The World Bank is to train 20 youths from different parts of Africa on climate change skills, Habiba Gitay, a Senior environmental specialist with the bank has said.

Gitay, who made this known in Abuja on Tuesday, said the essence of the training is to empower them to train other youths and spread the awareness in the communities.

“The training is really focusing on youths becoming more active in sustainable development and climate change issues and youths have a long life commitment on such issues that cannot disappear overnight,” the News Agency of Nigeria quoted her as saying.

She said the youths are selected based on their knowledge of climate change issues in their countries and how they could network with others from other parts of Africa to make an impact.

Gitay said the training would focus on how the youths could take action on raising awareness with different stakeholders, such as the media and the community, about the effects of climate change.

According to her, bringing the youth together is very important and will assist them to network and support each other in creating awareness.

She said after the training, the youths would be given little grants to start practical projects on climate change at the grassroots level in their countries.

Also speaking, Iretomiwa Olatunji, a Consultanton Climate Change Practice, World Bank Institute, said the institute has trained more than 300 youths from different parts of the world during the year.

“The youths undergoing training presently would make a presentation to test their knowledge at the end of the training,” he said.

“The training is to bring out the innovative ideas in them and even if they are not empowered with funds, they will be able to contribute the knowledge gained during the training to mitigate the effects of climate change," the World Bank official said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 19, 2009)