More than 70 young people from Sissila West District would benefit from a training scheme on the techniques of making local soap, which is on high demand in neighbouring Burkina Faso.

Reports from the local communities in the district show that several truckloads of soap are transported weekly from the southern part of Ghana to the French speaking West African country.

Mr Hudu Muah, the District Director of the National Youth Authority made this known during a stakeholders’ meeting to discuss matters concerning youth development in Gwollu, the Sissila West District capital.

He said the youth authority was liaising with the assembly and other partners to train over 70 youth, and expressed the hope that: “This would serve as an employment opportunity for the unemployed people in the Sissala West District”.

The forum brought together several youth development stakeholders to discuss the theme: “Preparing safe environment for the young ones, a societal responsibility”.

Mr Muah stated that collaboration, support and participation of stakeholders was imperative to ensure effective implementation of the project for the benefit of society.

Implementation of the project required some level of financial commitment and interested parties and the public should assist to raise funds to execute the scheme.

Mr Adams Touphic, the Director of National Youth Authority in the Sissala East Municipal Assembly noted that efforts were being made to ensure active participation of the youth in national development.

He said in the past, these programmes did not achieve the desired results, and advised the youth to engage leadership on their needs to allow policymakers to design the right policies and programmes that would inure to their economic growth and sustainability.

He said lack of supervision, monitoring and evaluation were largely responsible for the failure of the projects and policies being implemented through government agencies.

The District Coordinator of Youth Employment Agency in the Sissala West District, Mr. Adama Bayugo Waziru, noted that: “The youth most times do not utilize their skills and training given them for the development of themselves.”

“This is due to lack of proper monitoring and evaluation of these programmes by the implementing agencies.”

He expressed regret that many of such laudable projects and programmes had gone down the drain due to the practice and lack of funding.