home || about us || projects || pacific youth resources || press || contact

  
  pacific youth policy & advocacy

pacific youth policy framework |  key declarations

  
  Pacific Youth Policy Framework            
 

There are multiple layers of Pacific youth policy, and a variety of different methods of advocacy and youth engagement being employed. Despite this, and despite the fact that such avenues have vastly improved over the past few years, there is still a large gap and many youth still feel left out of the system with their voices unheard.

Generally the overarching policy for youth development which guides many organizations and the youth strategies of many countries is the Pacific Youth Strategy 2010, developed by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).  This was developed with the consultation of youth and YSFP (and its members) too played a role in reviewing and assisting in its development. The Pacific Youth Strategy 2010 also paid close attention to the Tofomamao Declaration created at the YSFP, UN and Samoan Government run Pacific Youth MDG Summit in 2005 and the Pacific Plan which is a much larger regional economic and development strategy. The SPC has a specialist team in their "Youth Bureau" who are focused on youth policy development and they have assisted several governments in the region with building national youth policies.  The national youth policies are generally developed with the assistance of the national youth ministries and also through consultation with youth. The SPC also conducts several other research studies on youth in the region and these are available from their website.

On a country level, most Pacific nations (except a few like Vanuatu) have comprehensive national youth policies and strategies. However, although many of these papers are excellent documents, they are rarely implemented to their promises. In many cases, the Ministries responsible for youth have inadequate resources and staff and are thus unable to implement their youth policies extensively.

The SPC also actively support the Pacific Youth Council, a body consisting of Pacific Youth representatives from almost every Pacific nation. The Pacific Youth Council (PYC) is supposed to be the highest level youth representative body in the region. The PYC was recently elected at the Pacific Youth Festival (PYF) in Tahiti in 2006 and have produced the Pacific Youth Charter which is a document representing the concerns and aspirations of Pacific youth for policy makers to consider when developing youth related policy.

The United Nations (UN) organizations also play a vital role with youth in the region with several programs and several important research studies conducted by them. The UN country team in Samoa showed leadership in 2005 and partnered with YSFP to run the first Pacific Youth MDG Summit. The documents created by the 50 youth from 13 Pacific Nations at this summit still form a vital ingredient in the UN and other NGOs plans for the region with regards to youth. The UN organizations have since funded programs based around the findings from this summit and their research papers.

The Commonwealth Secretariat also takes an active interest in the region. Commonwealth Pacific nations such as Tonga, New Zealand, the Solomon's, PNG and Australia each have a youth representative and the Commonwealth Secretariat also funds a small Pacific Center office in the Solomon Islands where its regional youth related work is coordinated from.

NGOs are also very active in the region and may in fact carry out most of the grass-roots level youth work and programs. There are many NGOs active in the region including:

Further to this, and on the most grass roots levels, there are hundreds of youth run or youth organizations, and groups, ranging from small church youth groups to youth organizations set up to advocate for a specific issue or youth media projects. This is where the real essence of youth development work, youth advocacy and youth leadership come together and result in positive change for the region.

YSFP's role is to work together with all of these organization to ensure that Pacific youth are empowered to achieve their dreams and that they have they voices heard. YSFP has assisted in the development of many of the key documents above including the regional youth strategy and several declarations. YSFP has also helped many of the organizations above with their plans, strategy and projects. YSFP also aims to help grassroots youth organizations to achieve their goals and help more young people.

 

      
  Other Key Declarations            
 

There have been many declarations from the numerous conferences held on youth and the few held on Pacific youth. Some of these are listed here:

     
 

 

        
                   
 

  Join over 200 pacific youth, and regional youth development professionals on our email list:

 
 

 
 

Copyright 2008 Youth for Sustainable a Future Pacifika. YSFP website supported by Peacechild International