Credit: Solomon Gumah
Tamale, Nov 6, GNA – Mr Alhassan Abdul-Ganiyu, Technical Advisor for Youth Advocacy and Gender at YEFL-Ghana, a youth advocacy organisation, has expressed the need for the government to address disparities in resource allocation to youth development in the country.
He said the budgetary allocation to the Ministry of Youth and Sports always prioritised sports development under the National Sports Authority (NSA) to the detriment of the National Youth Authority (NYA), which had the mandate to spearhead youth services.
He said, “The sports development sector in the 2018 budget, for instance, received about 41 per cent of the total budget allocated to the sector, whilst youth services received only 23%.” Mr Alhassan made the call while addressing the media in Tamale to commemorate this year’s African Youth Day Celebration.
It was on the theme: “1 million Next Level is Knocking: Youth-led Movements that Transcend Borders”.
Mr Alhassan expressed concern over the decline in the funding allocation to the NYA from the District Assemblies Common Fund and said it had significantly dropped from 90% in 2018 to 36% in 2022, which adversely affected the implementation of major youth-led projects and programmes.
He urged the government to demonstrate clarity in its funding allocation while advocating for more investment into youth empowerment programmes through the NYA, which would enable the NSA to focus on sports-related development.
GNA