Opening Address at the Fourth Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting
Date: 24 May 2000
Speaker: Secretary-General Don McKinnon
Location: Honiara, Solomon Islands
Prime Minister, Ministers, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen
For me, coming back to this part of the world is homecoming. It gives me great pleasure to be back in this beautiful country and amidst its warm and hospitable people.
I join the Prime Minister in welcoming Ministers, officials, delegates, and in particular young people, to this meeting.
Thank you, Prime Minister, for hosting these deliberations, which will address some of the key challenges that face Commonwealth governments in the new millennium. We are grateful for the huge efforts made to ensure the success of this meeting.
Pacific generosity is legendary. If you compliment your friend on the shirt he is wearing he is likely to give it to you. It is characteristic of Melanesian hospitality that not only did the Government offer to host the meeting, but it also offered us the people's home - the Parliament building - as the venue. What better way to underscore the Commonwealth's democratic ethos!
Your Government, Prime Minister, has faced challenging times since you assumed office in 1997. It has addressed the urgent need for economic development and public sector reform. And more recently it has had to face ethnic unrest in Guadalcanal.
Those of us who have been through structural reform know this is a tough road to walk. The nature of such change is often painful. The World Bank, IMF and other key donors and players have commended your Government's efforts in this regard.
The South Pacific was the first region to see the dawn of the new millennium. At Durban last year, Commonwealth Heads of Government agreed to undertake a High Level Review of the Commonwealth's role in this new era, the results of which will be presented to the next CHOGM in Brisbane, in 2001.
Will it be whither or wither the Commonwealth? I firmly believe that the future is bright. I would not otherwise have sought this job. The trans-regional membership of the Commonwealth, its informality and discretion, and its responsiveness and flexibility as an organisation are unique assets.
I was Vice Chair for four years of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), which is the custodian of what we call the Harare Principles. It can be convened at short notice and acts quickly. Witness the case of Pakistan last October when the Commonwealth was the only international organisation which acted in response to the military coup, suspending Pakistan from the councils of the Commonwealth.
The quiet, behind the scenes diplomacy of the Commonwealth has been put to good use here in the Solomon Islands. The Commonwealth peace envoy, General Sitiveni Rabuka, has been working assiduously with the Solomon Islands Government and all parties involved in the very difficult issues on Guadalcanal towards a successful long-term resolution.
The issues of land grievances, land ownership and land reform test many Commonwealth countries at this time. They can only be resolved by political dialogue and all parties reaching a consensus that they respect and adhere to. There is no place here for the win-lose option; solutions can only be based on working together to seek win-win outcomes.
Let's look at the facts of the Commonwealth's origins. The movers and shakers in the struggles for independence and democracy in the second half of the twentieth century founded the modern Commonwealth. The list of great men and women pepper the pages of history in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific - Nkrumah, Nehru, Manley, Ratu Mara and Mata'afa. Without being melodramatic, it is true to say that, across the Commonwealth, people struggled, suffered and some times died for the principles of democracy and human rights.
For the Commonwealth to be meaningful in the twenty-first century we must ensure that our young people have knowledge of and pride in its significant history.
Many of you here are youth ministers, though some would say the term is an oxymoron. If you're old enough to be a minister you're too old to be a youth!
I have resolved to speak directly with young people wherever my work as Secretary-General takes me. I did so in New Delhi and Dhaka last month. I did so here yesterday. I will do so in Port Moresby next Sunday.
Young people today are part of the dot.com generation, facing the future in a world where technology is rapidly changing. It is said that many of you who are still at school today, will end up in jobs that haven't even been invented yet.
Consequently, education is vital. As former President Mandela once said; "it is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of a mine, that a child of farm workers can become the President of a great nation".
But education matters not just because of what it can offer you, but also for what it will enable you to offer others.
As you know, the Commonwealth is founded on the principles of peace, democracy, human rights and development. Increasingly member governments are recognising the vital role that a strong and vibrant civil society plays in promoting these principles.
However, civil society is not a phenomenon that just happens. It requires an aware and educated citizenry.
It is not merely a question of placing your cross on the ballot paper, but much more. Children and young people need to understand the principles which underpin democracy and civil society, develop the skills to use that knowledge effectively and be able to participate in the appropriate fora.
Apathy is one of democracy's greatest enemies.
In the Commonwealth young people are members of many youth civil society organisations. The village youth group, the local sporting organisation, the National Youth Council, the religious tolerance alliance, are all integral elements in the effort to create a strong civil society and healthy democracy.
The Commonwealth and its Youth Programme have a vital role to play in promoting that ethos.
At Kuala Lumpur, Ministers commissioned a ministerial review of the changing environment for the development and empowerment of young people and to identify new strategic priorities for the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP) in the new millennium.
I am delighted that this agenda has been advanced, with efforts to ensure that the CYP is ready for its new challenges.
One of those challenges is HIV/AIDS. At Durban Heads of Government expressed grave concern over the devastating social and economic impact of HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and agreed that this constituted a global emergency.
The CYP Africa Centre pioneered the development of the Positive Living Ambassadors Programme. Young people have been acting as peer educators in their own and neighbouring countries, talking and listening to one another. In Uganda and Zambia this work has already demonstrated the ability to change behaviour, with a resultant decline in HIV-positive rates.
Young people must be given the means to protect themselves from the risk of infection and the knowledge to help their families and communities support those living with HIV/AIDS.
The CYP is working with UNAIDS and UNICEF to produce materials and support to make peer educators more effective. I hope that governments in other regions of the Commonwealth will support and replicate these important initiatives.
In the Caribbean, with its great tradition of sportsmanship, youth leaders are being trained to reach those young people at risk of drug and substance abuse, to promote healthy lifestyles, including sexual and reproductive health, using sports leadership as the medium for these important messages.
In Africa, local sports personalities are being used as positive role models to create greater awareness of HIV/AIDS.
One of the major recommendations before you is to increase the direct involvement of young people in the CYP, through its governance, policy and programme development and implementation.
Internships and attachments to CYP Centres to build the capacity of youth networks and the positive roles they can play are under way. The CYP Youth Caucus has been very active during the last two years and their report to you later today will demonstrate the impact of this.
The CYP has embraced the recommendations of the Ministerial Review. A comprehensive implementation plan has been prepared for your consideration at this meeting.
Major work on upgrading CYP Centres to maximise the use of Information Technology has started. This will result in better communications and information flow, and also reduce administrative costs.
The Secretariat is improving all its programme management systems with the use of IT. The CYP has taken the lead in designing and operationalising a system that the rest of the organisation is using as its template.
Commonwealth Heads of Government in the Fancourt Commonwealth Declaration on Globalisation and People-Centred Development noted that:
"The greatest challenge facing us today is how to channel the forces of globalisation for the elimination of poverty and the empowerment of human beings to lead fulfilling lives."
At Durban, Heads of Government endorsed the Plan of Action for Youth Empowerment (PAYE).
In that excellent document young people's empowerment is referred to as a "demographic imperative" for the Commonwealth. Perhaps that sounds more pompous than in Latin America where they refer to their youthful profiles as a "demographic gift".
Young people are central to meeting the challenges of globalisation. Their energy and industry will be the engine of wealth creation and poverty elimination - their empowerment is the key. There is no meeting the challenge without the full participation of young people.
Traditional formal education can give young people a great start in life but does not always ensure that they will be able to get a job. The conventional route from school to tertiary education does not exist for many young people.
Unemployed graduates with technical knowledge who lack skills or experience that make them employable or enable them to start up their own employment ventures are a feature of a number of Commonwealth countries.
The Commonwealth Youth Credit Initiative (CYCI) has had some success in its pilot projects. It has proven beyond doubt that young people are bankable - loan repayment rates in Asia and the Caribbean equal those achieved by the well-known Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.
There is evidence that with the right training and outreach support services, young people's business ventures can achieve a good level of success.
The CYP cannot provide the level of funds that are required to resource national youth credit programmes. It can however demonstrate through its work on the Credit Initiative a methodology that is successful.
The focus on microcredit through the World Microcredit Summit has channelled millions of donor dollars into such programmes. CYP is already working with both governments and donors to replicate the CYCI methodology and ensure that young people gain equitable access to these resources.
It is an unfortunate fact that in the Commonwealth children and young people are heading households and becoming subsistence and cash crop farmers, roles forced upon them through wars, displacement and disease. Youth organisations are ideally placed to lend support, through their non-formal education programmes, to young people in these difficult circumstances.
Training programmes in youth and enterprise development are core elements of the CYP Diploma programme in Youth in Development. The distance education mode of the Diploma puts effective learning tools into the hands of youth leaders directly in their communities. Support to youth organisations working with rural young people and those at risk will pass on vital education in an informal and accessible way.
The CYP has already begun to address these challenges. CYP Regional Advisory Boards have identified the economic enfranchisement of young women and men and their participation in national social and political affairs as of the highest priority.
This meeting provides opportunities for debate on effective interventions to tackle these issues. I hope that the documents and thought-provoking presentations will assist you in your deliberations.
I will be following with great interest your discussions as Ministers responsible for Youth Affairs. I hope that your recommendations for addressing the challenges of globalisation and realising the potential of young people in development will provide food for thought for the High Level Review of the Commonwealth.
I urge you all, especially those of you whose Heads of Government are members of the Review Group, to underscore the importance of young people in ensuring that the future remains bright for the Commonwealth.
Those of us who are often called upon to give speeches, at some time or another end up quoting the playwright Oscar Wilde. In fact, if he had not lived, I think we would have had to invent him! He once said that youth was wasted on the young. Oscar Wilde isn't alone in giving young people a bad press. But I am not in that band. I regularly meet young people with energy and enthusiasm; young people who are committed to environmental or other causes; young people who are making a difference.
I urge all young people to look outside themselves. I say: don't act like victims, just because you feel politically powerless because you are young. You have choices in how you lead your lives, in what you get out of life and in what you give back.
Sure, put your baseball caps on, backwards of course, and use the Internet to download music, the language of youth all over the world, but also use it as a tool to understand the diversity of your world. And yes, it is your world, and it will be a better world for your involvement in it.
I wish you a very productive meeting.
Thank you.
24 May 2000
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