Challenges to Youth Development - Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations

Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations

New York

Permanent Mission address: 150 East 42 Street, Level 33, New York, New York 10017 - Telephone: 1 212 351 6600 - Fax: 1 212 351 6610

25 July 2011 - Statement by the Hon Stephen Smith Minister for Defence

Challenges to Youth Development

Thank you Mr Chair,

As Australia’s Minister for Defence and former Foreign Minister, I am pleased to be involved in today’s discussion. My experiences in both roles have reinforced for me how critical this set of issues are to economic and social growth and to national and regional stability and security.

Young people are crucial to any nation’s economic and social prosperity. Seriously addressing issues of the utmost importance to youth –access to education and healthcare, employment, and participation in decision making - will not only help them to shape their own futures, but also shape a nation’s future. For these reasons I am pleased our 2011 Youth Ambassador, Benson Saulo, is here to participate in the high level meeting.

As Australia’s Defence Minister, I am acutely aware that the lack of economic opportunities for youth plays a significant role in creating conditions for instability and conflict. Australia has learned this through our close engagement in preventing and responding to conflicts in our own region. Genuinely integrating youth in all aspects of economic and social development is a key element in global stability. We have seen the adverse consequences of the lack of opportunities for youth in every region of the world, including in the Middle East and Africa.

Conflict, but conflict and instability itself present significant challenges to youth development. Abduction and forced recruitment into armed groups, attacks on schools, the perpetration and threat of rape and other forms of sexual violence, and a general culture of fear in a community, can make youth development all but impossible.

Young men and women have unique experiences in conflict, in part due to their particular vulnerabilities. This also means that they have unique needs in the aftermath to a conflict. They offer valuable perspectives as the peacebuilding and reconstruction effort begins, including on issues like social reintegration, reconciliation, education and economic employment opportunities.

Australia is working with the Peacebuilding Commission Fund in post-conflict situations in Africa, where we have contributed to national agricultural development plans to develop agricultural capabilities and help address youth unemployment in countries such as Sierra Leone.

Australia would appreciate the panel’s views on other ways in which we can better involve youth in conflict prevention, post-conflict peacebuilding and reconstruction efforts.

A decisive key to the future, of course, is education.

Australia knows the difference education and employment opportunities make to the lives of youth and their communities. That is why Australia has committed to making education its flagship sector in our efforts to help eradicate global poverty. With a doubling of our development assistance program over the next 5 years, we could to be the world’s largest bilateral donor to education by 2015.

Australia would also welcome the panel’s views on how the international community can improve education opportunities for the world’s poorest people, thereby achieving one of the most decisive of the Millennium Development Goals.