Students and youth leaders from around the Pacific region are coming together to discuss the importance of integrity and stronger youth action on anti-corruption, transparency, and accountability towards progress on the sustainable development agenda in the Pacific.
The Pacific Youth Summit is being convened on 7 December as a hybrid event connecting the University of the South Pacific (USP) students in Campuses across the region. The Summit will commemorate International Anti-Corruption Day (9 December) with the 2021 theme, “Your right, your role: Say no to Corruption”.
The Pacific Youth Summit is being hosted by the University of the South Pacific Students Association (USPSA) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) under the United Nations Pacific Regional Anti-Corruption (UN-PRAC) Project funded by the New Zealand Government.
In the run-up to the Summit, an art competition has kicked off calling for young women and men to express their ideas of the value of integrity for the achievement of sustainable development in creative art styles. The entry is open until 4 p.m., 25 November and the winners will be announced at the Summit.
At the heart of the Pacific Youth Summit is the opportunity for intergenerational and regional conversations that will emphasize the importance of promoting integrity among youth. With the subtheme of the Summit: ‘Resilient Youth Leaders as Drivers of Sustainable Development, the discussion will be located in the context of COVID-19 and the overall Pacific efforts to achieve progress against the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for all.
Through an interactive style, the Pacific Youth Summit will specifically establish the value of integrity for young women and men who may already be part of the business sector and/or are aspiring to become young entrepreneurs and leaders.
The methodology for promoting business integrity among youth will be based on the toolkit ‘Business Integrity for Young Entrepreneurs’ developed by UNDP. The purpose of the Toolkit is to encourage young people to start and operate their own businesses with integrity from the outset. The toolkit encourages young people who are starting new businesses to do so correctly – by complementing their new ideas and commercial instincts with clear values, a strong code of ethics, and an embedded purpose to benefit a more inclusive society.
The initiative for promoting business integrity among youth was already embraced in Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Palau in partnership with local partner organizations. The partnership between UNDP and USPSA aims to further scale up this initiative and spread the knowledge across the entire Pacific.
The Summit expects around 5,000 young women and men leaders, students, and professionals from across the Pacific region to engage in an interactive dialogue and knowledge-sharing towards creating a truly youth-owned whole- of-Pacific integrity movement that can promote peaceful, equal, and just societies. The Summit will also help create new youth networks and partnerships on advancing the anti-corruption agenda in the Pacific in line with the Agenda 2030 and specifically, SDG 16 commitment on promoting good governance and SDGs related to youth employment and decent jobs for youth, whereby young women and men have access to decent and productive work.
The Summit is also contributing to the values and commitments under the ‘Teieniwa’ Pacific Unity against Corruption Vision signed by 18 Pacific leaders of the Pacific Islands Forum.
Sources: Joint Press Release and the Solomon Times Online.
Comment.
A positive move that I very much hope will lead to much more coordinated youth activities and action towards sustainable development aims in the Solomon Islands and the greater Pacific region.
Yours sincerely
Frank Short
