Paynesville City – Platform for Dialogue and Peacebuilding (P4DP), in collaboration with the University of St. Andrews, has concluded a two-day seminar on cross-border youth peacebuilding, social cohesion sustainability, and the well-being of the Mano River Basin.
By Jaheim T. Tumu, [email protected]
The seminar, which was funded by the Scottish Research Council, brought together delegates and participants from four countries within the Mano River Union (MRU): Liberia, Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Cote d’Ivoire.
Its primary objective was to provide an opportunity for national and regional leaders and stakeholders to increase their knowledge of how cross-border communities and youth, especially motorcyclists, can contribute to peacebuilding, social cohesion, and livelihoods in the region.
It also provided a concept of how vulnerabilities of cross-border communities can manifest in conflicts in the region. Leaders and stakeholders would effectively engage with young people and residents in cross-border communities and identify priority areas for further interventions to promote and sustain local initiatives.
The topics focused on during the seminar include: Youth Engagement in the Mano River Basin, Social Inclusion in Border Communities, and the Significance of Youth in Peacebuilding, among other topics.
Making a welcome remark, the Executive Director of P4DP, James Shilue, said that the program aimed to ensure that organizers share the work they have done through the various borders.
He acknowledged the important and supporting role that other institutions played in addressing the issues of vulnerable youth across the MRU border.
Shilue said, “We recognize the role and invaluable contribution that young people make to the peace and development of this country. The youth played a pivotal role in pushing our developmental agenda forward, and we need to work with them. They constitute more than 60 percent of our population, and there is no way we can drive development when we exclude and isolate such a strong demographic from our development drive.”
Also speaking, Deputy Minister for Youth Development, Isaac Doe, said that for young people to achieve the level of change they envision, it has to start with themselves.
He further said that the government, through the Ministry of Youth and Sports, would continue to support young people through programs.
“When it comes to addressing changes, we have to look at where we came from because other than that, we will still have the same country, the same sub-region, and the same problems in the same world,” Minister Doe said.
Giving an overview of the seminar, Principal Researcher of the University of St. Andrews, Dr. Jeremy McMullin, said that it would be disheartening to see the sub-region as an area of distress and exploitation.
Dr. McMullin disclosed that the border should be a place for rebuilding and immense prosperity through trade among young people, especially motorcyclists, which are often seen as the conduit of violence.
According to him, freedom of movement should be given to residents in border communities to freely trade and strengthen cross-border activities.
Also speaking, the MRU Strategy Officer, Roland Folley, said that politician-centric agendas for dialogue can be dangerous. Therefore, it should be the youth who must lead the conversation.
He disclosed that the program was significant for youth inter-dialogue engagement and trade border interaction initiatives that could enable a friendly business climate among motorcyclists and young people.