The Nigeria Youth E-forum is an annual online conference designed for young people across Nigeria and in the Diaspora to discuss and evaluate the implementation and impact of the 7-Point Agenda of President Yar Adua of Nigeria and to highlight youth priority issues for government for guided youth development process in Nigeria. The maiden edition was conducted in 2008, the second edition held in 2009, and shall continue in 2010.
How the Nigeria Youth E-forum operates:
Hosted usually on the Youngstars website, notices are spread across the country using flyers and newspaper adverts to mobilize youths for the event usually scheduled to hold for 5 weeks. Each week, 2 of the 7-Point Agenda is posted online for the whole week allowing users online to post their comments and views. At the end of each week, the uploaded topics are disabled and new topics introduced. Also, comments on each week is summarized into Concerns and Idea Suggestions and circulated to related government ministries, the National Assembly and the Presidency. At the end of the 5 weeks of huge and heated discussions, the entire forum reports are collated and submitted to the government.
During the maiden edition which was funded by The British Council Nigeria, about 300 youth registered with about 800 posts recorded during the duration. The 2009 edition which was self funded by Youngstars and other youth organizations reported about 200 members and about 600 posts were made and reports circulated accordingly. The Hon Minister of Youth Development was quoted as saying that the Ministry of Youth Development continues to benefit from the rich intellectual resources the forum generates in its work and mandated in the Nigeria youth sector.
The 2010 edition of the Nigeria Youth E-forum promises to be most engaging as the Youngstars website has been upgraded to serve such a purpose and there are many contemporary issues young people are eager to discuss. The E-forum is scheduled to hold in April 2010, more details shall be made available soon. Youngstars is open to interested partners and supporters.
