Greater Accra Regional Youth Network has celebrated the world International Youth Day with a call on the government to prioritise youth development issues and help address them amicably.

They said job losses and burgeoning unemployment challenges that bedevilled the youth were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown, where everything turned upside down.

“On this historic day in the life of the youth across the world, we unite with the strongest voice to call on the Government of Ghana to prioritize and invest massively in developing the youth by instilling in them employable Information Technology (IT) skills to ease the unemployment burden they are confronted with.

“The rippling effect of the COVID-19 has brought untold pain and hardship across the globe. Infection numbers continue to rise, more companies are struggling to survive, and terrifying food sources and millions more people are going to bed hungry every night. It is no doubt we are living through very challenging times, where issues of the youth all over the world have been compounded in similar magnitude.”

This was in a statement signed by Joseph Kobla Wemakor, Public Relations Officer of GARYN and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.

The Greater Accra Regional Youth Network is a web of youth groups from various Municipal, Metropolitan and District Assemblies in the Greater Accra Region. The objective of the network is to promote youth empowerment in the region through advocacy and other projects that would transform the lives of the youth.

The statement said among all the issues the world was faced within this era of the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, public health and economic issues dominated, putting many lives at risk particularly young people who constituted half of the world’s population and it was a concern many leaders across the globe were confronted with.

“We believe focusing on youth development issues at this moment of hardship, will help to build their capacities through the provision of employable IT skills in a bid to help create employment opportunities for them as a way to ease their unemployment burden if not wipe away the economic burden brought upon us by the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are therefore calling on the government to urgently roll out a national ICT for Work programme with special focus on preparing the Ghanaian youth for the virtual or digital world in order to stay relevant or competitive in the global job market.”

The statement said in line with the theme of this year’s International Youth Day: “Youth Engagement for Global Action”, we also appeal to the political parties in the country contesting for political power in the upcoming polls in December to exercise restraint in their dealings, eschew violence and desist from instigating the youth to perpetrate mayhem before, during and after the elections, but should rather collaborate with the youth to ensure peaceful, political and sustainable process.