World News

By Ivan Cairo

PARAMARIBO, Suriname; The inaugural Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Summit on Youth Development came to a conclusion in Suriname on Saturday with the endorsement of the main recommendations of the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development (CCYD) by the CARICOM leaders.

The recommendations are with regard to the CSME, youth governance, human resource development, sports and culture.

Suriname President Ronald Venetiaan (m) and the Prime Ministers Stephenson King from St Lucia (l) and Roosevelt Skerrit from Dominica (r) during Saturday’s press conference in Paramaribo, Suriname at the conclusion of the inaugural Caricom Summit on Youth Development.
Photo by Ivan Cairo

At the end of the meeting Caricom issued the Declaration of Paramaribo on the Future of Youth in the Caribbean Community outlining intentions of the governments to further the youth agenda in the region.

However, a source who is familiar with the deliberations behind closed doors noted that seven of the eleven Heads of Delegation who discussed the draft declaration with the Heads of Government, technically should have not been allowed to participate in these discussions since they were involved in the preparation of the document.

While on Friday only three Heads of Government were present at the opening of the two-day summit, on Saturday St Lucia Prime Minister Stephenson King joined the conference, while Guyana’s president Bharrat Jagdeo left after the morning session to travel to the Netherlands and onwards to Russia for an official visit.

During a press conference, Suriname’s president Ronald Venetiaan, who has lead responsibility for youth affairs, noted that it is the intention of the heads “to explicitly recognise and clearly articulate the role of youth in Caribbean development in the amended Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas; and to ensure that this role is enshrined in national and regional development strategies, together with provisions for youth mainstreaming, youth-adult partnership and youth participation across all sectors”.

He further argued that the task at hand for the government leaders now is establish schemes to execute what is agreed upon in the declaration.

Venetiaan said, “What is going to happen now is that our heads separately and together have the duty to work with this declaration and see to it that they come forward with implementation programs. What we further have to develop is a working program and see to it that the work that has been done by the commission eventually will be continued and translated into action, undertaken by the people responsible for policy and from governing countries.”

According to Venetiaan, the CCYD report and the declaration will be a “special item” on the agenda when the heads hold their inter-sessional meeting in the second week of March in Dominica.

However, the heads have not discussed any monitoring mechanism in order to evaluate periodically whether the objectives are being met by the member states. Recognizing the importance of such mechanism and that there is no “particular structure” yet to do so CARICOM-chair prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit from Dominica noted that “we have to ensure that there is a system for monitoring, a system for reporting, because often times that is the challenge”. Therefore, within the CARICOM Secretariat structures will be created to ensure that the secretariat can “evaluate what we’re doing”.

Co-chair of the CCYD, Prof. Barry Chevannes, said that there were no clear cut recommandations regarding programs that should be implemented to tackle problems regarding youth in the region such as unemployment or crime.

He noted that several countries including Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago have several programs to address these issues but many programs are not being evaluated regarding their effectiveness. Therefore it is being advised that the member states look at the best practices of these programs, many of which are overlapping and intertwined, “to learn and adapt” these programs to the specific needs of each country.

Asked whether he is pleased about the outcome of the conference, Venetiaan said, “I am satisfied”, even though not all the heads of government where present.

“Those who came carried the load”, he said, adding that prime minister Stephenson King who arrived on Saturday had a significant contribution in the engagement with the youth from the moment he arrived.

Meanwhile, the leaders are studying options to include youth representatives in their regular meeting in July to continue discussions.

Among other things in the declaration, the leaders have committed themselves to initiatives to create a mass movement of young people in support of regional integration and to shape a sense of common identity and destiny through mechanisms and strategies such as ICT, youth-led advocacy and peer sensitisation networks, youth exchanges, sports and culture.

They also support auditing of Departments responsible for Youth Affairs and for developing, by mid-2011, comprehensive restructuring plans informed by regional guidelines which include coordination of youth development initiatives nationally; mainstreaming youth; strategic planning and evidence-based/research-driven programming; forming strategic alliances and implementation partnerships with youth organisations/NGOs/CBOs and development agencies; coordinating the implementation of the Regional Strategy for Youth Development; and translating regional policy into national action.

Furthermore, the CARICOM leaders “strongly endorse the recommendation to use the Commission on Youth Development’s research findings to strengthen the Regional Strategy for Youth Development and to develop complementary CARICOM Youth Development Goals, targets and indicators as desirable outcomes for youth well-being and empowerment."

They are also committed to recognise and provide incentives for outstanding youth talent, excellence and volunteerism through the establishment of a regional youth award at the level of the Order of the Caribbean Community and a multi-agency Regional Youth Awards and Incentives Programme.

Source: Caribbean Net News