Allow youth to contribute

IT is critical to get the region’s youth involved in productive efforts.

This is the view of new United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative, Stephen O’Malley.

Explaining that young people brought a lot of dynamism to endeavours, in creating innovations and thinking of solutions to problems, he outlined that the commitment of young people to their countries should be harnessed.

“In making sure that the youth have the opportunities to contribute to the economy and civil life of their communities is important to the UN and an important part of a strong and prosperous future for the island. Our ‘Youth In’ project looked at bolstering youth innovation in a number of different ways and that is something that we are looking at continuing. Also we are looking at issues around Youth entrepreneurship as well and focusing on a range of issues that are challenging,” he told the media recently.

Noting that many countries had several programmes in place for the youth, O’Malley stressed that the UNDP would be looking at more policies to better include young people in civil society, the full participation in governance and in economic life.

He said it would be necessary to consider what things could be introduced to make employment more accessible for the youth, whether through encouraging entrepreneurship or working on educational systems or working on pathways into formal employment.

“So that for us is a very strong interest for the countries in the region. You want your young people to be really moving into productive economic life, into productive engagement with society and that is something that we would like to assist with,” he continued. (JMB)