that have indicated interest to identify with the conference include Access Bank, Stanbic IBTC, Nestle, Guinness, Fidelity Bank, Halogen Group, Suburban Fibreco and Zkyte Technologies, developers of the App for the virtual conferencing. The youth conference is being put together by the federal ministry of youth and sports development.
According to Nkechi Obi, the event coordinator, more than 8,000 people are expected to participate online. Obi told BusinessDay that this major boost came as a new date was announced for the event earlier scheduled to hold from October 12 to 15 but now moved to November 1st to 3rd.
Meanwhile, Sunday Dare, the minister of youth and sports development applauded the institutional support coming from the private sectors which he said would deepen youth participation in nation-building, governance, economy among others.
“The youth conference offers a hand-shake to stakeholders especially the private sector to come together to actively engage our robust youth population in the business of governance and decision-making.
“The support received so far from all our partners from the private, public and international community is very symbolic as it aligns with set goals of the conference. The job of governance is not a sole responsibility and the National Youth Conference provides a veritable opportunity for institutions to identify with the youths as we deepen their participation in nation-building,” Dare said.
Idris Olorunnimbe, the group company executive, The Temple Company, the marketing consultants for the project, acknowledged the sense of urgency and responsibility especially among the private sector to drive youth participation in development.
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“There is a consensus among all organizations especially the private sector who have identified with the National Youth Conference (NYCON). Everyone we have spoken to agrees that there’s no better time to get behind youth development and empowerment for governance. The next best time was yesterday. The sense of corporate responsibility demonstrated so far is on the rise,” Olorunimbe said.
The youth conference is expected to draw over 750 youths from the 36 states of the federation and the federal capital territory to Abuja. The event would also attract high-level officials from the three tiers of government, agencies, high-achieving youths, captains of industry, social enterprise organisations, international partners, erudite academics as well as influential religious and traditional leaders.
The event would provide an important platform for Nigerian youths to hold rich dialogues and proffer actionable resolutions. It is expected that these ideas can inform policy-making by the government of the day and future administrations.
Delegates at the three-day conference will have robust interactions along with three key thematic preoccupations including politics, nation-building, peace, unity and security, education, innovation & technology as well as the soft power of sports entertainment and creativity. The outcomes would be harmonised to provide a framework and building-blocs of robust policies and initiatives with far-reaching impact on the youth population.
