AfricaPress-Tanzania: FORMER President Jakaya Kikwete is expected to grace a regional youth forum scheduled for next week in Arusha.
A statement issued by the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat said 10,000 young people from across the six partner states will simultaneously converge in Arusha and in other capitals to discuss issues pertinent to the regional development agenda.
Dubbed ‘YouLead Summit’, the event is East Africa’s flagship Youth Leadership Development Programme seeking to unlock youth leadership potential for a prosperous region.
It is hosted by the EAC and the MS Training Centre for Development Cooperation (MS TCD).
The ‘YouLead Summit 2020’, themed Development is People: Youth at the centre of Peace and Development Agenda is a strapline of a speech by Tanzania’s Father of the Nation and a proponent of East African integration, the late Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, who once said “…Maendeleo ni watu … si vitu…” which translates to development is people…not things.
The forum is set to bring together young leaders from various sectors, government officials, development practitioners and policy makers from across the East African region to engage in dialogue on issues pertinent to youth.
The aim is also to shine a light on the experience of the East African youth who not only have to contend with the present challenges within their respective countries and beyond, but are also faced with the uncertainty presented in having to forge a way to create an ideal future for themselves and for generations to come, according to the EAC.
At the regional level, sessions will be held at the EAC headquarters in Arusha as the central command centre with delegates, speakers and mentors, forming a limited physical audience under prevailing Covid-19 complaint standard operating procedures.
The command centre model will be replicated in the six EAC capitals in each country’s context. The various national level summit centres will be connected via a virtual platform.
