Ministers meet in Bahamas to tackle youth issues
published: Friday | May 19, 2006

THE ISSUES of youth poverty, crime and HIV/AIDS will be at the forefront of discussions at the sixth meeting of Common-wealth Youth Ministers in Nassau, The Bahamas, from May 22-26.

"It is a present day tragedy that over half-a-billion young people (aged 15-29) in the Common-wealth are living on less than a dollar a day," said Common-wealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon. "When you add that statistic with the worldwide statistics that 130 million young people are illiterate, 88 million are unemployed and 10 million are living with HIV/AIDS, in many ways, prospects for young people have never looked so grim."

On these issues of youth poverty, HIV/AIDS and crime the Commonwealth Secretariat is working with the United Nations to develop a Youth Development Index, along the lines of the UN's Human Development Index. The imple-mentation of this index would assist in measuring the effect of investment in the fight against youth poverty, HIV/AIDS and crime.