Society Must Change - Young Hardest Hit by Slump; Africa - Looking Ahead

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Society must change - Young hardest hit by slump

Young people living in Asia and the Pacific were the focus of a five-day U.N. meeting, held in Bangkok from 1 to 5 June. The region is home to more than 600 million young between the age of 15 to 24 years. This is about 60 per cent of the world's youth population.

ESCAP's Executive Secretary, Adrianus Mooy, told participants that young job seekers were the hardest hit by the current economic downturn. "We are already witnessing rising unemployment and unrest in some countries. We need to respond rapidly and effectively to the needs of young people in the wake of the crisis", he said.

The special theme of the meeting was "Elimination of Sexual Abuse and Sexual Exploitation of Children and Youth in Asia and the Pacific". It was convened by ESCAP in cooperation with the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), New York, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) and UNFPA.

The Director of Maiti Nepal, Ms. Anuradha Koirala, made an impassioned plea on behalf of all abused women and children saying society must change its attitude. Maiti Nepal, a social NGO, won the 1998 ESCAP/UNAIDS Award for its outstanding work to prevent sexual exploitation of children and youth.

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AFRICA - Looking Ahead

"For too long, conflict in Africa has been seen as inevitable or intractable, or both. It is neither", UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in March. The UN is trying to give new impetus to the Special Initiative on Africa, which was launched more than a year ago in March 1996. Mr. Annan has analysed in remarkably candid terms the causes of conflict in Africa and has expressed his full commitment to the Initiative. He did so in perhaps his most important political report to date, which was requested by the Security Council. The report contains recommendations on arms trafficking, sanctions, refugees, debt, and structural adjustment, among other issues.

Conflict in Africa, as everywhere, Mr. Annan says, "is caused by human action and can be ended by human action. This is the reality that shames us for every conflict that we allow to persist, and enables us to turn our rhetoric of commitment into a reality of genuine engagement."

Since 1970, Africa has had more than 80 wars fought on its territory, the vast majority of which were intra-state in origin. Fourteen of Africa's 53 countries were afflicted by armed conflicts in 1996 alone. These accounted for more than half of all war-related deaths world-wide and resulted in more than eight million refugees, returnees and displaced persons.

But there is good news as a result of Africa's efforts. Eleven African countries in 1997 achieved economic growth rates of 6 per cent or higher. Such success would be remarkable for any region, let alone one which had been caught in severe economic crisis for a decade and a half.

The Special Initiative is a system-wide programme of concrete actions to help accelerate Africa's development in the decade to 2005. It brings together all UN agencies, including the Bretton Woods institutions, with the singular purpose of maximizing the impact of their combined support for Africa's own development efforts.

Already, the Initiative has seen clear process in the collaborating between UN agencies and institutions, particularly in the areas of education and governance where a growing number of African countries are progressing with well-defined programmes and gaining the support of external partners.

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