The State Minister for Kampala and Metropolitan Affairs, Kabuye Kyofatogabye, has confirmed that Uganda will be hosting the 19th anniversary celebrations for the Afro Arab Youth Council (AAYC) on March 4, 2023, in Fort Portal.
This year’s celebration will be under the theme “Healthy Youth, Wealthy Nations.”
Minister Kyofatogabye said that the focus for this year’s celebration will be on bringing together youth representatives, researchers, policymakers, and medical and development practitioners from Africa and the Arab region to discuss recent developments on the issues of youth health and development of nations in the Afro-Arab region.
“The dialogue will provide a unique opportunity to assess the effectiveness of ongoing reforms in addressing youth health and development interest issues in the Afro-Arab region,” he said.
He added that the dialogue will discuss the latest evidence and emerging challenges on youth jobs, skills, and entrepreneurship in Africa to inform country strategies and identify evidence-based, innovative, and implementable policies.
The dialogue will encompass in-depth presentations of policy-oriented research by both established academics and young, talented researchers from the Afro-Arab region who will debate and recommend policy options to address the persistent mismatches between labour market requirements and skills acquired by Africa’s young people and the planning of nations on ensuring a healthy workforce.
The Minister revealed that the celebration will have three major activities, including the Medical Camp from March 5th to 7th, hosted by Kitagwenda district local government at Ntara Health Centre IV, where a team of 25 specialists, including paediatricians, obstetricians, gynaecologists, orthopedics, and ophthalmologists, among others, will be mobilised through AAYC partner organisations in Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria, Tunesia, Libya, South Africa, Malawi, and other member countries, which is intended to foster Afro-Arab Cooperation by bridging the knowledge and skills gap in the region through the pooling of regional experts will help bridge the knowledge and skills gap by
This will be followed by the Afro-Arab Health Fun Run on March 4, 2023, where His Royal Highness of Tooro Kingdom, Oyo Nyimba Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV, is expected to flag off the participants.
The run is intended to create awareness about the role of healthy living, including physical fitness, as a boost to people’s health.
According to him, the celebration will end with the Dialogue, which offers a platform to bring intellectual disclosure to the annual theme of healthy youths and wealthy nations and shall take place at Kampala International University, Kampala.
The Afro-Arab Youth Council has been housed under the office of the president since 2019, and President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni is the patron of the organization, offering strategic leadership to help it stabilize.
AAYC is an international organisation of the youth of African and Arab countries; it is a conglomeration of national youth organisations from the member states whose interest is to unite the youth of the two regions and mobilise them to participate in various development agendas both within and outside their countries and contribute positively to the protection, preservation, and promotion of the common good in terms of culture, values, traditions, heritage, and social-economic interest.
