THE EDITOR, Sir:
IN HIS 1999/2000 sectoral budget speech on youth, the then Minister Fitz Jackson said that the government had embraced the UN World Plan Of Action For Youth 2000 And Beyond Programme.
However, since then there has been no clear policy initiative and direction on this matter and what at present is happening is an ad-hoc approach, with every ministry and agency doing its own thing. What is the ideal situation?
The U.N. World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond contains the primary set of guidelines for youth policies to be carried out by member states of the United Nations, of which Jamaica is a member. It covers ten priority areas for national youth policies and provides a framework to measure and evaluate achievements. These ten areas are: Education, Employment, Hunger and Poverty, Health, The Environment, Drug Abuse, Juvenile Delinquency, Leisure-Time Activities, Girls and Young Women and Youth Participation in National Life. As of February 2003, five more areas have been added: Globalization, Infor-mation and Communication Technologies (ICT), HIV/AIDS, Youth and Conflict Prevention and Intergenerational relations. A National Youth Development Programme for Jamaica should address the above areas in some form or shape.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The Ministry of Youth needs to prioritize the new youth policy promised for January 2003 and the Youth Action Plan for February 2003.
2. The Policy must be written like a 5-year development plan in order to streamline youth expectations.
3. The National Centre for Youth Development (NCYD) needs to play a more global activist youth role, rather than just endorse what comes out of Government, i.e. they must be more proactive within the Global Youth Framework rather than reactive.
4. If there is a clearly defined National Youth Development Programme and National Youth Action Plan (a la Braga Youth Action Plan) as promulgated in No. 1, civil society and the business community will find it easier to assist and take part in, as such funding to a greater extent will become a non-issue and funds from the Private Sector will be better spent for the needs of the youth of Jamaica.
5. In the context of Sustainable Community Development (SCD) which is being strongly promoted by the Ministry of Local Government through its Local Government Reform Programme (LGRP) and the need to reconnect with the people at the community level, rural and urban, this would enhance the GRP, which is what the minister was referring to in part, in a recent speech on youth matters at the PNPYO youth conference.
6. I note with interest that neither of the two political youth arms of the major political parties has deemed it fit to tackle any of these youth fundamentals; perhaps a national youth forum on these youth fundamentals could be useful not only to their common political interest but the youth of the nation as a whole. This would display strong leadership on their part.
I am, etc.,
PETER JONES
liontraders@yahoo.com
International Youth Foundation
