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Young people are key to progress, invest in them: UNFPA Pacific
SUVA, 10 JULY 2014 (UNFPA Pacific)--- It can be a little daunting to imagine a world with an estimated 1.8 billion young people, when one considers socio-economic issues the majority of these adolescents and young men and women are grappling with.
It is however merely a matter of changing our mindset, when viewed as an opportunity, we have in our midst the key to social and economic progress provided we as families and as nations invest in them.
Investing in young people is critical for they are shaping our social and economic realities and as we commemorate World Population Day tomorrow, July 11, we must take to heart and mind this year?s theme: Investing in Young People.
World Population Day has been celebrated since 1989 when the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme recommended that such an annual and international event should be observed in order to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues.
The United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, believes that governments are beginning to recognise the logic in investing in young people to ensure they all reach their full potential ? regardless of age, ethnicity, gender, geographical location or belief system ? both as individuals and citizens.
The organization knows that when healthy and allowed to complete one?s education the highest level they can attain, young people tend to be more productive and more engaged with decision-making processes both within their families and at community and national level.
?When young people are given the space to develop both as individuals and as citizens, their enthusiasm and engagement benefits all of us, not just them,? UNFPA Pacific Sub-Regional Office Director and Representative Dr Laurent Zessler said.
?Being aware of their rights and responsibilities inculcates an interest in life and in most cases, propels meaningful engagement. And when young people are engaged in development for example, we can hope for informed and effective progress for themselves and for nations as a whole.?
Adolescents and youth are central to the future development agenda. Safeguarding their rights and investing in their future by providing quality education, decent employment, effective livelihood skills, and access to SRH and comprehensive sexuality education that emphasizes gender and power, is essential to their development and that of their families, communities and countries.
Investing in young people can mean a lot of things, depending on ones? geographical location or national legal frameworks but suffice to say that a safe and successful and healthy passage from adolescence into adulthood is the right of every child.
This right can only be fulfilled if families and societies make focused investments and provide opportunities to ensure that adolescents and youth progressively develop the knowledge, skills and resilience needed for a healthy productive and fulfilling life.
It is critical that we as stakeholders with our various roles towards an enabling environment for effective investment for effective investment in young people recognise that adolescents and youth are central to the future development agenda.
To mark this year?s World Population Day, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Pacific Sub-Regional Office invites people of Fiji and the Pacific to participate in a campaign that can be termed as a ?digital petition? albeit with images as opposed to signatures.
Entitled the Snap & Send Selfie Campaign, anyone can participate, as long as you believe that youth should be an integral part of the post-2015 development agenda: people are essentially invited to send us a selfie which are being collected globally.
When world leaders converge at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on ICPD Beyond 2014, the collection of selfies will be used to convey to leaders that young people, as indicated by those who have participated in this digital petition, want to be ?in the picture? when it comes to the post-2014 and post-2015 development agenda.
The ICPD, International Conference on Population and Development, was held in 1994 in Cairo; it marks an emphasis on a human rights-approach to the population and development dynamics. The ICPD produced a 20-year Programme of Action: it is the revised framework which has been in the making the last couple of years, to be presented to the special session in September (2014) that is the target of the campaign.
The campaign supports a UNFPA proposal that youth should be in the heart of the post-2014 and post-2015 development framework: specificity in international instruments allows for specificity when member states who sign up reach the stage of policy development, in this case, the campaign argues that youth (issues) merit specificity to ensure they prepare well for the future.
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Pacific Director and Representative Dr Laurent Zessler said of the campaign: ?When you are isolated from global meetings like the UN general assemblies to which your governments go to as member states, the concept of selfies is a critical way of ensuring your voice as Pacific people are heard, or with your selfies you are saying you want to be in the picture of future development frameworks.?
If you as an individual or a group supportive of the proposal that youth should be at the heart of the post-2015 development agenda, send us a selfie of as an individual or a group (oceaniaselfies2014@gmail.com) and if you want, with a message.... PACNEWS
? Jul 2014 Pacific News Service. Suva, Fiji.
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