Ethiopia is set to host the 4th African Youth Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit scheduled to take place from 09-11 March 2022 at the UN Economic Commission for Africa in the capital Addis Ababa.
The African Youth SDGs Summit is a continental wide forum that connects the youth in Africa to learn about SDGs and to empower them to actively contribute to its implementation, monitoring and accountability.
Launched by Youth Advocates Ghana (YAG) with support from UNDP Ghana, UNFPA Ghana and other local and international organizations, the summit has witnessed consistent growth of interest and importance since its inception in 2017 among youth and youth-related organizations, civil society, development partners, the UN System, state actors, policy makers, local governments, and the private sector in Africa.
The Summit has evolved to become an important multi-stakeholder platform with focus on young people and their roles in achieving SDG Targets.
The Addis Ababa Summit
At the close of the 2020 Summit in Accra, there was overwhelming support when the summit convenor announced Summit 2021 to be hosted in Addis Ababa. Obviously, the African youth have endorsed and are looking forward to an intercontinental event that mobilizes the teaming youth of the continent to jointly push the continent’s growth.
Since the start of the summit, Accra has served as a favourite host of the summit. But with the advancement of the summit agenda and purpose, the time has come to move towards building a broader support base and mobilize the entire continent’s youth and policy agencies towards advancing young people’s participation in the continent’s development.
The 4th Summit, under the theme “Youth Resilience in the Covid-19 era; Pathways to accelerate actions to achieve the SDGs”, will be the first time to be hosted outside of Accra, Ghana, since its successful inception in 2017. Due to the current world pandemic situation, the Summit event will be hybrid (virtual and physical).
The Summit will be organized by the United Nations Association of Ethiopia, Talent Youth Association, The UN Resident Coordinator’s Office in Ethiopia, the United Nations Population Fund, the UN Economic Commission for Africa and IPPF Africa Regional Office.