Gyeeda Bill Commendation, Congratulations And Suggestions/appeal

The Minister;
Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations
Ministries Post Office;
Accra.

Dear Minister;

GYEEDA BILL
MESSAGE OF COMMENDATION AND CONGRATULATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS/APPEAL

The leadership of Ghana National NGOs Coalition for Youth (GHANCY) deems it an Organizational morality and obligation to send to you, the Ministry and the Government the following information including a message of commendation and congratulations on the GYEEDA Initiative

1. INTRODUCTION OF ORGANIZATION
a. Nature: The Ghana National NGOs Coalition for Youth (GHANCY) is a legally registered umbrella Organization made up of over 150 individual Civil Society Organizations( CSOs)-which are principally Non-Governmental Organizations(NGOs) and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs).

b. Policy Commitments of GHANCY: By our Organizational policy GHANCY and its individual member-organizations have jointly and severally chosen a commitment to work to advance for, stimulate for, promote, protect, and safeguard the interests, well-being, welfare, survival, human rights, growth and development of young-people( children and youth) through technical guidance, empowerment and social support services across sectors to enable them contribute to promoting social development

c. GHANCY'S Support for GYEEDA: Having considered certain Social Development Challenges (SDCs), that relate to, connect, involve and concern the youth, especially in the economic empowerment sector GHANCY has no choice but to hail and support Government on the reshaping, legalization and rebranding the GYEEDA initiative, because we believe GYEEDA will work to satisfy the ILO Convention on decent work for the youth.

2. COMMENDATION
For bringing and attempting to inject new life into GYEEDA to become a vibrant Youth Economic Empowerment Programme (YEEP), which is also a key focus of GHANCY, GHANCY wishes to register our un-waning and unflinching support for Government of the day for the rebranding and legalization of the scheme, and accordingly to commend the President, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations for the unshaking efforts in bringing GYEEDA II into a new birth, and finally passing it into a Bill, despite all discouraging criticisms.

3. CONGRATULATIONS:
GHANCY Leadership also wish to congratulate the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations and the Parliament for finally passing GYEEDA II into a Bill, awaiting Presidential assent to fully legalize it, after passing through a test of time and debate

4. SUGGESTIONS/PROPOSALS FOR IMPROVING GYEEDA OPERATIONS AND GOVERNANCE
Whiles we support and cherish the programme, and that we commend and congratulate you, Minister, your Ministry and the Government for rebranding GYEEEDA and moving it into a BILL status through Parliamentary endorsement, permit GHANCY to present to you, the following suggestions/proposals as inputs for supporting improvement in the overall governance of GYEEDA II:

a. That, unlike the introduction of NYEP which defied and denied the Youth opportunity for participation in deciding their vocational options, GHANCY calls on the Ministry and the GYEEDA Management and Board to ensure active participation of the youth in the management and in deciding the modules for training and enterprise development and therefore to undertake wider consultations with the various categories of the youth, including village-located, vulnerable and marginalized including young-people with disability by working through and with their organized group and community-based leaders and handlers in schools, in religious organizations and business associations, through Traditional leaders, through NGOs working with young-people the leadership of the National Youth Authority, Students Representative Council of Tertiary Institutions, SHS and Vocational-Technical Institutes, NVTI, COTVET, and MOFA Agricultural Colleges

b. That GYEEDA Management at National, Regional and District Levels should always make references for guidance to some helpful directions and guidelines on effective handling of economic and social development initiatives for poverty reduction and successful employment-generation and enterprise promotion documented in some International Development Documents. Among others, few which are of relevance to GYEEDA are listed below as follows:

I. The Kigali Declaration ( 2005) On Leadership Capacity Building for Decentralized Governance and Poverty Reduction in Sub-Saharan Africa

II. Commitments under the New Partnership for Africa Development ( NEPAD) including provisions for:

• Democracy and political governance such as protection of rights( i.e- of GYEEDA beneficiaries/clients), accountability among public office-olders and civil servants( i.e-GYEEDA II Officials ) fighting corruption ( i.e-in GYEEDA II), promotion and protection of the rights of women, children and young-people ( i.e- in/with GYEEDA II ),and vulnerable groups ( who need to be targeted by GYEEDA II)

• Socio economic development ( i.e. at the youth front )including the objective for self-reliance and self-sustaining ( of/among the GYEEDA II Youth ), strengthening policies and social development ( in GYEEDA II),AFFORDABLE ACCESS TO WATER AND ENERGY, FINANCE AND ict 9 all needed as factors of production in youth-run enterprises supported by GYEEDA II), gender equality and broad-based participation in development 9 including active participation of GYEEDA II Youth and key stakeholders)

• Economic governance and management such as transparency in financial management ( i.e- within GYEEDA II), for economic growth and poverty reduction ( i.e-for/among youth in/with GYEEDA II)

c. That GYEEDA II Management and Board of Directors at all levels of operations should take cues and learn lessons from the rot that that took place in NYEP ( I was among thos NYC Officials who monitored and evaluated NYEP Activities and management) and in GYEEDA I and to wean themselves from such financial scandals and to remain financially and operationally snowy and to make those occurrences go and into history

d. That GYEEDA II Management should consider and undertake closer collaborations and partnership with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development the Regional Co-ordinating Councils ( RCC) and the MMDAs to ensure that the Local Economic Development (LED) component of the Ghana Decentralization Policy Framework and the Decentralization Action Plan work effectively to support youth-self employment and make youth-run enterprises (YREs) thrive to promote and enhance sustainable youth entrepreneurship ( SYE ) at local community levels.

e. That we call on GYEEDA II Management and the Minister to consider adopting and applying some internationally accredited, acknowledged, accepted and recognized Principles For Promoting Successful Youth-Run Enterprises and Youth Entrepreneurship which are applicable in all settings, both in developed and developing countries. GHANCY wishes to pay a special courtesy call on the Minister, the GYEEDA II Board/Management and present the Principles to you personally so that together we can have a common platform to share ideas and deliberate on the principles and the possibility of adopting them in the GYEEDA II governance systems. The 15-point Principles were used or applied by two Youth Entrepreneurship Promotion Facilitator-Institutions in Italy and UK, called I-G Italy (in Italy), and the Prince's Trust Business (PTB ) Services ( in UK) ( Source: Wolfson College Oxford University, England)

f. That GYEEDA II should equitably target all youth categories, including all those located and living in very rural, hard-to-reach, excluded and disadvantaged communities, and the vulnerable migrant young-people by conducting a research using a research technique called MAPPING DISADVANTAGE EXERCISE which was also used by I-G Italy and PBT in their programmes for their young entrepreneurs.

5. OUR APPEAL
a. Placement Of GHANCY Into GYEEDA II Committees:
That GHANCY appeals to GYEEDA II to consider giving placements to GHANCY by representation on GYEEDA Management Councils/Committees at National, Regional and District Levels especially in Monitoring and Evaluation and Research. GHANCY has a crust of personnel within the various individual member-organizations who have the academic, professional, technical and experiential capacity, capability to work for GYEEDA II programmes to succeed and sustain because we have the moral obligation to ensure sustainable youth empowerment across development sectors.

b. Courtesy Call On Minister And GYEEDA Officials
Accordingly we are humbly requesting for payment of courtesy call on the Minister and the Officials of GYEEDA II, with the aim of creating a common platform for face-to-face presentation of inputs from GHANCY and for further deliberations on the inputs, especially on the 15-point principles for promoting youth-run enterprises and youth entrepreneurship

Time-Schedule: We shall accept and appreciate any date and time and venue that will suit the convenience of the Minister, but preferably in the late February or third week of March, 2015

6. Responding To The Message: Kindly use Phone ( 0268594570 //0541494434

E-mail; [email protected] //[email protected]

Once again we wish to commend and congratulate the President, the Minister and the entire NDC Administration for this bold initiative'

Akpe, Ayikoo, Mo Ne Yo
Thank You
Long Live The Youth Of Ghana, Long Live the President, Long Live Ghana

George Ankomah Yeboah-(National President-GHANCY
CC/
The Office of President 2. Office of Vice President 3. All Media Houses