New York: Qatar has confirmed that the leadership pays special attention to young people and exerts constant efforts for the advancement of their important role in development and activation of this role by empowering them to be future leaders.
The state also encourages youth initiatives and provides them with the right environment for foster creativity and innovation.
This came in a statement by Maha Issa Al Rumaihi, Director, Department of Planning and Quality Administration, Ministry of Youth and Sports, to an event of the UN General Assembly to mark the 20th Anniversary of World Programme of Action on Youth (WPAY) and highlight youth priorities in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.
Al Rumaihi said that out of its belief in the importance of youth empowerment, Qatar established at the institutional level in the seventies the Supreme Council for Youth Welfare.
It also developed youth work management structure over the past years by setting up the Ministry of Youth and Sports in June 2013 as a regulatory and supportive body of national efforts concerned with the advancement of youth and the development of their abilities.
She said the Ministry of Economy and Commerce also organised Youth Economic Empowerment Forum on May 25 to encourage young people to launch projects and innovative ideas to promote entrepreneurship that gave them the opportunity to learn about government mechanisms related to the business sector and the importance of economic diversification.
At the international level, she said, Qatar hosted in April the Doha Youth Forum on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the first of its kind in the history of the United Nations conferences, as an initiative to enable young people to express views.
Al Rumaihi said Qatar will host on September 1 and 2 youth congress on humanitarian work in preparation for the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May 2016 under the auspices of Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) and in cooperation with the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
She said recent changes and rapid developments in the world prove that young people have an influential and active role and they are beneficiaries and victims of these changes at the same time, especially in countries with transitional stages or in conflict.
She said in this regard and out of the belief of the Qatari leadership that real development and sustainability depend on female and male youth and that they need to be educated them and provided with opportunities for creativity and achievement, Qatar gave attention to the provision of public and private educational opportunities and brought the best universities to Education City for young people from all over the world.
Al Rumaihi stressed that it was not confined to only Qatar and said the state’s development policies outside, especially in developing and least-developed countries, focus on promoting the education sectors.
She said Qatar allocated a large part of its development assistance to finance education in those countries and embraces important regional initiatives such as Silatech and ROTA.
She also stressed the importance of involving young people more effectively in debates on international development cooperation and the development agenda beyond 2015.
She hoped the meeting will achieve a step forward in efforts exerted to empower young people and achieve their aspirations which contribute to opening new horizons for a better future for communities and young people in particular.
Al Rumaihi said the celebration of the WPAY anniversary is a milestone in youth work within the UN system and one of the reference documents for its youth programmes and activities.
QNA
