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Commonwealth Secretariat press release

Sri Lanka Commonwealth meeting to focus on “Youth and Peacebuilding”

9 April 2008

Sri Lanka will host the Seventh Meeting of Commonwealth Youth Ministers (7CYMM) in Colombo 27-30 April 2008 under the theme “Youth and Peacebuilding”.

Sri Lanka President HE Mahinda Rajapaska is expected to open the meeting, which will also be addressed by Commonwealth Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma.

The meeting will discuss emerging issues of youth development, specifically linkages between peace-building, social development and transformation. It will also provide policy directions for the Commonwealth Youth Programme and the Commonwealth’s other youth work for the next four years.

“At the meeting the Commonwealth will reaffirm its vision as to how the organisation can best address the challenges and opportunities facing youth. We’ve got to get it right in respect of youth development issues,” said Deputy Secretary-General Florence Mugasha.

Youth representatives from the Commonwealth will also take part in the 7CYMM and other meetings including a skills building workshop on women, youth and peace building.

“Young people are the inheritors of a changing world – its economic distributions, social positions, cultural identities and historical narratives,” the Commonwealth’s Commission on Respect and Understanding said in its report, Civil Paths to Peace, published last year.

“They need not be passive recipients of these things; with appropriate support and political will young people can be an active, positive force for development, locally, nationally and internationally.”

The meeting will also discuss how to eradicate poverty to help diminish factors linked to economic marginalisation and alienation and reduce tensions among young people.

Media Enquiries

For media enquiries please contact Ms Victoria Holdsworth, Communications Officer, at v.holdsworth@commonwealth.int and +44789 459 3520.

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