Nigeria must invest in youth population, says UNFPA

Nigeria has been tasked on the compelling need to invest in her younger population in order to break the cycle of generational poverty ravaging more than half of her 160 million population.

Omolaso Omosehin, head, Lagos office of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), in a paper entitled, ‘Investing in young people’, he delivered at this year’s World Population Day, said massive knowledge remains one of the ways to fight hunger, diseases, and poverty in the third world economy, saying there was no escape for Africa if the continent must compete with the rest of the world.

According to Omosehin, a healthy, educated, productive and fully engaged young people can help “break the cycle of intergenerational poverty and are more resilient in the face of individual and societal challenges.”

He described young people as adolescents and youths ranging in age from 10 to 24 years whose ability to safely and successfully navigate their transition to adulthood is diverse by age, sex, marital status, schooling levels, residence, living arrangements, migration, and socio-economic status.
Today adolescents and youths, he said, represent the biggest generation in human history. One third to almost one half of the population in developing countries is under 20 years old. In Nigeria, 46% of the population is under age of 15.

Youth transition to adulthood, the UNFPA official observed, needed to be understood in the larger developmental context because increased poverty, social inequalities, low quality education, gender discrimination, wide spread unemployment, weakened health systems, and rapid globalisation are the realities within which young people grow.

He noted that investment in the youths will not only benefit them, but also help their countries reap a demographic dividend provided proper public sector policies are in place, adding that “today’s 1.8 billion young people are a powerful force, individually and collectively. They are shaping social and economic relationship, challenging norms and values and building the foundation of the world’s future.