YTJN & ICOYACA (Independent Continental Youth Advisory Council on AfCFTA) signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly carry out the activities relating to raising awareness and encouraging the involvement of the youth population in Africa in matters regarding the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFATA) and how they can benefit from it. YTJN & ICOYACA are collaborating to combine their resources and expertise to jointly carry out activities like policy engagements, caravans bazaars, campaigns, etc. aimed at creating awareness of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) amongst the youth. The two organizations have informally worked together before on projects like corroborating the Protocol on Women and Youth in Trade back in 2023 and are now happy to formalize the association to provide direction towards advocacy and implementation by the two organizations. "The AfCFTA can benefit the youth and we are seeing a low uptake. This is something we want to change, through the collaboration of both organizations. The onus is on us to carry out research and gather data, on which we can meaningfully engage," said Allan Muhereza, Team Leader of YTJN. “We need to deepen our roots locally in the engagement, after which we can extrapolate the success and winning strategy to the regional and continental level. We need to engage in advocacy and implementation on the other” said Emolot Allan David, Chairperson of ICOYACA. Both parties admitted that the advantage with formalizing in the form of a Memorandum of Understanding is that it is open and it leaves some room for further collaboration, not only on the AfCFTA but also on other projects. This MOU is a significant step towards mainstreaming co-operation between both YTJN and ICOYACA to promote the involvement of the young people in matters regarding the AfCFTA framework, aligning with broader development goals like those outlined in Agenda 2063 of the African Union.
