Minister for Youth Development and Sports, Honourable Edmund Estephane is currently attending the Commonwealth Youth Ministerial Taskforce Meeting in Malta from Nov. 4 – 9, accompanied by the Director of Youth Ms. Mary Wilfred.

Minister Estephane was appointed as a member of the Commonwealth Youth Ministerial Taskforce at the 9th Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting held in Uganda August 2017. The Task Force is a panel of 10 ministers, with two representatives from each Commonwealth region that provides advice on the design and delivery of youth programmes.

At the ongoing the Youth Ministerial Taskforce key initiatives to create jobs for young people and prioritise youth in national development plans have been endorsed.   Members of the “Task Force” underscored the urgency of mobilising resources to meet the growing ambitions of young people, who make up more than 60 percent of the 2.4 billion population of the Commonwealth.

Strategies that were endorsed to address this challenge include a new toolkit to help governments boost green and blue growth through youth entrepreneurship as well as a new executive course for ministers, diplomats and permanent secretaries on strategic leadership and management of youth work. The taskforce also welcomed the addition of The Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry, as the new Commonwealth Youth Ambassador and discussed ways to work more closely with him.

Florence Nakiwala Kiyingi, Uganda’s Minister of State for Gender, Labour and Social Development, chaired the meeting.  She said: “In this family of nations, we have such a diversity of member countries, you are able to explore new and innovative youth work practices to enrich your own work and share some of your own ideas as well to assist others in their work. As ministers, we all have a keen interest in the development of our young people and this gives us the chance to work together as governments to deliver on the priorities we have identified.

The Government of Saint Lucia places high value and priority through its focus on positive youth development programs designed to optimize youth developmental progress. Through the many initiatives young people will be able to build and sustain competence, confidence, character, connection, and caring in capacity building, to ensure that they live meaningful and sustainable livelihoods. This will continue to allow them to contribute meaningfully to our national development.