Founder of Bernice Oasis Outreach (BOO), Bernice Akinwande, has said sustainable development efforts around the world will continue to fall short if local communities remain excluded from the centre of development conversations and decision-making. Speaking on her participation at the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum in New York in April 2026, she said the discussions on poverty, healthcare access, youth unemployment and educational inequality were not abstract policy issues but realities she had encountered repeatedly through years of grassroots work in Nigeria.

According to her, the experience at the United Nations reinforced a long-held conviction that meaningful change does not begin in conference rooms or international institutions but in communities where ordinary people are already creating solutions to pressing challenges. She noted that while global development discourse often focuses on frameworks and institutional targets, the real work of development happens through local health outreaches, food interventions, educational support initiatives and youth empowerment programmes that directly impact people’s lives.

Her comments come as Bernice Oasis Outreach marks its seventh anniversary. Over the past seven years, the organisation has implemented health awareness campaigns, food drives and empowerment initiatives across underserved communities in Nigeria. Bernice said the organisation’s journey has shown that communities are not passive recipients of development but active architects of change and that many of the solutions being discussed globally are already being implemented quietly at the grassroots.

She further noted that one of the most encouraging takeaways from the ECOSOC Youth Forum was the growing recognition of the role young Africans are playing in addressing local challenges through innovation and community organising despite limited resources and structural barriers. However, she argued that a significant gap still exists between global conversations and local realities, adding that policies designed without community participation often fail to deliver meaningful and lasting impact.

Calling for greater investment in grassroots organisations and stronger inclusion of community leaders in policy design, Bernice said Nigeria and the wider African continent must take ownership of their development agenda by recognising and supporting the work already taking place within communities. According to her, the answers to many of Africa’s development challenges already exist in organisations that have continued to serve quietly and in young people who have chosen to build where they are, insisting that sustainable development can only succeed when local communities are placed at the heart of global conversations.