Botswana’s very own Veronica Ofaletse is representing Africa at the upcoming G8 Youth Summit in London.
The African Union delegation, of which Veronica is part, includes representatives from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
The G8 Youth Summit is starting tomorrow 24 June 2013 in London.
This follows a motion reached at last year’s G8 Summit where an Agenda for supporting Developing Nations was added as a priority. As such, the G8 Youth Summit has, therefore, invited an African delegation to recommend and discuss areas of support for African nations.
The G8 is made up of heads of government from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States.
In an interview, Ofaletse said her area of focus will be on International Development in Africa and other African delegates will also look at issues of justice, defense, energy and climate and foreign affairs in Africa.
The summit provides a platform for young leaders to collectively voice their opinions.
Under International Development, this year’s focus will be on Education, Enterprise and Technology Development.
“These are the key areas that need urgent attention in Africa if we are to talk of sustainable development,” said Ofaletse.
Ofaletse said under Education, the African delegation is lobbying for a speedy development of Global Libraries to afford Africans access to Global information and research findings. “Give Africa access to information education development is inevitable,” she said.
Another key aspect Ofaletse and her delegation will be lobbying for is for developed universities to consider establishing in Africa or form alliances with African universities.
“We are calling for partnerships in education with reputable Universities; they should consider setting or forming alliances for skills transfer and to reach the broader majority of African scholars as opposed to scholarships for one or two students,” she said.
Under Enterprise Development, the delegation is calling for G8 countries to help in development of Social Enterprise in Africa. Research done shows that Aid- in terms of handouts- has not worked for Africa, instead there is indeed a more sustainable way to grow African Economies.
“Aid has helped in Health issues and otherwise but in terms of empowering the African people in a sustainable manner, it has come short,” she said. Social enterprise has contributed a great deal in developed countries, in USA 35.5 percent of its GDP is from social enterprise.
“There’s need to create international networks, alliances, SME Funding and up-skilling of African Entrepreneurs to enable them to effectively participate in global enterprise while responding to the needs of the local people,” said Ofaletse.
In addition, Ofaletse said Africa is in desperate need of technology to achieve sustainable development. Focus this year will be on the development of financial technology to facilitate Microfinance.
“The development of Microfinance technology would substantially increase the quality of financial services offered to micro- entrepreneurs,” she said.
Ofaletse said this would also help to reduce transaction costs and improve transparency in delivering financial services.
