Focus on youths - UN
published: Saturday | May 13, 2006

John Myers, Jr., Staff Reporter

VIENNA, Austria:

UNITED NATIONS (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan yesterday urged Caribbean and Latin American leaders to place more emphasis on alleviating poverty and unemployment, especially among the youths, as a means of improving their economic and social stability.

Mr. Annan, who was addressing heads of government at the fourth European Union/Latin America and Caribbean Summit yesterday in Vienna, Austria, noted that countries tend to focus more on improving their economic policies while paying little attention to unemployment and poverty alleviation. This, he said, was contributing to the high incidence of violence, drugs and HIV/AIDS in Caribbean and Latin American countries.

"Such discontent is palpable in many parts of Latin America where high unemployment has led to reduced confidence, both in democratic institutions and in the market economy, (and) Caribbean democracies suffer from an unemployment-fuelled assault of violence, drugs and HIV/AIDS," Mr. Annan said.