Wednesday 21 August2024
Prime Minister James Marape launching the 1st inaugural NCD Youth Summit & Expo at Apec Haus. The event coincided with the World Youth Day celebrated on 12th June. Pic courtesy of United Nations PNG.
The iconic Apec Haus at Ela Beach in Port Moresby played host to over 200 youth from around the city attending the 1st ever inaugural NCD Youth Summit and Expo staged from 12-14 August, 2024.
The summit hosted by National Capital District Governor, Powes Parkop with support from varies important stakeholders including National Youth Development Authority and United Nation, coincided with World Youth Day celebrated on 12 August.
Prime Minister James Marape was key guest speaker on the day and used the occasion to highlight some of the initiatives and policies his government have been doing to create opportunities for youth in the country since coming into office in 2019.
“It is important that we all collaborate in this important occasion, especially on an important topic which matters most for our country.
“Needless to say, youth are important and we have been doing work since, we arrived in office in 2019, much of these work are in progress as I speak.
“I want to report to the country some score cards, in the last four years, we have been able to bring back over a hundred thousand young people back into second chance learning programs.
“We have already opened up all opportunities in the education sector through the Flexible Open Distance Education (FODE) where we are focused in ensuring youth are able to get a second chance opportunity to matriculate and able to complete Grade 12,” Mr Marape said.
“We have also engaged in SME program that is out there, on the market, for anyone to participate in SME, If you sure choose to move down this path.
“All this comes from a backdrop of knowing some statistics that has been seriously compounding our nation since the 1990s,” Mr Marape said.
Mr Marape said that the education reform that was introduced into the PNG education system in 1991 created more school dropouts with no proper skills to prepare them for life.
He said these were people who left school in grade 8, grade 10, grade 12 and even for others attending higher institutions were pushed out of the formal system through that education reform.
This resulted in over nearly four million Papua New Guineans under the ages of 50 now with no meaningful engagement in society.
This has been a problem for successive governments over the years and Mr Marape acknowledged NCD Governor Powes Parkop for creating this space for young people to come together, and have a voice to discuss issues affecting the youth of this country at the national level through this summit.
He urged other governors in other provinces, the provincial governments and districts to also do the same by supporting the government to implement the national polices already in place to create more opportunities for the country’s youth.
Mr Marape said the National Youth Adolescent and Health policy, the National Education policy now in place which embraces second chance learning, National Volunteer Policy, the National SME policy, the National Sports policy and National Employment policy have been developed and are in abundance but the practical mechanism of translating this policies into engaging the masses is something that seriously needs to be attended to and addressed immediately.
“I speak as the chief custodian of our country’s policies, and I need practical implementors out there in our to societies to drive these policies at the community level and as the Prime Minister, I cannot do it alone,” Mr Marape said.
Mr Richard Howard, United Nation’s Resident Coordinator emphasized to the youth participating in the three days summit that their ideas and initiatives emerging from this summit are central to the country achieving its 4th Mid-Term Development Plan.
He encouraged them to never underestimate how important their ideas are or where they stand.
“We value the opinions of young people at the centre of all our work, and I believe the PNG government agrees with that perspective.
“This September, in New York, the UN will hold alongside the General Assembly, a meeting called; The Summit of the Future.
“Prime Minister James Marape has been invited to attend, where he will make an intervention, on recommendations of how the UN can respond better to global crisis.
“Especially on how the UN can do its job, better in the future under what we call a “Pact for the Future”.
“A key area of work within the Summit of the Future, will be to focus on the need of young people, and your meeting over the next three days will help us gather input that we can relay through the National Statement, in New York.
“What you are doing in the next few days is critically important for us all, as we move forward to support PNG as well as globally, and how the UN can support young people across the world,” Mr Howard said.
He said the youth summit will enable young people to meet and discuss both challenges and solutions.
“We all know very much, that the only people that can help solve these challenges of young people, are young themselves,” Mr Howard said.