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The Public Affairs Counselor of the United States Embassy in Ghana, Mr. Daniel Fennell, has admonished youth to strive to improve on the existing institutions; from small social institutions such as the family to large multinational institutions such as the United Nations system.

He was speaking at the opening ceremony of the fourth session of the Life-link Tertiary Model United Nations held at the International Conference Centre in Accra, Ghana.

The 3-day annual conference was held from, 8th – 11th July 2015 on the theme: “The role of youth in tackling the socio-economic challenges of the international system”.

Mr. Fennell highlighted the support that the US Government was providing in promoting the UN’s mandate and cited the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) program by the Obama Administration designed to help develop 500 African youth annually in various fields of leadership.

He explained that such initiatives by the US government were aimed at fulfilling the global call for international cooperation towards development. Hence the US was interested in partnering with African youth to find African solutions to African problems.

The Model UN conference, is a simulation of the UN General Assembly and was organized by Life-link Ghana in partnership with Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Ministry as part of the series of events to commemorate the 70th UN Anniversary this year.

Participants included about 100 tertiary students across Ghana, Liberia and the UK. Also at the colorful opening ceremony were Dr. Peter Ocantey, President of NAPE Foundation and Mr. Ernest Amoako, ICT Director at the National Youth Authority.

Dr. Ocantey spoke on the need for education to translate into entrepreneurship while Mr. Amoako expressed the desire of the NYA to support such leadership initiatives.

Mr. Dennis Penu, Director of Programs for Life-link Ghana, spoke about the organization’s commitment to roll out the UN Youth Observer program for Ghana. The program provides a comprehensive and transparent process to select annually, a Ghanaian youth to represent Ghanaian youth interest at the UN General Assembly. Model Secretary-General for the UN, Mina Pokuaa Agyeman, mentioned the introduction of the Botaepa contest on the side-lines of the conference to identify and support a social venture idea that solves a social problem.

The delegates presented their countries’ position papers and engaged in formal and informal negotiations to finally come out with resolutions that called for a united action against terrorism, tolerance for religious diversity and a promotion of gender-sensitive policies in UN member states.

Mr. Makafui Collins Dey-Sadika, a second year student of the University of Ghana was adjudged the overall best delegate of the conference. He received a cash prize from JSS Media Company and will be fully sponsored by Life-link Ghana to attend the Harvard National Model UN conference in the USA in 2016.

Mr. Prince Agbata of the Ghana Telecom University College had his “Code for Kids” project adjudged the winning Botaepa idea. He will receive further entrepreneurship grooming from the NAPE foundation and exposure to source funding for his project.