Millions of people around the world yesterday celebrated International Youth Day 2017 (IYD) under the theme “Youth building Peace”, with renewed emphasis being placed on the role that could be played by young people around the globe in reshaping the individual destinies and development goals of their respective societies.
The day designated by the United Nations also recognises the need for youths to play a role in the prevention of conflict in their communities, as they work harder with various organizations to achieve social justice, sustainable peace, equality and inclusion. It underscores, too, the importance of civic activism and youth involvement at every tier of decision-making within their communities and Governments, in order to achieve long-term security and peace, as well as the development of key strategies to end armed conflict and economic inequality.
And while countries in the developed world continue to seize every opportunity to empower their youths and harness their potential through guaranteed involvement at every important power-broking forum in their democracies, the Caribbean is seriously lagging behind.
Some countries here are still struggling to complete youth policies that could serve as a blueprint on how Governments can work with youth to achieve their wider political, social and economic goals. Also, enough is not being done by regional Governments and stakeholders to tackle core problems which are threatening the forward movement of young people, and in turn reducing their desire to get involved in meaningful civic engagements, politics, and the overall thrust to change their world.
Piecemeal and sometimes selective attention is being given to devising strategies to tackle youth crime and unemployment, and a plethora of other social challenges that are facing youths within the region. This is despite the fact that billions of dollars in donor aid and support programmes flow to the region yearly for these purposes. The agencies and regional bodies responsible seem not to be able to get past conducting research studies and submitting key status reports on the problems. Even though recommendations are made, very few are implemented, and even fewer are successful in causing a direct reduction in the levels of unemployment and crime in the Caribbean.
Caricom has also failed its youths in this respect. The regional bloc continues to be a talk-shop, serving as a forum where the wastage of tax-payers’ dollars on white elephant projects take on a highly ceremonial and boring tone; and appear to be the order of the day, with few making any significant headway in addressing the real issues facing youth.
Caricom is also failing to use youths as a vehicle to drive its technological agenda. While it believes that it is accomplishing a great lot through its ambassadorial projects, the statistics tell no lie, as serious lapses continue to be made in creating badly needed behavioural changes among youths to win the fight against HIV/AIDS, non-communicable diseases, and a further degradation of ethics and morals.
In Guyana, the situation is worse. While youths continue to be touted as the future of this country, enough is not being done to translate words into action. The unemployment rate is still very high. Underemployment is a normal phenomenon for highly skilled and qualified young people who opt to stay at home and serve, as opposed to leaving these shores. This, in turn, has resulted in the level of youth crime rising gradually.
The new APNU/AFC (A Partnership for National Unity and Alliance for Change) Government, which galloped on the backs of youths to secure power, is now failing to do anything meaningful for them. It has drafted a poorly-thought-out and intellectually bankrupt National Youth Policy that is void of new and fresh ideas, and which will have to be supervised by a highly incompetent Education Minister. No new investments are being made in young people that were not made by the former PPP Government under a different name. In fact, the APNU/AFC have reduced, in several areas, the scale of investments made by the PPP that had a direct and indirect effect on the lives of youth. The Government continues to demonstrate its resentment for youth by the selective employment and installation of senior citizens — no disrespect intended — over youths in key decision-making bodies and agencies. By its very actions, it has failed to recognize that youths are the only ones who could devise newer and more innovative reforms that could transform several sectors in this country that have been dogged by nonperformance over the last few years.
Young people have not been formally called upon by the Government to organize themselves into groups, to have their say and make meaningful national presentations on public service reforms and the future of the sugar industry, despite steps to take action soon in these areas. Youths are only visible and meaningful to the Government for window dressing purposes.
The attainment of peace, political sustainability, and socioeconomic growth is not possible without the meaningful involvement of youths. Surely the Government knows this, and will pay more attention to its politics in this respect.
