Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima, is Nigeria’s representative to the Commonwealth Youth Caucus, the highest level of statutory youth participation in the Commonwealth system and a platform for youth to engage as ambassadors of their government, the Commonwealth and youth in their respective countries. He has extensive experience in partnership building and international networking and has consulted extensively for government and international organisations including the United Nations Population Fund and the African Union Commission. His particular interests are: sexual reproductive health/HIV/AIDS, education and youth development policy. He was involved in the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s pioneer work towards the establishment of a virtual library in Nigeria and is currently working with the United Nations Economic for Africa (UNECA) on the Africa Youth Report.

Dabesaki is the Executive Director of Development Partnership International, a model non-profit organisation which promotes youth leadership in social change and development actions at grassroots levels across Africa. DPI has continued to engage as an important platform to discuss youth development issues in Africa and organises an annual youth leadership summit that brings together young leaders from across Nigeria to discuss critical issues of national development. Before his current engagement at DPI, he was involved in co-founding two international youth organizations: Students Without Borders and the Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS (GYCA). GYCA is a global alliance of young people working on HIV/AIDS issues in over 120 countries around the world and he served on its Taskforce until September 2006. He is also a board member of many youth non-profits in Nigeria.

In his role as Nigeria’s Commonwealth Youth Caucus representative, he promoted the integration of youth issues into the Second National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), and is currently promoting young people’s access to HIV/AIDS/ Sexual health information, education, skills and services. Since 2004, he has served on many important international HIV/AIDS Committees including: the Global Youth Caucus Coordinator for the XIV International AIDS Conference in Thailand, Science Committee member for the IAC in Toronto 2006, Leadership programme Committee member for the International Conference on AIDS and STI in Africa, the International Youth Committee on the Millennium Development Goals and twice as temporary adviser to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Geneva.

Dabesaki is an author and speaker, and has featured at over 40 United Nations and international meetings, presenting papers on various aspects of youth development. He  maintains a blog site: http://blog.developmentpartnership.org.