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Education remains the most effective tool of empowerment. It plays a central role in social and economic development, democratic empowerment and the advancement of the general well-being of societies.

The world is currently reimagining and reinventing educational practices that respond to the current needs of the labor market. Today’s youth play an integral role in transforming education towards the creation of a system that is fully accessible, inclusive and responsive.

Open Democracy presents a new paradigm of democracy in which power is genuinely accessible to ordinary citizens, to strengthen inclusiveness, responsiveness, and accountability.

Evidence shows that youth play a key role in building and strengthening democratic governance. As a group they have a unique transformative potential to change and reform politics and democratic governance to make it more inclusive, representative and accountable, Despite the facts youth participation in governance mechanisms remains uncoordinated and fragmented.

In practice, accountability depends on both citizen engagement and government responsiveness. Supporting the development of an enabling environment is of pivotal importance to ensuring effective participation of young people in accountability mechanisms. This includes both formal and informal interventions to facilitate engagement with young people and to encourage greater receptiveness within government.

The focus of an economy is the allocation of scarce resources. When resources are allocated optimally, we have economic efficiency. The world’s young people – who make up the largest generation of youth in history – can lead national and global drives to break the current patterns that foster inequities, and set the world on course to a more sustainable future.

Young people are already at the forefront of driving the conditions necessary for economic efficiency – efficient production, efficient consumption, and efficient output. As they are leading technological innovations to foster a resource-efficient economy.

Economic efficiency is important because it allows businesses to reduce their costs and increase output. For consumers, economic efficiency leads to lower prices for goods and services. And for the government, a more efficient private sector and higher levels of productivity and economic activity increase economic growth.

Sustainable development aims to improve the quality of life of human beings, including future generations, by reconciling economic growth, social development and environmental protection. One of the core ideas of sustainability is that each generation inherits the earth from those who have come before them. The aim of every generation should be to leave it in better, or at least in no worse, condition than when it found it.

Youth participation is important because when young people participate, it draws upon their expertise, enables them to exercise their rights as citizens, and contributes to a more democratic society. It also promotes their personal development, and provides them with substantive knowledge of practical skills.

Concerted and collective efforts are required to activate youth led action towards sustainability and eradication of poverty. Through youth empowerment, combined with the acknowledgment that young people are future agents of change and that their developmental processes are pivotal in building a prosperous and sustainable future, youth are crucial in the realizations of national advancement.

As we recognize the great progress that has been made, we must also acknowledge that for many women, young women, adolescent girls, and girls, progress is not happening nearly fast enough. No country in the world has achieved gender equality, and many are still far behind.

The youth upsurge represents a tremendous strategic opportunity to tap into the talents and skills of young people to advance global and national development goals. By actively supporting the fulfillment of the right to full and equal participation of young men and young women, particularly young women and adolescent girls, in leadership and decision-making at all levels and in all spaces by implementing gender-just and youth accountable policy, laws, national action plans and programmes.

Considering the current pace of change towards a world free of gender-based discrimination, it will take 50 years to achieve parity in political participation and 118 years for true pay equality. To break these trajectories and achieve Planet 50-50 by 2030 requires us to take bold and decisive actions. With youth leading the charge to ensure that the agenda for sustainable development delivers for all women and girls, especially those facing multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and marginalization.

At its heart federalism is a constitutional agreement that enables different communities of people, who live in different territories, to all live together in one country. This agreement recognizes that the country is better off united, while, at the same time, protecting the autonomy and rights of its diverse people.

True Federalism, especially in a large and diverse country such as ours, can improve service delivery and democratic resilience, ensure decisions are made at the most appropriate level, protect against the over-concentration of power and resources, and create more opportunities for democratic participation.

As the majority constituents of most communities, youths have a frontline role in the promotion of true federalism in Nigeria to ensure a broadened and inclusive power-sharing base, drive innovative and pragmatic approaches to policy development, wider and equitable distribution of public resources, as well as the development of local assets and resources to improve fiscal opportunities for socio-economic progress.

The role of youths in development and security is shaped by the state’s capacity to harness their potential and meet their needs on a range of issues.

The vulnerability of youths to socio-economic shocks and their demographic dynamic place youths at the heart of development and national security processes. Understanding the connections between youth poverty, illiteracy, employment and unemployment and human insecurity is of utmost importance. Youth illiteracy undermines development, while literacy without opportunities can lead to negative employment, undermining security. If a society’s values, norms, customs, practices, structures and institutions are under threat and such changes in turn threaten the development of its children into youth and then adults, then that society cannot sustain itself.

Considering the strategic positioning of youth in societies as future leaders, they are increasingly become actors in the present. Hence, the empowerment and participation of youth s a key tenet of the Sustainable Development Agenda, as emphasized by SDG 10, which calls for the promotion of the social, economic and political inclusion of the young generation, and SDG 16, which aims to ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels.

Almost 70% of Nigeria’s population is young and so their role in national integration is crucial.

National integration is the feeling of oneness that bind the people of diverse cultures of a nation together. It is vital for the creation of a strong, united and progressive country.

The integration of any nation undoubtedly depends on its youth. As they share in the significant responsibility of taking the nation on the path of harmonious growth.

The strength, power, and capability of youth need to be fully utilized to meet any challenge to national unity and integration, to boost confidence in the nation’s future.