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Jorhat, Feb. 4: The United Nations Population Fund is conducting a three-day youth consultation programme for the Northeast, beginning today at Bosco Institute in Jorhat.
A report will then be formed on the basis of which the UNO will chalk out another programme, to be adopted once the ongoing UN Millennium Development Goals programme comes to an end in 2015.
Anders Thomsen, UNFPA deputy representative based in New Delhi, came to Bosco Institute for the programme, titled The World We Want—Youth Matter, North East India Youth Consultation.
He said the students of the institute, which represented the seven states of the Northeast, will discuss the problems faced by youthsand also chalk out a solution of how they would like these to be dealt with.
“In the next two days, the students of the Northeast through the facilitators Prabha, an NGO based in New Delhi, and Bosco Institute here will prepare a mural of the world they wish to live in. A discussion will follow on similarities and the emerging themes. They will identify challenges, suggest strategies on achieving the goals at the local, national and international level and also identify the key stakeholders and decision-makers. They will also plan for youth action and recommend what young people can do,” Thomsen said.
In today’s session, youths hailing from Nagaland, Mizoram, Assam, Manipur, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya had drawn a large map in chalk on the floor of a classroom showing the Northeast with the seven states and had in groups occupied the state from which they hailed.
Through the discussions in the next two days, the youths will try to pinpoint the key values and issues that need to be addressed to make a new world. They will discuss rights awareness, vision, exercising of these rights, availability of and quality of services, information in government, non-government and private support groups.
Thomsen said the findings would form a part of a larger report after four more such youth consultations were held in the north, south, east and west, the next one to be held in Puri, Odisha.
Consultations would also be held among experts and other stakeholders at another level.
All these reports would be compiled and submitted to a high-level panel established by the secretary general Ban Ki Moon. The secretary general will present his recommendations to the General Assembly in September this year.
Some of the other areas which would be addressed in the UNO’s post-2015 development agenda and were civil society, industry, trade unions, farmers associations, women’s associations and research institutes.
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