Speech at the CYP Pacific Regional Advisory Board Meeting

Kia Orana, and Sanibonani as we would say in my country.

I would like to thank the Government of the Cook Islands for their tremendous support and hospitality, without which this meeting would not have been taking place. Thank you too for having me here Rarotonga, my first visit to this beautiful island, and the closest to paradise that I’ve ever been. I acknowledge our esteemed delegates on the dias, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends, all protocols observed.

I would like to start by transmitting the greetings of the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Secretariat H.E Don McKinnon, the Deputy Secretary General responsible for Youth Affairs, Mrs Florence Mugasha, as well as the Director for CYP, Dr Fatiha Serour and on behalf of the entire CYP team at the pan-Commonwealth office and the Africa, Asia and Caribbean regions.

I hope you are going to bear with me because there are a few thoughts I would like to share with you. One is how strategic this particular RAB is going to be in terms of providing direction and advice not only for the South Pacific region, but in shaping CYP’s work at the pan-Commonwealth level. It is also strategic for the RAB this year because it is going to set the scene for a new leadership. As you know, the Secretary General of the Commonwealth Secretariat would be bidding us good bye in March next year and we will have a new Secretary General as well as a new DSG responsible for Youth. So I think in our deliberations over the next two days, we need to keep that in mind in terms of what would the new Secretary General mean for us in the Youth Programme. I think it should mean continuity of support for youth affairs.

The other thing we need to consider is that this year is a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) year. CHOGM is important for the RAB because it will be looking at the main theme which emanated from CHOGM 2005, viz. Respect and Understanding, which of course is the theme for this RAB. It is important for us in the Pacific because the Commission is going to present a report which looks at the global concept of respect and understanding. Through the advocacy work of Fatiha, a seat on the Respect and Understanding Commission was established in order to ensure the articulation of the youth dimension, and that was ably taken up by Elaine Howard.

I felt both priveleged and humbled yesterday, as the RYC kindly allowed me to sit in on their meeting, despite me being over the age of 29. I experienced them practically translating ‘respect and understanding’ into their processes – walking the talk.

Of course, CHOGM also means Commonwealth Youth Forum year and we have been working really hard on new processes, processes we have engaged that have not been engaged before in the CYF. Some of those processes include how best we can establish linkages among the CYP, the Finance Ministers meeting and the Commonwealth Heads of Government. On the latter, with the support of the Secretary General what we are hoping to do is create a space for a debate between a few youth representatives and a few Heads of Governments. It would be the first time this happens. It is actually to help faciliate engagement between young people and Heads of Government, with a view for Heads to vote a resolution to give further support to the youth programme.

CYP would like you here to make decisions as senior officials and as RYC members to go back to your own Heads of Government and to urge them to support that resolution. Of course let us not forget that we are preparing for CYMM 2008 and what we need to take to CYMM 2008. I think that my colleague and friend Afu Billy has spoken about a number of them. One of them is a strategic approach. Let's be a little bit more strategic, more systematic, bring things together.

One of the issues we need to work on, and which was touched upon on in the RYC meeting, is the concept of mainstreaming. I know that we have been skimming about it quite a bit, we need now to consolidate it, to turn it into action and I hope that RAB will look at that. More specifically, we need to discuss and develop the various strategies that will position us to work with our young people, our member Governments and our strategic partners to ensure that the issue of mainstreaming youth development becomes a reality and not just a term for research.

The other thing related to CYMM is the mandate given to us last year to turn every CYP Centre into a Centre of Excellence. We need to work on that. The Government of India has moved very far, very quickly, to develop and action a proposal to turn the CYP Asia Centre into a Centre of Excellence.

We would like the South Pacific region to start reflecting on what will be its niche. Asia is focusing on Youth and Governance, the Caribbean is focusing on capacity building and youth work training. We have to decide how and where we can make a difference, where is it that the South Pacific Centre has the cutting edge and can strive towards having absolute advantage. We would like these Centres of Excellence of become Pan-commonwealth Centres of Excellence. In other words, if the South Pacific Centre decides to become a Centre of Excellence in a particular area, then the whole Commonwealth will come here to learn from them just like the Pacific may go to Asia to learn about youth and governance or to Africa to learn about HIV/AIDS prevention programmes.

While we are doing well with programme areas, there are a lot of emerging issues to do with violence, globalisation, the internationalisation of terrorism and so on and RAB might want to consider these.

I think we need to really look at our role and mandate as a RAB. We need to reflect over the past years and see how we can reposition ourselves as an advisory board to do two things; look upwards to see how to support the policy making and look downwards to see how to strengthen the capacity to implement programmes and then report back.

Therefore, the task of the 2007 RAB essentially is to evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the mandates and recommendations given to us by the 2005 RAB in Fiji, and to see how effective the CYP and its partners have been in implementing the various mandates.

We need also to engage in a vigorous analysis of the current and emerging youth development landscape regionally and globally and of course to develop a roadmap for a strategic action plan for the Commonwealth Youth Programme in general, but the Pacific Centre in particular.

I would like us to consider the linkages between the Regional Advisory Board and the Regional Youth Caucus and how they can best work together to fulfill the mandate that they have, and how we can further support the work of the RYC.

As far as I understood, the Youth Mapping exercise is an initiative to develop strategies to build upon the existing relationships that we have with the various agencies, and to build more cohesive delivery mechanisms. But more importantly, we need to work from a rights-based paradigm. We need to engage with young people in a meaningful way, to as see them as partners, as assets, as agents for positive change.

This is not to to say that we should hide things or gloss over the not so good parts. By all means, tell young people where you believe that they are going wrong, and guide them back on to the right path. But also tell them where you believe that they are doing something positive, nurture them, encourage them, celebrate them. Because, after all, if you look at it from a demographic standpoint you realize that youth constitute the most significant portion of our populations and if we do not engage meaningfully in the development of young people then you only have to ask yourself what kind of a society would be left.

In conclusion, I would like to share a quote from my former president, Nelson Mandela who said – ‘There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children…(and young people).

God bless your deliberations. Ngiyabonga Kakhulu (thank you very much), Kia Manuia.

Cristal de Saldanha
Adviser: Youth Development
On behalf of
Dr. Fatiha Serour
Director, CYP
20 September 2007

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Speech at the CYP Pacific Regional Advisory Board Meeting - delivered by Cristal de Saldanha, Adviser for Youth Development on behalf of Dr Fatiha Serour Director, CYP, 20 September 2007