In a recent brief, the Minister of Youth and Civic Education Mounouna Foutsou announced that on the National Youth Day (February 11, 2021), municipal youth councils will be created. This will later be followed by the creation of regional youth councils, the brief adds.

According to the official, "local participation is a great opportunity to energize our youth through volunteering, citizen participation, and contribution to various development projects. It is also an opportunity to show and develop young people’s structured view on the complexity of local public responsibility.”

He explains that the creation of these councils falls within the framework of the government’s constant aim to reinforce young citizens’ maturity and capacities to address the numerous and pressing challenges faced locally. It is a “government initiative aimed at supporting, densifying and capitalizing youth participation in public affairs, which is a guarantee of intergenerational dialogue, social peace, and training of the future generation of leaders in our country,” he continues.

The municipal youth councils will benefit from the support of administrative and municipal authorities and, above all, the National Youth Council. Mounouna Foutsou hopes that harmonious management of the councils will allow the emergence of a new generation of citizens well-informed about local public actions and open to the many opportunities offered by decentralization.

D.M