Statement by Ms Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services, United States of America

Fellow ministers: For the safety of our youth -- for the sake of our nations -- for the security of our future, we too must explore and discover. We too must create new global links. And we too must work closer together.

What is at stake is more than a new generation. It's the generation of the new millennium. Our challenge is to guide our youth to successful adulthood and leadership.

The United States looks forward to working with all of you to protect the youth of the world -- and this conference is a wonderful beginning.

When adults gather to discuss young people, we often sound like anthropologists studying a strange but fascinating species. But let's remember who they really are. To quote a philosopher, children are natural mimics -- they act like their parents in spite of every attempt to teach them good manners. Before we judge the younger generation we should remember who raised them.

But perhaps the most important thing to remember today is a simple act that's woven into our Declaration on Youth. It's the act of listening. We need to listen to young people. If we listen we'll learn some important lessons about young people today. They are resilient. They are adaptable. They are optimistic. They are energetic. They are., determined to take their places to make contributions, to their families and countries.

Like the middle school students I met in Hanoi who were making posters and slogans denouncing tobacco. Or the girls I met outside Delhi, who listened with rapt attention as community women taught them the keys to self-empowerment -- stay in school, protect your health. respect your body. demand respect. Or the young woman I brought with me to this conference.

Katrina Scott is an official member of the United States Delegation. She's 17 years old. from Baltimore, Maryland. In her spare time, Katrina helps lead a volunteer program called "Safe and Sound." Its goal :is to make her city healthier for children and adolescents.

We want every young person, wherever they may. live on this earth to be as active and determined as Katrina. But we are gathered here today because too many youth in the world are not following Katrina's path. For them, life is a constant struggle to avoid risky behaviours for survival. Smoking. Drug use. Violence

Why do some youth get into trouble? Again -- listen, and they'll tell us. My young friend Katrina believes risky behaviours are driven by low self-esteem. And that adults are partly to blame when they portray adolescents as lost without goals.

But when we listen to young people, we also hear the solution. When I ask them what we can do about drug use or depression, smoking or sex, they tend to say the same thing: Family matters. Their parents and siblings are by far the most influential people in their lives. Their parents can do the most to protect and guide them -- with love, attention, involvement and -- yes -- discipline. The facts back them up. In the United States, studies give parental love a lot of credit for our falling rates of drug use, teenage pregnancy and other risky behaviours.

But parents and families need our help. As government minister, we can help parents protect their children in two ways. Shield them on the outside. And strengthen them on the inside.

How do we shield our children? To begin with, we need a concerted, global effort to fight drugs and tobacco.

We are all aware of the link between drugs and other youth pathologies -- crime, violence, and despair. And we all know that drugs are a global health problem that demands a global health solution. In the United States, President Clinton has challenged our country to cut the rate of drug use in half within ten years. But we're not attacking this problem in isolation. Our anti-drugs strategy includes sharing our most effective ways of curbing drug abuse and addiction. We've held drug abuse prevention training courses all over the world. We're sharing our drug research findings. For example, our scientists are collaborating with Russian scientists on addiction treatment. And we've set up an international fax service that ministries and research institutions all over the world can call up to receive our research findings.

Tobacco is also a global health problem that demands a global health solution. Every day in this world, thousands of young people light their first cigarette. If current trends continue, about 250 million children alive in the world today eventually will be killed by tobacco. We must join together with the World Health Organization to help our youth resist the lure of tobacco. Let us heed the call of the new WHO Director-General, Dr. Gro Brundtland. She said,"We know that without drastic measures, the tobacco epidemic will only escalate."

For our part, President Clinton has ordered US embassies to stop promoting tobacco abroad. And my Department is committed to working with WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank and the UN Foundation to help protect the world's children from tobacco. Next week. we are convening a meeting of experts on parents and their role in keeping children safe and free from tobacco and drugs. We would be pleased to share our findings with all of you.

Let us also share our strategies to shield our youth from violence. In 1996, the WHO declared violence a public health problem, worldwide. And working with Dr. Brundtland, we'll spend the next three years doing global surveillance of all forms of violence. But it's not enought to track violence -- we must tackle violence. Not just enforcing the law -- but by reinforcing our young people. By starting very early, when they're infants. We know that babies who suffer abuse, poor health care or poverty too often become adults locked in a cycle of crime, violence and despair.

But it's never too late to protect youth from violence. With programs like "Peacebuilders," in Tucson, Arizona, which teaches non-violent behaviour to urban, high-risk youth -- and their parents. Or the "Participate and Learn Skills Program" in Ottawa, Canada, which engages teenagers from poor families in games, scouting and other activities that teach conflict resolution. Or the school-to-work programs and apprenticeships in Germany and Austria. They recognize the answer to youth violence often is job with a living wage.

There is no single answer to shielding youth. Like young people, the solutions are many-fold and multi-faceted. We need solid research and reality checks. To explore the causes. To discover the right solutions. And to test our results.

As we find the answers -- let's share the answers. You know that old philosophical question: If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? Well, if one of us finds a solution, and nobody hears about it, it's not going to keep a child out of the woods. There has never been a better time to share information. The old explorers would be astounded by today's global links. Imagine the e-mail Magellan would have sent from his voyage.

Fellow ministers: Let us weave a world wide web that will catch our youth before they fall

But we all know government can't do it alone. And parents can't do it alone. To protect our youth, we need to enlist everybody that has contact with them. That includes employers, child care centers, health care workers, schools, places of worship and other community institutions. We need to enlist people that children watch, emulate and respect -- from soccer players to rock stars, from magazine models to movie makers. Young people want something good to do and rally around. We need to help them get engaged and involved. In school. In a job. In sports. In giving themselves to helping others.

Finally, one of the best ways to shield our youth also goes back to our Lisbon Declaration on Youth. We agree that young people need to have a voice in the world. But to give them that strong voice outside, they need a strong voice inside. A voice that guides them. A voice of peace and self-protection. A voice that speaks louder than cigarette ads, gangs leaders and drug pushers. A voice that says: Stop. Wait. Think.

Recently, I visited a classroom in New York City. And I asked the students what we can do to keep them from smoking or using drugs. One girl stood up and said, "Make me strong inside." Who among us will make her and her sisters and brothers around the world strong inside? Who will give all our young people strong voices inside and in the world?

The world's youth need all of us to guide them... to talk to them... to listen to them... to spend time with them... to support, protect and defend them -- and to speak up for them. There is no time like the present. And there is no generation more important. Because as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future."

Like the explorers of yesterday, youth today are the Magellan and da Gama of tomorrow. They will explore new horizons. chart new courses and discover new worlds. In our hands is the progress of the children of the millennium. In their hands lies human progress. In their name, in the name of the children of the millennium, let us make the Declaration of Lisbon a living document.

Thank you.