Development challenges: Youth-centric ideas needed to overcome

NA speaker plans to create Young MPs Forum

SHABQADAR/ PESHAWAR: Seemingly unable to reconcile differences inside the parliament, the government and the combined opposition is said to be on board for national youth development.

This was stated at a consultative dialogue between representatives of the youth and lawmakers at a consultative dialogue on ‘Democratic and Peaceful Governance and Sustainable Development’. The dialogue had been organised by the Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

PILDAT President Ahmed Bilal Mehboob stated that they were holding the event to encourage engagement between the youth and the political parties in the government and the opposition.

“Youth are the drivers of economic, social, cultural, institutional and political change. As such, their voices must be listened to,” said UNDP Pakistan Resident Representative Ignacio Artaza.

UN Pakistan Resident Coordinator Neil Buhne said that so much of Pakistan’s development is dependent on the youth of the country.

“There is a need for systematic youth-centric solutions to development challenges,” he said.

National Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser said that he owes his political career to student politics and activism. He said that it was the youth that elected him, first as a member of the provincial assembly, then as the Speaker of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Provincial Assembly and now in as the Speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan.

He advised youngsters to never to underestimate themselves.

“Active young people today will become MNAs, speakers and prime ministers of the future,” he said, adding that the current national assembly has 96 young MNAs.

Reaching out to youngsters, Qaiser announced that the NA will soon notify a Young Parliamentarians Forum and sought the support of PILDAT in facilitating young MPs.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Youth Affairs Usman Dar highlighted that while youth is a devolved subject after the 18th amendment, youth remains an important subject for the federal government.

“The government is working on a youth-based framework to empower young people which will be put in place in the coming months,” Dar said.

He added that the federal government is also launching a National Youth Development Index while work on an economic empowerment programme — which will provide employment to a million youngsters across the country — is also in the works.

The government is also launching a Green Youth Movement, through which social engagement will be used to generate employment opportunities for the youth. Similarly, the government has designed a sports engagement programme for young people. 

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st, 2019.