As the
world’s population hit 7 billion last month, the United Nations Population Fund
held a forum for youth in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Youth
converged with representatives from the government and local and international
nongovernmental organizations to brainstorm about how to develop policies to
transform the emerging challenges of the increasing population into
opportunities. - Global
Press Institute
ABUJA, NIGERIA – David
Habba, 24, is a student at Benue State University, where he is currently
studying sociology. Habba says his vision for his future is to practice what he
is studying.
“I want to speak for
others,” he says. “I see myself as a social engineer, proffering solutions to
social issues.”
A member of various youth groups
focused on political education, Habba is also passionate about increasing
political consciousness among young people so they can demand their rights from
the government. But combining activism and education does not come easy for
him.
“It is not very easy, but
being able to manage my time gives me that ability to be able to combine the
two,” he says.
Benue state, where Habba
lives and studies, is popularly referred to as the food basket of the nation.
The state is located in the Middle Belt region in central Nigeria.
Youth in Benue state in the
past didn’t have a strong inclination for classroom education, he says. Most
people became farmers.
“We are rated among the
educationally backward state, but all that is changing now,” he says.
He says that the trend is
changing because young people are becoming more politically conscious and
uniting to proffer solutions to their common sufferings.
As a part of this trend,
Habba was among the 50 youth who participated in the 7 Billion Campaign Youth
Forum that took place in Abuja from Oct. 31 – the day the world’s population
reached 7 billion – to Nov. 1.
The United Nations
Population Fund, UNFPA, recently launched 7 Billion Actions, an initiative
aimed at creating awareness about different opportunities and challenges that
will emerge with this population increase. The advocacy effort strives to
inspire citizens, government, nongovernmental organizations, NGOs, corporate
sectors and others to be proactive in contributing positively to the world.
UNFPA collaborated on the
forum with governmental platforms, such as the National Youth Council of
Nigeria, and local and international NGOs, such as Education as a Vaccine
Against AIDS Nigeria and Save the Children UK. The forum brought together
emerging youth leaders in Nigeria to brainstorm about the challenges and
opportunities that they face as young people in a world of 7 billion people and
to share these ideas with policymakers.
Habba says youth
participation is crucial to finding the opportunities in these challenges.
“I live at community level
and intervene at community level,” Habba says. “Very importantly, I think in a
world of 7 billion, more than the opportunities, the challenges abound –
especially for young people. If there would be any gainful achievement for
young people, they must be at the center and forefront of the engagement.”
Habba says that one concern
is that with an increasing population, employment will be more competitive. He
says he’s also worried about food, as farming profits haven’t risen because of
the increased cost of agricultural materials.
“I’m also very concern about
food because I come from a food basket state,” he says. “For us in Nigeria,
food prices have tripled in less than five years. Government funding for
investment in agriculture sector have not yielded needed result.”
He says education is another
concern.
“I’m concern about the kind
of education people will have to face because with increase population, there
needs to be a corresponding increase in investment,” he says. “Even at smaller
population, we have not seen our government do this. So who gives us the
assurance that at a higher population our government will be able to do this?”
Competitive employment, food
scarcity and poor education are some of the challenges Habba foresees. But he
is also optimistic.
“I hope and believe that
young people are well-able and will be put in a position to respond effectively
and change a lot for the better,” he says.
Habba says he is increasing
his efforts to tackle social challenges. After the 7 Billion Youth Forum, he
plans to organize a program for farmers in Benue to discuss how prepared they
are to produce food for an increasing population.
“I’m going to be doing what
I have always been doing but with a more strategic focus,” he says.
The 7 Billion Youth Forum
aimed to insert young people’s voice into developing policies to transform the
challenges emerging with the population increase into opportunities. Many say
improving services and facilities is key to development.
Women say gender
equality in accessing these services and facilities is also crucial.
Various
youth say education will enable people to help themselves. Others recommended a
more grassroots approach to include marginalized communities in these
initiatives. Policymakers participating in the forum insisted on a
restructuring of government in order to increase accountability and to more
effectively address problems.
Nigeria has the largest
population in Africa and is the sixth most populous country in the world,
according to UNFPA. With a growth rate of 2.53 percent, Nigeria’s population
currently exceeds 166 million, with projections of it increasing to nearly 390
million in 2050 and 730 million in 2100.
The theme of the 7 Billion
Youth Forum was “Nigeria Demographics: Opportunities and Challenges.”
Participants discussed education, health, the environment and climate change,
unemployment, and information and communication technology in an increasing
population.
Tope Fashola, program
coordinator for advocacy, policy and campaigns for Education as a Vaccine
Against AIDS, a local NGO that aims to help young people access sexual and
reproductive health information and services, says that the forum aimed to
address how to manage such a large population.
“Especially because Nigeria
population is a youthful one,” he says. “We are saying that, how can we begin
to think of policies that can protect and encourage the buildup of young people
in our nation? They say youth are the leaders of tomorrow, but we need to start
planning from today, and we believe it starts from the policy angle.”
Ajani Olawale James,
president of the National Youth Council of Nigeria, a platform created by the
Ministry of Youth to engage youth in policy formation, says the growth in
population will have positive and negative effects on Nigerian youth like him.
“I think it is a big
challenge [that] at the same time provides more opportunities,” he says. “In a
country whereby we have a lot of young people, it should be an opportunity if
we are ready to explore.”
He says youth are eager to
get involved.
“Nigerian youth is always
ready because every Nigerian youth want to be a responsible citizen,” He says.
“We have been fed over the years, and we want to start feeding people. That
sense of responsibility is always on the Nigerian youth.”
Hadija Aminu, the campaign
adviser for Save the Children UK, an international children’s charity based in
the United Kingdom, says that poverty is one factor that has contributed to the
population increase.
“The population reduces
where there is development,” she says. “People feel more confident to have
smaller families. But what you see in some communities in Nigeria is that the
poorer you are, the more children you have because you tend to not know which
among the children would be among the one that will support you and sustain
you. So you have so many of them and hope that one of them will provide for
you.”
Aminu says that quality
basic education and free health care will naturally lead to smaller families in
Nigeria.
“So what we can do in
Nigeria is to improve all other facilities and services,” she says. “It will
directly reduce our population.”
Managing population growth
is different from controlling population growth, says Tochie Odele, one of the
organizers of the event.
“We don’t want to tell
people to control population,” she says. “We want to be able to manage
population.”
Women say they hope that the
population growth will provide more opportunities for them.
“Young women should realize
they have a role and must get up to have their voices to be heard in a world of
7 billion,” she says. “Young women can serve as community mobilizers, role
models, etc., synthesize other young women on the importance of education and
not feel limited by the lack of access.”
Nkiru Igbokwe, an UNFPA national
program analyst, says that an increase in population is not necessarily
negative if leaders are sensitive to gender equality.
“It could be positive if we
direct our human resources the right way and if we plan to use the resources in
a way that it does not discriminate against any sex,” she says.
She says that women need
equal access to resources.
“The fact that we are 7
billion in the world means that we pay particular attention to devising ways
to increasing women[’s] access to resources, especially productive resources
such as land, labor, credit, so that it will enable them [to] create and have
sustainable livelihood,” she says.
She also urges
parliamentarians to implement strategies to ensure young girls have access to
reproductive health services and information in order to reduce teenage
pregnancy.
“Strategies that will ensure
young girls get access to education and come out with strong degree that will
enable them access higher employment,” she says. “Strategies to ensure human
resources and financial resources are leverage[d] in a way that is
gender-sensitive and does not discriminate help us have a productive
population.”
Damilola Ade, an active
member of the World Bank Youth Forum in Nigeria, a youth forum set up by World
Bank Nigeria to engage young people in community development, also emphasizes
education. She says that she and her peers have been visiting rural communities
on the outskirts of Abuja to explore community service ideas that they can
implement in underserved communities. She says she is appalled by the standard
of education in rural areas, which the population increase would further
strain.
“In terms of education, the
challenge is access and funding,” she says. “I know in Nigeria, we give less
than 20 percent of our budget to education.”
Ade says that countries must
allocate more of their federal budgets to education if they want to build the
capacity of their youth.
“We should be looking
forward a minimum of 30 percent,” she says.
Ade says that school
infrastructure and facilities are also not up to standard. But she says she is
not waiting for the government to solve all the problems.
“Over the past few weeks,
I’ve been thinking about [the] education process – going into rural areas to
teach kids,” she says. “What I want to do more is going back to grassroots,
even if it’s as little as a chalkboard I can donate. I will like to do more of
that.”
Fashola says that policies
that ensure education, as well as protection and health services, to all young
people are key. He says this will ensure that Nigerian youth are not dependent
on stipends from the government, but rather they will have the knowledge,
capacity and resources to be self-sufficient, which will spur future
development of the country.
Ade says that participating
in the 7 Billion Youth Forum has enlightened her more on the issues facing the
education sector in Nigeria.
“A friend told me about the
event,” she says. “I have been hearing a lot about 7 billion and got
inquisitive. I went online but did not get as much information as I got here.”
But she says that she would
have preferred a more grassroots approach to tackling issues affecting Nigeria.
“I will like to see more
grassroots participation,” she says.
As one of the lead partners,
UNFPA is not oblivious to the criticism associated with conferences and forums.
“The question has always
been talking with no action,” Igbokwe says. “I think talk is important. We have
to start talking here. We depend on participants to talk the message to those at
rural areas.”
Aminu agrees with Ade on the
need for more grassroots outreach initiatives.
“I met a family in one of
the grassroots communities,” she says. “We were discussing family planning and
family health issues. She had about 12 children, and she told me if I had come
earlier, she wouldn’t have had the baby she was holding because she didn’t want
to have any more children but she didn’t know what she could do.”
She says that a more
grassroots approach is necessary because many people lack access to the
conversation.
“Because they cannot
communicate with the rest of the world, they don’t know what is obtainable,”
she says. “So yes, we have a lot to do in terms of taking these awareness the
poorest and the most marginalized communities.”
Aminu says these communities
are most in need.
“They are the ones that need
the services the most,” Aminu says. “They face the challenges the most. Thus,
they are the ones that need the opportunities the most.”
Ajani says that the next
step after the forum is for the government to make policies. But he says that
policymakers must engage youth in this process.
“We want to talk to
parliamentarians to make laws that are youth-friendly,” he says.
At the end of the forum, the
participants came up with an action paper. They plan to present the paper to
the parliamentarians to serve as a guide for them to make youth-friendly
policies to tackle the emerging challenges.
“There is going to be a real
action,” says Saheed Akinade-Fijabi, one of the parliamentarians who attended
the forum.
He blames corruption in
Nigeria’s system for delays in enforcing policies. To change this trend, he
encourages Nigerians to be proactive in keeping the government accountable.
“We should keep an eye on them,”
says Akinade-Fijabi, a new member of the House Committee on Youth. “When a law
is passed, we should make sure it is enforced.”
Another parliamentarian
invited to the forum, Eziuche Chinwe Ubani, the chairman of the Committee on
Climate Change, agrees.
“People in office are
suppose to be more accountable,” Ubani says. “But for that to happen, there
needs to be a constitutional framework that allows people ask questions and get
answers.”
He says questions lead to
accountability.
“These kinds of governance
structure where people are not permitted to ask questions or when they ask are
ignored does not make people in power accountable,” he says. “So it is for all
of us to stand up to it and find a way that we have a governance process that
delivers on development.”
Ubani says Nigeria’s
governance system must be revamped to make leaders more accountable and more
effective at solving problems.
“First of all, I think we
need to change the template of governance,” he says. “The governance structure,
not government, is not tailored to solve any problem the way it is. The
structure we have needs to change. There needs to be constitutional amendment
in a peaceful way to be able to create a government that delivers. And people
must be held accountable.”
Ubani cautions Nigeria not
to relax as the population increases.
“If the population is
increasing, other facilities and resources also have to increase,” he says.
“Apart from the resources that are finite, the other ones are for individuals
to be able to expand.”
He says this expansion is
crucial to avoid competition.
“When many people are
competing for a small resource, there is bound to be a problem,” he says. “Even
for spaces, if two people are suppose to live in a room and all of a sudden
there are eight people sleeping in a room, people will be cramped. There will
be no space to stand.”
Akinade-Fijabi says that
Nigerian parliamentarians are working to change the system.
“We have some intellect who
are ready to serve the people and not there for money,” he says.
He says that
parliamentarians have already begun to address employment barriers that prevent
competent and skilled youth from applying for jobs solely based on their age.
“We have passed the motion
about the age barriers,” Akinade-Fijabi says.
Joycee Awojoodu, one of the
youth participants, says youth must continue to pass their concerns along to
the government.
“Getting in contact with a
legislator, even if it’s just a local government chairman, is one step in
getting our issues heard,” she says. “It is one step in the right direction.”
