The United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth, Ahmad Alhendawi, and the Minister of Youth and Sport of the Republic of Azerbaijan, H.E. Azad Rahimov, today announced the Global Forum on Youth Policies, an international gathering of over 700 Government-level Ministers, experts and youth organisations, to be held in Baku from 28 to 30 October 2014.
Convened by the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth in partnership with UNESCO, UNDP, and the Council of Europe, and hosted by the Government of Azerbaijan, the forum is the first time ever an international meeting will focus predominantly on advancing the UN World Programme of Action for Youth.
“With more than 150 Member States either implementing or reviewing their national youth policies, the Forum represents a timely initiative to advance youth development in the post-2015 development agenda. It also shows a renewed commitment to the 1995 UN World Programme of Action for Youth which will help ensure that more countries strengthen their commitments to the development of national youth policies,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth.
The forum seeks to address several objectives, including to build a common understanding of guiding principles for integrated youth policy development and of the dynamics between concerned stakeholders at different levels; to share experiences and examples of participatory and evidence-based youth policies, their rationales and realities, successes and shortcomings; and to build an international community of experts to support the implementation of the UN World Programme of Action for Youth.
Participants will include Ministers, state secretaries and senior government officials; parliamentarians responsible for reviewing and allocating budgets and drafting and approving legislation affecting youth populations; nongovernmental experts of youth-led organisations and movements working on youth policy; youth experts of global and regional intergovernmental organisations working on youth policy; research experts from institutes, universities and think tanks with a focus on youth policy; development experts from organisations, agencies and institutions in the youth sector; programming experts from donors active in supporting policy change in the youth field.
H.E. Azad Rahimov, Minister of Youth and Sport of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Maher Nasser, Director of the Outreach Division and Officer in Charge of the Department of Public Information, United Nations.
Today also marked the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Youth and Sport of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the United Nations, during a ceremony which took place at United Nations headquarters in New York. The Ministry was represented by H.E. Minister Azad Rahimov, and the United Nations by Maher Nasser, Director of the Outreach Division and Officer in Charge of the Department of Public Information, and Ahmad Alhendawi, the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. The Memorandum of Understanding aims to strengthen the cooperation between the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth and the Ministry of Youth and Sport of the Republic of Azerbaijan. According to this Memorandum, the Ministry of Youth and Sport will be providing support to the operations of the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth.