(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) Four international development agencies have started collaboration with the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development in data collection on youth related issues.
This is in support of the Commission’s mandate to assess the challenges and opportunities for youth in the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) and recommend a strategy to the Meeting of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government in July, 2008 on how to improve empower youth and their quality of life.
At the second meeting of the Commission, the agencies – United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – attended shared best practices and research findings with the Commission.
In sharing the findings of a recent youth consultation hosted by UNFPA, Jewel Quallo-Rosberg highlighted three youth-related priorities as out migration and its impact on CARICOM Youth; youth employment and migration and HIV /AIDS and reiterated the need to address these in the context of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.
Ms Hilary Nicholson who represented UNIFEM gave valuable suggestions on how to use alternative communication approaches to mobilising and educating youth and stressed the importance of partnering with the media to facilitate the promotion of the work of the Commission.
UNICEF’s representative Sherlene Tablada outlined some of the organisation’s research priorities as HIV/ AIDS and Children; Basic Education and Gender Equality and Child Protection from violence, abuse and exploitation. She proffered findings of recent studies on youth, conducted by UNICEF as the framework for understanding violence in the Caribbean and pledged UNICEF’s continued support in the area of data collection for the 10 – 14 age cohort.
UNDP’s Operations Manager, Armstrong Alexis explained that the UNDP was focussing on reducing youth vulnerabilities through evidence based research that would inform youth centred programmatic interventions.
Chairman of the Commission, Professor Barry Chevannes acknowledged the enormity of work to be done to meet the reporting deadline of July 2008. However, he was optimistic that the task would be completed on time, noting that the CARICOM Youth Ambassadors as well as the international agencies would be working assiduously with the Commission to ensuring that the job gets done.
