In South Africa, after nearly two decades of democracy there is a fear that the quality of education has decreased despite the huge investments made by the local and national government into the educations systems from the primary to the tertiary level.  It is possible that in trying to rectify the injustice of the Bantu education act on the black African population the government might have compromised the quality of education nationwide. The current South African (SA) government has made various policy changes in the education system and curriculum changes in order to ensure that every South African citizen has an equal opportunity to basic education.

However, the socio-economic status of an individual South African plays a large role on the level of education he/she will be able to obtain. Despite the government’s efforts to reduce or remove the racial inequality brought about the apartheid government, nearly 60% of the country’s economic wealth belong to the white minority. Some studies have shown that the average white home earns six times more than the average black home. Therefore the white families are much more capable of investing into their children’s education.  The current situation in SA is one where the wealthy whites have built expensive private schools for their children. There are a few wealthy families of other races that are able to place their children in these private schools. However, the majority of South African youths who are black still suffer the aftermath of the past government. Most of their parents are poor and cannot afford the funds required for schooling. Unfortunately the government education budget is not enough to cover the costs for efficiently running a school. Therefore the parents must also contribute to their children’s education.

In the past white South African students were privileged as they were given the opportunity to be educated at a higher standard than all other races. Therefore a white youth on completion of secondary school was guaranteed a good well paying job, managerial or supervisory position, while his black counterpart  was left with little choice for a career ( working in a mine or doing road and railway work). With the new government all racial groups have found themselves on the same platform with equal opportunity to education and improved lifestyle. Therefore more and more students are completing secondary school and a large number are entering tertiary education institutions.

The quality of education in South Africa should also be re-evaluated. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the average secondary school graduate to obtain a job. The current students are lacking a number of practical skills required in the workplace and employers are not willing to provide training due to additional costs on their business. The students are often obliged to attend tertiary institutions to obtain the skills they lack. Those involved in developing education policies for South Africa need to come up with strategies to improve the secondary school curriculum in a way that would give students more career options outside of tertiary diplomas and degrees.

Teachers’ standards, incentives and tools

The main argument here is encapsulated by SS and RR’s position that ‘…without motivated and competent teachers focused on pupil learning, all the reforms will come to nought. If teachers are at the heart of education, they ought to be at the heart of…policy and practice, budgets and political rhetoric as well.’ However, rather than their view of a teacher versus infrastructure trade-off, I view both as complimentary and deserving appropriate investments. Teachers need to have both subject knowledge and pedagogical skills. In this sense, teachers could be seen as facilitators working with students to better understand the world around them and their own experiences. Learning after all is not just a function of classroom experience but a summation of the child’s interaction with their environment.

Teachers need to be trained pre and in service, but above training, standards for entry into the teaching profession need to be reviewed. Entry needs to be made competitive and like other specialised professions, teaching needs clear induction, review and upgrading processes, in addition to standard inspection processes. As SS and RR argue, rather than a ‘checking’ function, inspectors could do much more in contributing to the teaching and learning process. In addition to good teachers, attention needs to be paid to building/improving classrooms, providing learning tools (such as computers), libraries, laboratories, health/ sick bays, counselling service and toilets! This needs clear thinking beyond the current ‘six classroom block’ paradigm which is predominant around the continent. The thinking should focus on ‘what makes a classroom good for student learning?’

Language of Instruction

Language of instruction is perhaps one of the biggest subjects in education policy in East Africa, and the same is the case in the republic of South Africa. While, as SS and RR rightly note, many educationists agree on the value of local languages, there are concerns about opportunity for children if they are not well grounded in international languages. My take on this is to pursue a twain route: teach both languages simultaneously, and enlist the involvement of communities in language education, as many as 6, 000 languages are at risk of extinction. I am for learning and preserving local languages, without which many important local expressions and history may be lost. But how best to do this and achieve the best results remains a subject for debate both now and in future years. The ‘language of preservation’ – ‘language of opportunity’ debate continues.

Expand but focus

SS and RR discuss the need to set clear targets in relation to infrastructure, human capital development and enrolment. Achieving the right balance between these three issues presents serious policy concern for governments, especially given resource shortfalls and dependence on international donors whose mandate mainly focus on ‘universal primary education’ as enshrined in the MDGs. Many countries focus at the moment on enrolment as a measure of educational progress, but all three should work in tandem, and there is hardly enough justification for trade-offs as each is crucial to achieving any form of progress in education delivery.

Better to ‘focus on outcomes’ not outputs

Setting clear targets should have implications for curriculum, quality and outcomes, and bring to the fore the question: education for what? As SS and RR rightly note, education needs to focus more on outcomes in the lives of the pupils such as mobility, in addition to the currently near exclusive focus on outputs- no of students enrolled or completing final exams. Increasing enrolment is a good start, but this needs to be in tandem with the delivery of quality secondary education. Outcomes could include a range of possibilities in the lives of the young people.  Focusing on outcomes will mean linking education policies to broader national policies. National aspirations and educational planning should be inextricably linked, and the former should to a greater extent shape the design and pursuit of the latter. In order to answer the question ‘education for what,’ education policy outcomes should be evaluated and measured within the context of long term national development strategies such as the vision 2016s, 2020s and 2030s in different African countries; Botswana, Nigeria and Zambia respectively.

‘Measuring Success’

SS and RR raise important concerns about the present focus of measures of educational progress exclusively on outputs such as test/ examination results, rather than competencies and skills gained by students. This concern has been a subject of intense debate in South Africa following the release of the recent high school matriculation exam results. Measuring educational progress requires much more than exam results. It requires a focus on analytical and problem solving skills, and beyond that, schools need to develop a mechanism to keep track of their pupils’ future trajectories – where do they go when they leave? What do they become? Employers in Africa complain about the lack of human capital, in spite of claims that ‘this generation of young African’s are the most educated’ than any previous generation of their age cohort. Part of the problem is that schools don’t help them learn the skills they really need to survive in the labour market and employers are not ready to train.

ps: I welcome comments and your thoughts on the situation of secondary education in your country.

The main justifications were: the Zoo was an important venue for learning and recreation, not many such spaces were available in the city for the later at the time, and with the zoo in good shape, our kids could at the very least see the animals about which they are thought in class without needing to travel out of the city. The thinking then was to eventually expand the project to include broader issues like: conservation, wild life education and zoo management. At the time, I received one correspondence from an individual at the Nigerian LNG  who suggested the company could sell scraps to support the Zoo. A couple of years later, the project also generated some discussion on the internet, with calls for and commitments to support.

So when I saw this article [Enchanted by Port Harcourt's Wildlife Park, Sept. 2011] which suggests there might have been some improvements at the Zoo, I was so delighted. However, this other article [Nigeria-Wildlife: Where have all the animals gone?, Nov. 2011] published two months later suggests differently. Haven not been to the Zoo in several years, I am unable to verify or refute the content of these articles, but it will be a very big relief if the Zoo is indeed getting some attention.

Whenever I have an opportunity, I will visit the Zoo, and share my thoughts on its state and the state of the animals. Whatever the case, it is certain that the Zoo will require better funding from the government and support from the private sector to undertake many tasks, including simple ones like better shelter for the animals and setting up a website. I hope that going forward some support can be mobilised in this regard, and perhaps the ‘Zoo renewal fund’ can finally be established.

On the fuel subsidy mêlée, I think the federal government should fix the refineries, build new ones and develop local refining capability. Only after this has been accomplished should any discussion about removing subsidies be brought to the table. By that time, we should be talking about other facets of the nation’s development where we could channel the ‘new savings’ from the no-more-necessary ‘subsidy fund’ just like we did with the so-called ‘debt relief savings.’ For now, leave it as it is and tackle the corruption within the disbursing agency, that’s where the problem is, not in the subsidy itself.

The 2011 National Honours appears to have brought to the fore (again) some of the challenges we face as a country. First was the poor processes of nomination and communication to nominees (which, it is reported, led to at least one prominent nominee rejecting the award). Second was the inadequacy of medals and certificates at the honours event. You would think that at that level things would be  better organised given the enormous resources committed but apparently not. Did the committee not know the exact number of people receiving the honours? Whose responsibility was it to make sure the materials were ready ahead of the award ceremony? I will be interested to know what happened to those responsible, and if the person (s) who brought such a height of national embarrassment on us were reprimanded. In other contexts, those responsible would have resigned by now and apologised to the nation. But here, if they even bother, a terse statement will be issued et la vie continue.

But more substantively, what are the criteria for receiving these honours? Who nominates the awardees? Is there an open process through which citizens can put forward candidates? Or are the awards simply the exclusive reserve of public servants and their associates?

Protest – I have ‘witnessed’ three youth related protests since my stay in this country. The first was student protests against fee increases and funding cuts to the education system. The second was the widely publicised protest against police killing of Mark Duggan in London. The third against the planned closure of UEA’s music school by 2014. The students ‘collected’ around 7,000 signatures and organised a protest rally on November 8 featuring various speakers. Their call was simple, leave the music school open, as a cultural legacy and for posterity.

I have been thinking about the student movements here and in my country and the similarities and differences between them. In both countries, students are averse to fee increases; the Unions receive some kind of subvention from their home ‘authorities’ and students use protests to express their grievances. However, there are marked differences in their approaches, for example the difference between a well researched signature campaign versus break the window ‘aluta continua’ which ends in wanton destruction of University facilities (that is not to say this does not happen here, but it is not the ‘norm’ as in my country). Many thoughts are running through my mind: is it a result of differing education systems?; an outcome of the different social, economic and political environments?; is it just ethical? An outcome of deprivation and frustration on the other side? Or is it history? Student activism here started during the 1880s, ours only started in 1945. Perhaps the long history has created a ‘system’ here, which is yet to manifest in ours? I wish we could borrow a thing or two from this side and share on the order in the pursuit of various desirable causes.

Collaboration – HIV remains a humongous public health challenge in Nigeria and the government adopted a multi-sectoral approach bringing together various actors to tackle the challenge. HIV counselling and testing (HCT) is an important medium to encourage people to know their status, and reduce progression to AIDS, since people could be put on anti-retroviral medicine once they know their status. It also contributes to reducing further infections as positive people are encouraged to adopt safer sex practices like condomising in order to prevent others from being infected, or themselves from being re-infected. However, counselling psychologists appear to be missing from the action. As long ago as I remember, I have been calling for better engagement of counselling psychologists in the provision of HIV counselling and pre-test and post-test services. This is pertinent because counselling psychologists deal with a range of issues from the psychology of learning, behaviour modification to adjustment.

So beyond HCT, they could play important roles in other areas like: monitoring drug adherence and factors that inhibit or promote the behaviour. Their roles can also extend to the study of life quality of life of PLHA, for which I am yet to encounter any data from Nigeria. QoL data serve important purposes in health policy decision-making and have been found to provide guidance in medical decision-making. It would serve some purpose in AIDS related care within hospital settings. QoL data could also provide needed information to understand the relationship between post traumatic stress disorders, other co-occurring psychological conditions such as depression and HIV. So far, I do not personally see clearly how the counselling association of Nigeria is engaging to play any significant role in tackling HIV, but I believe that their role is crucial, and a collaborative effort between health professionals, counselling psychologists and other actors would produce valuable results.

The African Youth Charter (AYC) is a quintessential demonstration of African governments’ commitment to entrench youth issues in national and regional decision-making processes. The charter provides for the various rights and freedoms outlined in the earlier article by connect Africa development editor. To what extent are these rights different from human rights provisions enshrined in each country’s constitution? In principle, countries could ratify the charter only to the extent that it is consistent with extant national laws. Even when provisions are at variance, the provisos in article two regarding ‘accordance with their constitutional processes’ makes it clear that the national laws will take pre-eminence.

In fact South Africa’s parliament had reservations regarding the provisions of article 24 which refers to mentally and physically challenged youth and ignores other forms of disabilities. However, given that section 213/13 of the South African constitution only permits parliament to accept or reject international agreements, with no provisions for reservations or ‘tampering,’ the charter was adopted ‘as is.’ For the most part, the AYC’s ‘rights and freedoms’ provisions are enshrined in various national constitutions and other international agreements like the Universal declaration on human rights, the African Charter on human and people’s rights and importantly, the African charter on the rights and welfare of the child. So what makes the rights provisions of the AYC different?

Perhaps, the other provisions regarding education, health care, participation, etc as contained in articles 10 through 25 give more credence to the ‘rights’ provisions. Within a human rights framework, many of these provisions could be considered as citizens entitlements.  Therefore, despite their demographic heterogeneity, their being within the age bracket 15 to 35puts them together, separates them from older adults and younger children and justifies a separate framework which tackles their needs.

In some countries the national youth policies, which in principle operationalise the AYC, distinguish between various categories of youth and how policies address their needs. The Nigerian youth policy released in 2009 addresses the needs of youth with disabilities, street kids, etc. but it remains to be seen how these issues have been addressed practically. In part, this is attributable to the fact that many youth ministries and departments lack the political mandate or budgetary provisions to implement many of the provisions of the charter or associated youth policies as these are the responsibilities of other ministries and departments. This calls for an integrated approach to youth development involving a range of departments, a concept which South Africa has been working to operationalise and recently drafted a strategy.

There are examples in the continent that can be adapted to youth. Within its education sector, Zambia attempts to better coordinate its resources by putting in place the Zambia Education Project Tracking System (ZEPTS) a database of education projects across the country implemented by government, development agencies and civil society. The Nigerian government in addition to drafting a youth mainstreaming framework over the last couple of years has recently initiated a process of inter-ministerial cooperation with the launch of a youth enterprise contest with the involvement of three key Ministries. Even this is short of ideal as various ‘line ministries, departments and agencies’ appear left out.

Achieving the aims of the youth charter requires the integration and proper funding of youth issues within national strategies like PRSPs and national vision documents. With countries like the Seychelles, Nigeria and Malawi with long term development goals elapsing in the year 2020, and Zambia and Kenya elapsing by 2030, meaningful progress can be attained by implementing programmes that benefit youth and designing a framework for monitoring and evaluation of both outputs and outcomes.

The road to ‘Banjul’ was long and bumpy but it produced one of Africa’s most rapidly ratified charters. Five years after, the situation of young people has not improved much. The challenges towards attaining the aims of the youth charter, related policies and the goals for the decade on youth development until 2018 are daunting. Governments must step-up and take charge, and do what is right by implementing pro-youth programmes focusing on education, employment and meeting young people’s needs, including the targeted social services. Otherwise, as has been reported in the Nigeria and South African media, with current high levels of unemployment and illiteracy, rather than being a demographic opportunity for enhancing their countries’ prospects for growth and development as propounded by some ‘youth bulge’ theorists, young people could be time bomb waiting to explode. The time for African governments to wise up, sit up and act is now.  Otherwise we may well be expecting an ‘Africa spring.’

PYU is one of the anti-colonial political youth movements established during the 1950s. Over the years, it has been invited as an observer organisation to OAU and later AU summits and is recognised by heads of state as ‘the continental coordinating body for youth organizations and … focal agency of the African Union on youth matters’. Prior to this the PYU was ‘recognised’ as a ‘specialised body’ of the African Union and was invited to meetings of the department of social affairs to make official representations. It now has an official seat at the meetings of African ministers of youth.

My first engagement with PYU was in January 2006 when I presented a draft concept paper on the proposed Pan African Youth Federation, being considered by the AU. The justification for this proposal was that African youth needed a representative body at the AU and the PYU had become largely redundant and lacked engagement and visibility. My presentation was well received, but the proposal was ‘thrown out,’ quite understandably on grounds of duplication. A review of the PYU was instead requested as alternative. During the second phase of the review, I spent two weeks in Algiers meeting with the PYU executive, presenting drafts of  revised documents, and receiving feedback. The exercise was fraught with political intrigues but the relations were quite cordial between me and the PYU officials, especially considering that some of them had considerably more experience than me in PYU matters. I spent another two weeks in Addis Ababa, reviewing documents at the end of which I submitted my report, recommendations and draft revised statutory documents.

The reviewed documents were discussed and adopted at the second ordinary congress of the PYU in Brazzaville. I took part in the congress and observed the proceedings from the sidelines. I had my hopes, fears and reservations, but I was also optimistic. So after all said and done, elections were held and new leaders emerged. Nigeria elected president, a ‘political’ post recommended to ensure balance of powers with those of the secretary general which Angola incidentally retained. Deputy Secretaries and vice presidents were also elected from each of the regions. Sudan was elected as the country to host the secretariat. Sudan had many challenges in hosting the secretariat, but I could imagine that there was significant support for its materialisation, at least within Sudan. When I met President Albashir in Khartoum in 2009, he appeared genuinely interested in youth matters and particularly in the African youth charter.

PYU remains fraught with many challenges and not much progress can be seen in terms of its engagement with the youth constituency. However, as an eternal optimist, I believe that things can improve for the better. The signs are there, younger people have been nominated to the PYU executive, a young woman now has a strong voice within its ranks than at any other time and PYU has become somewhat more visible in continental processes. It can only get better. It is my hope that towards its next congress (either in 2011 or 2012) more young people will take part in the congress. If possible new changes should be made in the statutes to reflect more recent thinking and make it possible for youth civil society bodies to join its ranks. A way of circumventing PYU’s links to government needs to be identified but in a way that is beneficial to PYU and its constituencies.

I have no doubts whatsoever that PYU will eventually become a truly representative body for youth in Africa. It’s only a matter of time. With its very rich history, PYU is obviously one organisation young Africans should not ignore. It needs everyone’s support to flourish.

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Originally written as a contribution to youthubafrica blogsite 

On power, I think rape reflects a deep rooted behavioural pattern associated with power, which is manifested through aggressive behaviour. Hostility is also associated with masculinity and reflects a situation where the menfolk feel superior, a phenomenon which in our clime has been passed down across generations. It’s as if the idea of ‘man’s world’ permeates the minds of our young men (and older one’s too), and they appear to believe that a woman never really means ‘no’, or as if she is communicating the opposite when she does, and as if she has to be somehow compelled to comply to their wishes. This type of behaviour also manifests itself in the largely under-discussed domestic violence. The situation underscores the vulnerability of the womenfolk to disease- including STIs and HIV/AIDS, and they lack the power and ability to negotiate safe sex even within established long term relationships like marriages. Directly or indirectly, the women are always the biggest loosers and something needs to be done urgently.

But when a woman gets raped, what kinds of services are available to her? Health services, psychological support or counselling? How about protection from further abuse by relocating her to a safer place? And legal representation? Beyond the minimal efforts of civil society organisations, what does the state do to support these victims? If a woman becomes HIV positive as a result of sexual violence and abuse, does she automatically qualify for antiretroviral treatment? How about pregnancy and access to legal abortion? What are the relevant agencies, including the human rights commission, doing to ensure the victim is safe and receives needed medical, psychological and legal support? To what extent is Nigeria complying with its international obligations under the CEDAW and Beijing commitments?

Unfortunately, there are legal prohibitions to how a woman can respond to even the outcomes of an un-consensual intercourse. By the provisions of the law a woman is not allowed to have induced foetal termination unless it is meant to save her life. Prison terms for the ‘offence’ range from 14 years for the health provider and seven years for the women. But what does ‘save her life’ entail really? Does it only imply physical safety from death? What about emotional effects which could affect the overall quality of her life in both the short and long term? What about the long term effects of keeping the outcome of a process in which she did not consensually partake and in which she was a victim? It appears that in the long run, the law endangers more women than can be imagined and whatever its intent the law has largely been overtaken by events.

Around 660,000 women aged 15-49 seek abortions every year and as many as 60 percent of these get services from unqualified individuals. Unfortunately, many of these abortion services end up in fatal damage to the uterus and sometimes even the death of the woman. This in part contributes to Nigeria’s high maternal mortality level currently at 840 per 100, 000 live births as abortion alone contributes to around 30 to 40 percent of maternal deaths.

So what good does it do to maintain a law which criminalises and endangers the lives of young women? The aim of this article is to stimulate dialogue within the framework of the current national outrage on rape to the broader reproductive health rights issues in Nigeria. If the truth be told, our young people are having sex, and unless these laws are revised, more and more young people face imminent danger at the hands of unqualified ‘abortion service providers.’ Thus, rather than criminalise abortion, what we must do urgently is to put the discussion on comprehensive sexuality education back on the table and discuss better means of protecting our young from disease and unintended pregnancies. On a cost-benefit scale, it will save our country more than it will cost us. It could contribute to reducing the spate of chronic poverty –transfer of poverty from one generation to another, which thrives in our land; reduce the cases of broken careers for our young; reduce the number of children without needed parental support and care; and reduce the spate of broken personal development opportunities. We must respond urgently by revising the relevant legislation to ensure that it protects all citizens, especially young women. In the absence of a strong social sector, it’s the best we can do.

In concluding, I return back to the subject of rape and the law. What is the penalty for rape? The criminal code offers the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for ‘unlawful canal knowledge of a girl or woman without her consent’ and 14 years imprisonment for attempted rape. The penal code, as applicable in the north, also offers similar sentences. However, the snag is that the onus lies on the woman to prove that these incidences occurred. The Penal code also excludes rape within marital relationships. These provisos are very problematic, and could stigmatise the victims and obstruct the law from taking its course. Consequently, while the criminal and penal codes address some of the rape issues, they don’t provide sufficient grounds to take cases to prosecution. Thus, the national assembly needs to revise the relevant sections of these laws to make it even easier to pursue legal cases related to rape, and to bring the perpetrators of this heinous act to face the law, while protecting the victims. The law must make it easier to pursue prosecution, and the police needs to be better trained to investigate professionally and take cases to prosecution, regardless who is involved. Perhaps its also time we started seeing high profile rape cases in court and on national TV. The days of ‘nothing happened’ should belong to the past really. Its time to act and all hands must be on deck.

When the privatisation process was initiated over two decades ago, starting from the Babangida era, the main argument was that it would lead to efficiency, better management of the affected enterprises, create new jobs and ultimately reduce poverty. But these claims have been disproved by the flagrant under-performance and failure of many of the privatised companies. Like it was in post Soviet Russia, asset stripping appears to be more lucrative than investing in revitalising these companies. The examples are everywhere: Ajaokuta, NITEL, NAFCON, you can add to the list.

In the face of these evidence, it is baffling to see how the federal government continues to insist on privatising NITEL and recently PHCN. Underperformance of government owned businesses is not just a result of unlimited capital and government patronage, although this is undoubtedly one of them. It is also a result of corruption from top to bottom and poor institutional framework. Why not confront these problems rather than chicken out? It’s like chickening out and retreating from a war front rather than confronting the enemy. There are countries like Russia and China which are faced with similar challenges but have managed to sustain state owned companies which are waxing stronger and opening up in emerging markets, what can we learn from them?

Why can’t we achieve a similar feat? We admire China, we buy cheap Chinese products and we perceive Chinese products as alternative to Western products. But we fail to learn from her ability to confront corruption head-on. We have failed to learn from their ability to invest in science, technology, research and development (STR&D).

Privatisation is not the only concern, there is a whole gamut which together constitute the so-called ‘Washington Consensus’. These policies caused significant problems for developing countries in Africa and elsewhere between the 80s and 90s including the financial crisis that hit Asia and parts of Latin America in the 1990s. Truth be said, we have failed to learn as a country. We all blame General Babangida for the woes of Nigeria mainly because he adopted Washington style policies but we still adopt same policies. However, at the climax of the Obasanjo administration we adopted the national economic empowerment and development strategy (NEEDS), which mainly adhered to Washington style policies: liberalisation, privatisation, foreign direct investment, etc (not that these are all bad policies strictly speaking), but the social aspects like improving education, health care and access to water and sanitation received little attention.

In the long run, not much has changed from the 1980s. The senate screenings of Ministerial appointees in July showed us how we have failed to learn. Olusegun Aganga and Okonjo Iweala seem to all tow the same lines around Washington style policies. This is despite the emergence of the post Washington consensus which offers a more viable, although not necessarily uncontested, alternative. It recommends better government investment and regulation of the private sector, incentives for the effective functioning of the public sector and better civil society participation in developing planning, among others. The lessons from developed countries’ response to the recent global financial crisis underscores the fact that governments cannot leave the market to falter and correct itself, what can we learn from that?

Perhaps we need to step back a little and reflect on what the viable alternatives to privatisation are. Tackling corruption in the public sector would be a good starting point. But are we really ready? Meles Zenawi (not my favourite head of state though) said and I quote ‘Africa is the only continent where we do things the same way over and over again and expect different results’ obviously this is not possible. But why do we continue to reinvent the same strategies that have continued to fail us over the years? Does it mean we as a people cannot innovate and think up new ideas that will improve our lives? Is it that we cannot reinterpret and adapt the ‘text book’ economics to fit out context? Or are some people are just here to receive the applause of their developed country bosses, using our country as experimental scapegoat?

To put it succinctly as Joseph Stiglitz would say, ‘the Washington consensus is dead,’ the neoliberal orthodoxy will do us no good. Either we accept it and do ourselves some good by retracing our steps or we continue to head for doom. The choice is ours.

The links to the three articles I contributed can be found below and I look forward to your comments.

1. Youth Participation in youth related public policy: reflections on the road to Banjul
2. The African Youth Charter is ratified! So what?
3. What does the youth charter mean for youth in Africa?