Image Copyright – UN-Habitat Youth
Capacity building (or capacity development) is the process by which individual and organizations obtain, improve, and retain the skills and knowledge needed to do their jobs competently. Capacity building and capacity development are often used interchangeably; however, some people interpret capacity building as not recognizing people’s existing capacity whereas capacity development recognizes existing capacities which require improvement.
Community capacity building often refers to strengthening the skills, competencies and abilities of people and communities in developing societies so they can overcome the causes of their exclusion and suffering. Organizational capacity building is used by NGOs & Governments to guide their internal development and activities – Wikipedia
The North can overcome the causes of their exclusion and suffering faster through capacity building of her youths, capacity building is a conceptual approach to social and behavioural change and leads to human and infrastructure development such as water and sanitation, health and education e.t.c.
The North as we speak despite huge budgetary allocation has poor health and education index and has done poorly to address issues of poverty and inequality, about 15 million children are out of school and many women trapped in extreme poverty.
The good news is that government, traditional, religious leaders and citizens in Northern Nigeria acknowledge and aware of these negative drift and daily chorus the need to make progress in most religious, social and political meetings, individuals across northern Nigeria have tried to make change, but it is still a baby step, which is largely due to lack of capacity building and coordination with relevant Ministry Department and Agencies (MDAs). There is also lack of concrete clear strategies to address the confront poor enrolment, maternal mortality and child mortality which has hang around for many years.
There is urgent need to reverse high rate of poverty, reduce children deaths and malnutrition and other related illness and increase school enrolment of our children by investing in capacity building, training in primary schools and higher institutions of Northern Nigeria ( at least 2 hrs should be dedicated to train our children on how play a role in developing their community, states and nation).
The North is blessed with good climate and brilliant people, especially youths, we need to invest in our people by building their capacity to participate in governance and policy design and setting agenda for development for the region, and leaders should endeavour to listen to the people to garner ideas through collaborative community learning and capacity development which is necessary key tool amongst others in delivering social justice to citizens, northern Nigeria leaders must take advantage of her many potentials, especially of her people by bringing all stakeholders together irrespective of religion and tribe to break the cycle of poverty and underdevelopment.
Nongovernmental Organizations, (NGOs), Faith based organizations (FBOs),Mosques and other interest groups ought to develop a work plan on how they intend to address many challenges confronting Northern Nigeria. How about the Mosques or Churches asking members to clean their environment every Friday or Sunday after worship?. Citizens must appreciative and acknowledge that government exist to provide security and other essential social services for the people and therefore people should participate fully to demand for best of services from government especially, health and education and human capacity building for the youths and women.
Successive leaders in Northern Nigeria have tried their utmost best to serve the people but have failed due to lack of citizens participation in designing policies and programmes that benefits them and the community, it is time for youths to get involve, acquiring necessary skills sets that helps to engage leaders at all levels in a meaningful ways will be the first step, remaining passive and perpetually complaining of our underdevelopment have not work and will never work, either the youths collaborate to salvage their region and country or they perish together.
