Bringing Youth At The Forefront Of Sustainable Development

Adolescents and youths are taking the stage to participate in national dialogues on the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 Agenda. On Saturday, the Ministry of Sustainable Development, and Climate Change, in partnership with the Ministry of Youth, Sport, and Transport and the United Nations, hosted the first-ever National Youth Conference on the Sustainable Development Goals that are anchored within the Voluntary National Review, VNR. The VNR is a process by which countries assess and take stock of the progress of the implementation of the developmental goals. Currently, there are seventeen developmental goals that Belize is aiming to assess in the 2024 VNR, as opposed to the four that were assessed in the previous review conducted in 2017. The conference was also used as a platform to initiate engagement with youths and allow them to advocate for and monitor the goals. We spoke with the Director of the Sustainable Development Unit at the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Climate Change for more information.  

 

Victor Alegria, Director, Sustainable Development Unit, Ministry of Sustainable Development & Climate Change

“And so what we’re doing as part of this youth forum was to one, to be able to inform them of what the sustainable development goals are, the 2030 agenda’s principles and for them to be aware of what that means. And then second, to be able to come up with some statement, some position that the user actually want to share with us as part of that report, including that report in terms of where they stand in terms of the sustainable development.  Their voices are important, and they’ve expressed that very clearly in that conference that we had. And so we want that to be reflected adequately in that respect. Very importantly, before we even went to this conference, one of the things that we did, we built capacity at least twelve young people across the country for them to be able to then inform and educate and build awareness to the 2030 agenda on the respective communities from PG  down to Corozal up North. And so then they themselves began to make that movement. And so if you were there on Saturday, you would have seen that we had a significant participation, and we actually were able to participate and they were all engaged in the process, getting their sentiments, their views and all of that is important for the decision making process. And again, when we’re talking about youth, we’re talking about youth across not only the regions of the country, but also across ethnicity, religious belief, and in terms of vulnerability, in terms of handicapped and other incapacities, we want to make sure that when we take it up with the youth, we’re talking about everyone that is within that spectrum that participated in that event.”