Through the UN Peacebuilding funded women and youth project, The Gambia National Youth Council with support from UNFPA The Gambia, on Saturday 28 December 2019, completed a two-day capacity building activity for National Youth Organisations in the country, bringing together 70 participants from all regions.

The training was aimed at strengthening the capacity of youth and youth-led organisations, on effective programme delivery, to strengthen operational effectiveness, sustainability and data-based programming, through peer-to-peer research. This is believed to drive better impact-driven programmes and projects for the benefit of Gambian young people in general. Some of the modules the participants were taken through include, Result-Based or Performance-Based budgeting, among many others.

It is imperative that, for young people to realise their maximum potential, the structures working to address the issues affecting them must be adequately strengthened to ensure that the investments made into this section of the population, yield results and translate into better life outcomes for them. This is why, such capacity building exercised are key.

At the end of the activity, participants representing the various youth-led organisations, made key recommendations on how to improve coordination of youth programmes/activities in the country, while emphasising the importance of the coordination role of the National Youth Council, as it is critical in achieving the shared vision for a productive youth folk and contributing towrads building a better Gambia.