Elvis Adjahoungba

Lawyer & Researcher in International Law

Award-winning SDG Advocate

Development Project Manager

Communication and Advocacy Specialist

Elvis Adjahoungba

Lawyer & Researcher in International Law

Award-winning SDG Advocate

Development Project Manager

Communication and Advocacy Specialist

Youth and Sustainable Development Forum

In August 2018 I set up the project set “Young student, Heart of sustainable development”. This project aims to inform young people about the SDGs, to enlighten them on the evolution of their implementation in Benin and finally to commit them to action in their respective communities. The target of the project is the youth, but especially the young students and doctoral students of the universities of Benin. Our goal is to encourage Benin’s students and doctoral students to carry out scientific research, actions and studies on the SDGs and innovations that will enable Benin to achieve them by 2030.

This project was marked by the Forum on Action for Sustainable Development and the Role of Youth on September 25, 2018.  From this project, three initiatives were born. This is the Youth Talks which presents the actions of the Youth through a webcast, the Digital Library on the SDGs for students and PhD students and the School of SDGs in Benin.

With the Forum on Action for Sustainable Development and the role of youth I was able to reach more than 50,000 people. First of all, more than 300 young people registered for this first forum even if we could not all retain them to attend. However, the project enabled all participating youth to make a commitment to work towards the SDGs by sharing forum discussions with other youth in their university and community and sharing them on social media.

The National Television of Benin (ORTB) also sent a team to carry out a report on the forum, this report was broadcast during the newscast for several days. This has reached more than 50,000 viewers in Benin. But the real impact of this project will be the implementation of the three initiatives resulting from the forum. They will reach more than 30,000 young people in Benin by December 2020. (https://sdgactionawards.org/initiative/1388).

In 2019, I lead the Youth Unit CASEC, which has grown worked in collaboration with some young from Social Watch and the Network of organization of Africans Young Leader of the United Nations for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals as well as many young volunteers from Benin, Ghana, and Ivory Coast, organized the Youth and Sustainable Development Forum 2019 at Cotonou in Benin. This forum gathered more than two hundred young people from Benin, Togo, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Ghana, Cameroon, Mali, Niger, United State of America, France and Bolivia. Through this forum, we were able to write a Declaration of our common visions, commitments and recommendations which is the result of collaboration with 964 young people from 101 countries.

The sustainable development goals promote sustained economic growth, higher productivity levels and technological innovation by 2030. However, four years have already passed and the question remains: What are the solutions for a strategic involvement of the Youth in full employment and economic growth?

To reflect on this question we organized the Youth and Sustainable Development Forum in September 2019. I invite you to read the report and discover the recommendations as well as the youth declaration on #SDG8.
Thanks to our partners.
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