Youth Forum at LDC5 discusses efforts at empowerment

The Youth Forum, which was held Saturday within the framework of the 5th United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC5), discussed stimulating efforts to empower this group in about 46 countries that suffered from insufficient resources to combat epidemics and escalating debts, which led to a decline in their development progress.The forum's speakers focused on noting its importance to this segment in showcasing and sharing their solutions, work and impact, and discussing development issues that affect them, including building educational and skill capacities, health and employment, climate change, peace and security, human rights and migration.Speakers from countries including Myanmar, Nepal, Malawi, Timor and Lesotho discussed their visions for a better future, stressing the importance of their commitment to contribute to the Doha Work Programme and its comprehensive thematic commitments.They called on governments, civil society and private sector to play a serious role in bringing about the required transformation in the least developed countries, so that the contributions made to them would help realise sustainable development goals in these countries.They asserted that bringing about this transformation must be sustainable, and that everyone, including youth, should be part of it to manage the problems they face. Furthermore, the forum shed light on some of the experiences and projects of young entrepreneurs from a number of least developed countries, discussing their efforts in establishing these small and medium income-generating projects, as well as the financing-related obstacles that limit their success.The Youth Forum of LDC5 is one of the events that precede the official opening of the conference slated for Sunday.Along this track, some of the conference sessions will be discussing issues like challenges and opportunities of supporting forcibly displaced youth in least developed countries, enhancing youth economic inclusion and entrepreneurship skills, innovative youth-focused financing, transforming education in least developed countries: ensuring focus on inclusion and gender equality and the creation of enabling environment for young people to thrive.The United Nations and its specialised agencies estimate that there are 1.8bn young people between the ages of 10 and 24 around the world, nearly 90% of whom live in developing countries, where they make up a large proportion of the population.In a briefing, the United Nations said that failure to engage youth in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the Doha Work Programme as main partners will not only affect them, but also their communities and countries, and ultimately our shared vision of a better and more sustainable future.For this reason, the UN is working to ensure that young people are at the centre of plans to achieve a new work plan, by addressing their growing needs and enabling them to promote progress.This conference will create a space to discuss and develop targeted policies for youth empowerment in least developed countries.The United Nations believes that when this segment is provided with the necessary skills and opportunities to participate in decision-making and realise their latent potential, they can be a driving force for sustainable development, peace and security, as they are able to make a positive impact on a large scale despite the unprecedented challenges that hinder them from creating a bright future for themselves, such as climate change as well as the ongoing global epidemic of Covid-19, and the consequences of the measures taken to tackle it, which made this group suffer from the repercussions of issues caused by previous generations.