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The Permanent Secretary, of the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, Dr. Donuma Umar Ahmed, has said that the federal government is ready to collaborate with the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum (ICYF) on the empowerment of youth to make them productive and self-reliant.
Ahmed stated this when he received the Director-General of the cabinet, ICYF, Mr. Yunus Sonmez and his delegation, on a courtesy visit to his office at the Federal Secretariat, Abuja.
The Permanent Secretary said that the Ministry welcomes ideas and programmes that empower the youth and allow them to network with their counterparts around the world.
“Our doors are always open to any initiative for collaboration on issues of youth development and any initiative that will deepen collaborations between us and organizations that work on youth development."
"We are going to take the cooperation to the next level. We will look at those frameworks that you have outlined, and we are going to bring up our position. We are going to interface with you and cooperate with you in all those areas," he said.
Earlier, the head of the ICYF delegation, Mr. Yunus Sonmez, disclosed that his organization is affiliated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and deals with issues on economic, social, and cultural growth.
“We have been working on economic, social and cultural growth since 2006, we have vocational training and entrepreneurship, we have social programmes with a focus on network creation where we organise camps and other programmes to bring youths from the OIC member states and Muslim minorities in the US, Britain and Europe together to discuss issues concerning the youth," he said.
He explained that his organization has the OIC Youth Capital Programme and encouraged the Ministers of Youth and Sports from the Sub-Saharan African member nations of the OIC to apply for the programme.
“The main aim of visiting Nigeria is because of our iftar programs which we want to hold here, and we would like to develop our relationship with the relevant authorities. We are working with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We want to enlarge our cooperation. Nigeria is one of the biggest countries in the OIC region in terms of population and potential.
