The Deputy Minister in The Presidency, Mr Obed Bapela led a youth delegation which attended the 9th Commonwealth Youth Forum (CYF). The CYF is a platform for young people, held prior to every Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
The 2013 CHOGM is held in Colombo, Sri Lanka with the 9th CYF 2013 held in Hambantota from 10 to 14 November 2013. The CYF meets every two years, bringing together youth leaders from across the Commonwealth to agree on a set of policies, programmes or priorities for youth development.
In this year’s CYF, a new official and autonomous Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC) was elected as an umbrella body that will represent the voice of young people in the Commonwealth. It will coordinate youth development activities and consolidate the voice of 1.2 billion young people in various member Governments.
After rigorous campaigns by various candidates from across Commonwealth countries, a nine-member inaugural Executive of the CYC was elected to serve for a period of two years. It consists of the Chairperson, 3 Vice Chairpersons, 4 Regional Representatives and a Representative for Special Interest Groups. The Chairperson is Mr Ahmed Adamu from Nigeria and the regional representative for Africa and Europe is Kiziah Philbert from Kenya.
The General Assembly of the CYC will meet every two years and will be the highest decision making gathering of the CYF. The newly elected youth leaders will interface with the Heads of Governments to share the outcomes of the CYF, a collective youth vision and to agree on how young people can best work with Governments to achieve Commonwealth goals and objectives for the next two years. It will in the next two years, recognise the voice of young people of the Commonwealth through providing guidance and leadership of youth-led development initiatives.
The main themes for the CYF were: (i) youth in the post-2015 agenda, (ii) generating quality youth employment; (iii) sexual and reproductive health and rights; (iv) education, well-being, and growth; (v) reconciliation, social cohesion and gender equality; and (vi) professionalising youth work.
In this context, amongst others, the CYF endorsed issues such as having a volunteer programme as a legacy project; domesticating the recently launched Commonwealth Youth Development Index developed by the CYP as a useful tool to monitor in-country youth development; advocating for youth-specific indicators on all relevant goals of the post 2015 framework; facilitating formal recognition of youth work as a profession; and establishing National Youth Councils in all member Governments.
The participants of the CYF had an opportunity to take part in capacity building sessions, cross cultural activities and sight-seeing. South Africa, will through the Presidency and the National Youth Development Agency, ensure implementation of decisions taken at the 9th CYF.
Enquiries:
Dr R Bernice Hlagala
Cell: 079 892 4828
