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Dec 02, 2018 News
Little to no progress on the enforcement of the Guyana National Youth Policy has caused youth organizations and youth advocates to speak out on concerns that Guyanese youth are being tokenized by politicians and not given a seat at the table.
The National Youth Policy (2015) was tabled and adopted by Parliament in 2016. This came after the Education Ministry announced the completion of the policy, which it hoped would pave the way for the prioritisation of the development of the 14-35 age cohort.
The policy had set out a wide-reaching framework of plans, including the improvement of the social, emotional and cultural skills of young people, the encouragement of a productive and enterprising youth workforce, the development of quality leadership and market-oriented skills, the encouragement of leadership, participation and representation and the promotion of good health, security and safety.
Since then, there has been little word from the government on how the policy is being implemented and on how much progress has been made.
The Guyana National Youth Council (GNYC), which recently reconvened operations, has been in constant discourse on the policy since it was posted on Facebook by a Guyanese journalist on November 29.
Before then, the policy had not been available online. A statement from GNYC states, “[The Guyana National Youth Policy] is yet to be published as an official document by any government ministry and owned by any public official”.
The statement made reference to the Green Paper on Managing Petroleum Revenue and Establishing of a Fiscal Rule and the Sovereign Wealth Fund, which is documented and owned by the Ministry of Finance. The statement further lamented that the Green State Development Strategy is documented and owned by the Ministry of the Presidency.
The council posits that “Accountability happens when there is clearly defined ownership of public documents, decisions, policies, strategies and actions.”
Interim Chairperson of the council, Derwayne Wills, said that at the time of its adoption, it was the Ministry of Education that brought the policy to the National Assembly, and was responsible for it.
Wills said, “Since then, the youth portfolio has been shifted to the Ministry of the Presidency, Department of Social Cohesion, Culture, Youth and Sport. This, however, still does not reflect in the policy.”
Last year, President Granger announced that responsibility for the Department of Culture, Youth and Sport would be shifted from the Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Social Cohesion, under the control of George Norton.
Wills said that since that shift, the policy has not been owned by any official after Dr. Nicolette Henry. The policy also has not been published by the government, so it is unclear who is responsible for the policy, its execution and the review process that is required, after the shift in responsibility.
Page 36 of the unpublished policy states that a five-year National Youth Empowerment Action Plan (NYEAP) should have been established to guide the execution of the policy. However, no such plan was ever published. The plan in question was meant to be formulated and implemented for the period 2016 to 2020.
A statement from GNYC reads, “The National Youth Policy of Guyana was approved by the National Assembly in 2016 and is yet to be made public and to reach the hands of the young people in whose names it was crafted to the tune of millions of dollars.
In the absence of a public social accountability document, how are youth to hold their government accountable to its own commitment within the context of national and international development goals (SDGs)?”
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