Last Friday the Ministers convened a virtual meeting and endorsed their resolutions of the 4th African Union ( AU) Specialised Technical Committee on Youth, Culture and Sport ( STC- YCS4) which was held in Addis Ababa to coincide with the AU’s 60th anniversary celebrations. The next stage for them will be to pass the resolution to the Executive Committee to analyse before endorsing them.

As per their AU mandate, the Executive Committee, which is made up of all respective Ministers of Foreign Affairs will meet on the 15th of June to decide whether to adopt or make adjustments before making them institutional and later passing them to the Heads of State summit where they will be executed.

It is most likely that the resolutions will be passed as are, possibly with very minor adjustments.

This on its own begs the question, after six decades and as a way forward, is it not time for Africa to take stock of the number of Protocols, Conventions and Charters put in place and see how much strides have been made?

The undisputable fact is, in resolving youth, women, cultural, museum Linguistic, sports and empowerment matters, Africa needs more resources, more expertise and less congresses because it is time to take stock of what Africans put together in the last 60 years.

Presentations and resolutions endorsed included on Women, Gender and Youth Directorate. The meeting received expert reports proposal to reform the STC- YCS by merging the Youth Sector into the current STC on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment ( GEWE) to establish a new STC on Women, Gender and Youth to align with the AU Reforms.

Another was on Youth Envoy that recommended the AUC Youth Envoy to review, in line with Article 31 the African Youth Charter to reflect the evolving aspirations of Africa’s Youth.

Women and Youth Financial and Economic Inclusion ( WYFEI) 2030 Initiative requests member States to support the WYFEI 2030 Initiative by aligning existing national women and youth empowerment strategies, programmes, and investments to the WYFEI 2030 Initiative and cascading the approach by sharing knowledge, best practices, experience, and resources towards achieving impact and scale.

Equal representation of Women and Men and Youth Quota Initiative of AU Assembly and other policy decisions enjoining the Commission to take specific measures by the year 2025, to among others achieve equal representation of women and men across all levels and 35 percent of the AU workforce to be made up of youth. Another resolution was to request the AUC to engage in awarenessraising efforts to popularise the AUC Equal Representation of Women and Youth Quota Initiative and to work with Member States to cascade the implementation of the initiatives by providing Country Technical Assistance and capacity building.

There was a presentation of the Africa Youth Fund, where Ministers commended the AU Commission and African Union Development Agency- New Partnership for Africa’s Development ( AUDA- NEPAD) for their efforts to collaborate on the implementation of the Trust Fund for African Women ( TFAW) and the African Youth Fund ( AYF) and requests the AU Commission to collaborate with AUDA- NEPAD to establish a joint governance mechanism and architecture to harmonize the TFAW and AYF accountability, governance, management, and operational mechanisms.

Impressive as it is on paper, implementation seems a far- fetched idea. To demonstrate that talk is cheap, the themes of the two conventions seven years apart were similar, with very little to be shown from the 2016 convention.

The 2023 theme was, ‘ AU at 60: Unlocking and Scaling Innovation for AfCFTA Implementation through Youth, Culture and Sports,’ and 2016 convention theme was, ‘ Demographic Dividend through Investment in Youth.’ This begs the question on whether the convention is just a big boys club.

Another contagious issue is that of the use of African languages. Ministers requested member states to render the necessary support to the African Academy of Languages ( ACALAN) to develop and promote African values and cultures through African languages which are one of the main components of culture.

The Ministers also request member states to implement Assembly Decision/ AU/ Dec796 ( XXXIV) so that Kiswahili can be used in all AU meetings in terms of interpretation and translation of all documents into Kiswahili.

On the Centre for Linguistic and Historical Studies by Oral Tradition ( CELHTO), Ministers’ requests

CELHTO and CIDO to enhance collaboration on the implementation of the Encyclopaedia Africana Project: a flagship project of the AU Agenda 2063 to promote history on the continent.

The Ministers endorsed the study of the Promotion of Decent Work in the African Cultural and Creative Industries Sector on the continent and requests for more engagement between the member states, ILO, UNESCO and AUC in the finalization, endorsement and implementation of the CREATE Programme in line with the study.