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WITH POINT PERSON, OAS PROPOSES TO PLACE GREATER EMPHASIS ON YOUTH

Moving to implement youth-related mandates received from the hemisphere’s foreign ministers at the General Assembly last June, the Organization of American States (OAS) has appointed an individual to act as its “focal point on youth within the General Secretariat to facilitate the coordination of all OAS initiatives relating to the youth agenda.”

Assistant Secretary General Albert R. Ramdin announced Juliana Bedoya’s appointment as the OAS focal point on youth, during an inter-departmental meeting on youth, at the organization’s headquarters Thursday.

“The idea behind having this person as a focal point on youth is to build on existing youth programs while approaching the youth as a “cross-cutting” issue on the OAS agenda. The appointment is a concrete step of meaningful action to harness the creative energies of young people for hemispheric development,” declared Ambassador Ramdin, who chaired the inter-departmental meeting.

Noting that some 317 million citizens, or nearly 57% of the hemisphere’s population, are under the age of 29, Ramdin said the OAS has identified three main pillars for its youth strategy: capacity-building, dialogue with youth and technical assistance. The hemispheric body will also place greater emphasis on developing strategic partnerships with major organizations engaged on youth issues, he added.

“If it is to remain relevant to the needs of the citizens of the Americas, the OAS must be proactive in affording a more prominent role to this significant segment of our population, and strategically engage young people and their perspectives on a range of critical issues—including on urgent challenges like poverty, unemployment and violence that affect them most,” Ambassador Ramdin explained. “Young people hold the key to our nations’ individual and collective future. Young people are also key to a dynamic OAS, and the establishment of a focal point on youth demonstrates the seriousness with which the organization’s leadership treats the mandates from the member governments in this regard.”

At the 38th regular General Assembly session in Medellin, Colombia, last June, the Member States’ Foreign Affairs Ministers held their deliberations under the central theme of “Youth and Democratic Values.” In the Declaration of Medellin issued at the end of their annual conference, the Foreign Ministers mandated the hemispheric organization to “mainstream the youth perspective into the programs and activities of the OAS, in particular, activities that focus on the promotion of democratic principles and values.”

In fulfillment of that mandate, the OAS is moving as quickly as possible to also contribute to “the consolidation of a hemispheric vision for policies and programs designed to secure and promote young people’s rights and thereby advance the integration and social cohesion of young people,” Ambassador Ramdin added, quoting from the Medellin Declaration. He said appointing Ms. Bedoya, herself a young person, is also an important way in which the OAS seeks to “walk the talk” on its policy priorities, because the youth perspective will be even more actively incorporated into how the OAS does business hereafter.

The OAS-interdepartmental meeting also discussed initiatives for the sharing of best practices and for a youth network of the Americas, which relates to the request from the Member States for the OAS to “support the work of national, state, provincial, and local protective services or other competent authorities, as appropriate, to support the exchange of best practices in the Hemisphere in research into problems affecting youth and their possible solutions, with the participation of institutions working in this field.”

Reference: E-407/08