The President’s Forum with Youth African Leaders

The Forum brought together close to 120 Young African Leaders from over 46 Sub-Saharan African nations, including Thembi Thadzi Grace and Sanyi Emmanuel Sanyi Youth Caucus Representatives to the Commonwealth from Malawi and Cameroon respectively; to have interactions, dialogues, professional meetings with a host of professional institutions in the US including the US Peace Corps, US State Department Staff, Members of the US Senate, Under Secretaries and the US Secretary of State Mrs. Hillary R. Clinton and a Town Hall meeting at the White House with US President, President Barrack Obama.

Worthy to note is that fact that this was not a forum where solutions to Africa’s problems; plaguing Africa in general such as unemployment, bad governance, stalled leadership, corruption, malaria and HIV/AIDS, political and social conflicts, elections, among many others would be met; but a forum for identifying workable and practical strategies to combat Africa’s socio-economic and political challenges especially by its youth, who are the present and future of the continent.

The welcome session at the Museum of African arts threw insight on the usage of arts in the narration of the history of a people. The US State Department introduced the Forum’s order of business with US Secretary of State Mrs. Hillary Clinton reminding delegates at the welcome Keynote address of the fact that “amidst our troubles, there are rich potentials and talents in Africa especially in Africa’s youth”. She further highlighted examples of local projects initiated and managed by young Africans which are working and contributing to making the lives of communities better.

During the town hall meeting with President Obama, he addressed the delegates reminding them of their collective responsibility as youths to work to rescue their nations and continent from the problems and challenges it faces. While President Obama decried the stalled governments that are in Africa, corruption, conflicts, unemployment and terrorism among other challenges, he made it clear that America was also suffering from its own genre of problems. In spite of this present state of affairs, President Obama affirmed that his government and the people of America believed that a new Africa could be constructed with the intelligence and talents of young Africans and that it was up to Africa’s Youth to wake up and change the face of the continent with America as a partner.

Take home from the President’s Forum with Young African Leaders;

· Africans hold the solutions to their problems

· Services Leadership

· Partnership

· Youth to Youth Partnership

· Empowerment