THE Ministry of Women, Youth,
Children and Family Affairs (MWYCFA) and the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP)
Pacific Centre met early this month to review efforts to develop local youths.
A statement from the ministry said the meeting held on August 6th was an opportunity for the both parties to:
- share their plans for 2012,
- review some of their past partnership efforts and
- agree on areas for collaboration this year
One agenda was the current and future plans of the Solomon Islands National Youth Congress (SINYC).
According to the ministry, both parties are continuing unfinished business on youth mainstreaming work, which they had started together and coincided with the formation of Provincial Youth Councils.
MWYCFA permanent secretary Ethel Sigimanu said youth mainstreaming work will help determine how the CYP and the Ministry could best support SINYC to capacity build the provincial youth workers, who are responsible for the operation of these provincial youth councils to perform their role effectively.
Mrs Sigimanu said the Ministry and the CYP should have this kind of dialogue on a regular basis because there is mutual need to assist and support each other.
“CYP is an important organisation in this country and the ministry need to capitalise on the CYP’s for its technical support and this meeting will enable us to look at how both organisations can strategically do that,” Mrs Sigimanu said.
She said while CYP is not a funding agency, it provides technical support to governments and the Youth Development Division of the Ministry must work closely with the CYP.
CYP Pacific regional director Afu Billy thanked and acknowledged the ministry for the great assistance and support that it had provided to the CYP.
Ms Billy said MWYCFA is the mother Ministry of the CYP in Solomon Islands.
“It was therefore important that there is constant dialogue between this Ministry and the CYP to discuss their plans and to highlight areas for cooperation and support from both sides,” Ms Billy said.
The CYP has been assisting the Ministry in Youth Mainstreaming work at both national and provincial levels over the past year.
This has helped build the capacity of the MWYCFA staff to conduct provincial youth mainstreaming summits, as well as secure funding from AusAid (Suva) for the Pacific Leadership Programme (PLP) and the summits.
PS Sigimanu said that any future work between the CYP and the Ministry must not be ‘piecemeal’, but must be programme focused.
She added that if the CYP and the Ministry could have 3 key programme areas to cooperate on this year, it would be a good start.
Some potential areas for collaboration between the ministry and the CYP included assessments of the implementation of ministerial work and the development of assessment tools to highlight impacts made due to the work of the Ministry.
Identifying areas in which to provide realistic support to the Solomon Islands National Youth Congress was another potential area for collaboration.
The next meeting of the Ministry and the CYP is planned for the last week of this month.
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