Mr Isaac Kwame Asiamah, the Minister of Youth and Sports, says government is ready to outdoor the reviewed National Youth Policy to guide the implementation of programmes and policies for youth development.

The Policy, to be outdoors by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in the course of the year, would help address the challenges of the youth in a more comprehensive and holistic manner.

The Minister said this in a speech read on his behalf at the launch of the Third International Scouts and Guides Fellowship Africa Regional Conference 2019, in Accra on Thursday.

He explained that the Policy was promulgated in 2010 and government, through the National Youth Authority, held a stakeholders’ dialogue, attended by youth groups and stakeholders to review it.

The Policy, he said, would create the needed support system to safeguard the development of young people.

“As a nation and above all as a continent, where the percentage of the youth out of the total population is almost 35 per cent, or still more, the question is how to discover and uncover the potentials of more young men and women,” he said.

Mr Asiamah said discovering the potentials of the youth was not enough and called on all to strive to develop and actualise those potentials for national growth and development.

Speaking on the principles of scouting and guiding, he said, they were derived from the concept of informal education and training, which helped young people to acquire knowledge, skills and abilities for life at an early stage.

He said it was important to discover the potentials of the youth early to help turn them into national assets and ensure they contributed to national development.

Mr Prosper Bani, the President of the International Scouts and Guides Fellowship, called on all scouts and guides to instil discipline and a sense of patriotism in the youth to develop positive attitudes towards cleanliness, protection of state property, and education.

He said to do that, they needed to understand the language of the youth, especially in relation to technology, to enable them to approach and associate with the youth accordingly for positive impact.

Mr Bani asked members of the Fellowship to be law-abiding, trustworthy, loyal, respectful, obedient, and disciplined as those were attributes needed to collectively achieve the goals of the scouts and guides.

Madam Stephanie S. Sullivan, the United States Ambassador to Ghana, said the activities of the Fellowship were in line with the US vision of supporting organisations and nations to promote security, good governance and prosperity.

She advised members of the Fellowship to be committed to promoting civil education among the younger ones and serve as good role models to them.

She said youth participation was important to development, adding that it reduced poverty and enhanced proper healthcare.

“The real future of our world is in the youth and we see the future as very bright so we should double our efforts to ensure that they are used positively to promote development,” Madam Sullivan said.

The conference was attended by scouts and guides from countries including Ghana, Zambia, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Benin, Uganda, Kenya, Senegal, Cape Verde, and Libya.