A Decade of Action in Building a Resilient Recovery:Caribbean Youth Leaders "Get It”

What a pleasure is has been to listen to the voices of Caribbean youth leaders  at the 10th Economic and Social Council Youth Forum sponsored by the UN, April 7-8, 2021.  It is clear that they "Get It." They advocated for building resilience, drive, creativity and leadership in participating in the  decade of action to deliver the Sustainable development Goals (SDGs). In his opening statement  to the Forum, H.E. Mr. Munir Akram, President of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)  makes the case that: "The future belongs to you, the youth. We need your energy, your ideals, your boldness, your imagination, your innovation, to build the structure of a peaceful, prosperous and equal world order”
 
Youth in the COVID-19 Era: What are they responding to?
 
The Forum began on April 7th which coincided with  World Health Day,  highlighting the  immense impacts that COVID-19  on young people around the world:
 

• One in eight young people do not have access to education, the majority of whom are girls;
• One in six young people lost their jobs;
• Access to sexual and reproductive health and rights has decreased, leading to an increase in unwanted pregnancies and an additional 10 million girls at risk of child marriages;
• And youth's heightened mental health issues are a continuing concern.

 
The forum also takes place in a year when COVID-19 has had  multidimensional health, economic and social  impacts globally. In Latin America and the  Caribbean gross domestic product has declined 7-7% in 2020, poverty effects 231million  people with an increase of 28.5 million people living in extreme poverty. 
 
How are the Challenges facing Youth being tackled?
 
At the special Caribbean Youth Regional Table within the Forum (April 8) the panelists (listed at the end) highlighted the need to view good health and wellbeing in the broadest context of the WHO  mission of health as embracing physical, mental and social well-being. In the Caribbean as in the entire Latin America and Caribbean (LAC)  region, the challenge is the triple burden of food insecurity, malnutrition and obesity. The closing of schools for example, has had a  negative impact on those vulnerable youth and households. The UN Sustainable Development  Goals (UNSDG) Survey, 2020 for LAC shows that 31% of young people suffered from shortage of food with 16 percent from households without resources to buy food. In addition, 52% of young people expressed experiencing greater stress, 47% of having panic attacks during the lock down and more than 50% of those living with HIV stopped accessing antiretroviral treatment. There was also a recognition that the migrant populations were particularly affected due to structural victimization. These factors were compounded by a lack of adequate economic responses, largely due to the fact that many Caribbean countries are dependent on tourism whose revenue stream both for governments and the private sector, is highly compromised. The Youth Leaders  were aware that the need to procure loans to cushion the economic crisis will increase the burden of  debt repayment  which their generation would have to bear. Consequently, they supported the new Special Drawing Rights proposed by the IMF. The dilemmas for many Caribbean countries are  that they  do not have a system of universal unemployment insurance and lack  other adequate social safety net programs.    
 
The Caribbean Regional Table  pointed  to comparable challenges resulting from the inequities in access to education  that were magnified  by digitization, resulting in an increasing number of less privileged children and young people being left behind. This level of vulnerability is even more so when the differently abled are added to the mix. Then there is a  different dimension to digitization  which plagues many Caribbean societies. Several processes that enhance more effective ways of doing business requiring digitization are lacking. These include implementing online banking, online accounting, and other financial and operational procedures. Even when they exist, uneven access again negatively affects the marginalized individuals and communities the most. 
 
Why Caribbean youth "Get It"  
 
The Caribbean Youth advanced several worthwhile recommendations which focused  on 5 key issues each of which provided an understanding of the different youth platforms used to respond to the pandemic, the challenges and priorities  related to specific aspects of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.  They include:
 

• Importance of thriving for prosperity through reducing poverty (SDG #1) and ensuring decent work and economic growth (SDG #8); 
• Prerequisites of  people centered responses such as good health and wellbeing (SDG  #3) and education and lifelong learning (SDG #4); 
• Urgency of  saving the planet through sustainable consumption and production patterns (SDG #12) and Climate action (SDG #13)  
• Hallmarks of inclusion and diversity through reduced inequality (SDG #10) and peaceful and inclusive societies (SDG #16) 
• Benefits of harnessing partnerships, resources and science (Partnerships SDG #17)

 
The Caribbean Youth Regional Table Session concluded that these and other challenges, must be addressed comprehensively and coherently. They are the vitality of leadership capabilities by their active  involvement  in several initiatives for overcoming the challenges of COVID-19. They have advocated   for the   Caribbean to act collectively, engage  youth in the policy formulation, and include youth more actively and less as tokenism in the business of the Caribbean Community. And through collective Caribbean action, they call for  establishing  the dynamics to foster  international cooperation, especially by fully utilizing and strengthening the United Nations – the world’s only universal organization – and by reinforcing respect for its fundamental principles of Justice for All.
 
Concluding Reflections
 
Reflecting on the history of youth development in the Caribbean, it is revealing that in 2018, the UN Secretary-General launched the first-ever UN system-wide Youth Strategy. This is 8 years after the Caribbean Youth Ambassadors strategy: The Eye on the Future was presented to CARICOM Heads of Government in Suriname. That strategy evolved in an era when many CARICOM Member and Associate Member States  included CARICOM Youth Ambassadors in their country delegations to the Heads of Government Conference. More recently, CARICOM Secretary General, Ambassador Irwin Larocque valiantly convened annual CYA  Forums and the Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS sponsored a series of engagements involving  CYAs in its Justice for All Programme.  But significant results require  activities designed to achieve, youth resilience  be institutionalized and budgeted for. The current discussion of Caribbean Youth Leaders at the UN Youth Forum 2021,  and their articulation for action toward sustainable development  deserve the fullest  attention by CARICOM Heads of Government. An appropriate message is delivered by the UN Secretary General,  Antonio Guterres  to the UN Youth  Forum 2021.  Watch the video:  
 https://s3.amazonaws.com/downloads2.unmultimedia.org/public/video/ondemand/2611075_MSG%20SG%20ECOSOC%20YOUTH
 
Participants in the Caribbean Youth Leaders  at the Latin American and Caribbean Regional Table     
Dominique Noralez (Belize) &  Java Sealy (Barbados)-- Co-Chairs
Franz George, Commonwealth Youth Council; Roshanna Trim, Caribbean Regional Youth Council;  Representatives of Caribbean Youth Councils: Christopher Laurie, Kurba-Marie Questell, Pryia Khan , Claudia Taboada, Delano DaSouza. 
 
 
Eddie Greene