The World Youth Alliance is a global coalition of young people committed to promoting the dignity of the person and building solidarity among youth from developed and developing nations. It trains young people to work at the regional and international levels to impact policy and culture. Through this lived experience of the dignity of the person, young people are able to affirm life at all levels of society.

WAY has regional chapters on all continents. The headquarters of WAY Africa are located in Nairobi, Kenya, and they have regional offices in numerous African countries.  To promote its mission WAY provides various options for training for young leaders and each year organizes several regional and world conferences.  I had a privilege to attend the conference "2011 Africa Emerging Leaders: Population and Economics: Investing in African Youths" held on November 24-27 in Nairobi (Kenya) with participation of about 70 young leaders from  17 African countries (names of the countries). 

This was one of the most interesting conferences I attended over the last few years. The biggest advantage of the conference was that there were only limited but very high quality presentations and a lot of time for discussions:  with presenters, in small groups and informally between the sessions.

During the first day Dr. Gonzales Njenga, Vice-Chancellor of Strathmore University , presented a topic " Africa's Youth Population; An Untapped Opportunity."  Impressing the audience with his erudition and  knowledge of complexity of demographic problems, he challenged the audience by…

Mr. Desmond Orjiako from Nigeria, former African Union Spokesmen and Founder/ CEO of FISA (Foundation for Indigent Students of Africa) discussed population policies in Africa trying to answer the question "who sets the agenda?" for these policies.

Mr. Emanuel Etim, Program Manager of Youth Affairs at the African Union presented current plans of African Union regarding empowerment of youth in Africa. His very well prepared and introduced with passion and real knowledge of the issue, was however fiercely challenged by one group of the participants that perceived his presentation as reflection of liberal attitudes not really representing well opinions of the entire youth population in Africa.

During the second day Ms. Jackline Nyandeje , CEO of the Ethics Institute of East Africa discussed the impact of ethics on economic development.  In her lecture she presented various theoretical approaches to ethics showing what can be their impact on people's economic behavior, and on economics at large. The same issue was the subject of a passionate, electrifying and practically oriented lecture by Kan Njru, CEOand Founder of the Uunwana Institute.

Finally, together with Osee Romeo Njacheun we presented a session on the Role of Partnership and Networking in Creating of Human Capital. Taking advantage of the fact that our presentation was the last in the program, we attempted to illustrate on the example of UCP-SARnet what kind of impact networking and partnerships may have on community leaders indirectly affecting the quality of community projects and on their sustainability. Our presentation extended the invitation from UCP-SARnet to create partnerships between community organizations represented by participants of the conference and UCP-SARnet.

I definitely agree with the opinion of participants that organizers of the conference should get merit for creating a program that was congruent with the mission of WYO and with the goal of the conference: presenting alternative to reduction of the population solutions of economic and social problems that are relevant for many African countries. Such alternatives are: building capacity of individuals and communities, presenting role models, leadership training, fighting with hypocrisy and corruption by instilling strong ethical values in all members of the society. Everybody agreed that Africa has a greater potential not only in natural resources, but also in youth: 41% of Africa's population are below the 15 years of age.

However, I was impressed the most by the quality of young participants of the conference. Yes, it was a selected group of young people who already have significant experience in community work and very strong pro-social attitudes. Most importantly, they have a vision of strong Africa and believe that by changing their immediate communities and working in unison with other young leaders they may transform economic and social reality of Africa.

It seems that as a result of this conference we will have a lot of new organizational members and a lot of opportunities for facilitating of networking between community leaders within Africa and with their colleagues around the world.