Youth policy to be announced on 31st

Chief minister’s approval expected by March 20.

LAHORE:

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif will announce the first provincial youth policy on March 31 at a ceremony to be held at Alhamra Cultural Complex.

Sources in the Punjab government said that the youth policy, in the works on for more than two years, was earlier meant to be announced in January. However, the announcement was delayed to allow further consultation and some re-drafting.

The March event is planned as a three-hour affair and will include cultural activities to ‘attract youth’. Youth ministers from other provinces will also be invited at the policy launch, he said.

Sabiha Shaheen, executive director of Bargad, a non government organisation, that has been associated with the consultations, said that the initial draft of the policy, prepared by the then Information Culture and Youth Affairs Department in the aftermath of the 18th amendment, borrowed heavily from the National Youth Policy of 2009. Consultations with various stakeholders resulted in major re-drafting of the policy over the last year, she said.

The policy is expected to be approved by the chief minister by March 20, she said.

She said the process of formulating the policy had been funded by the United Nations Population Fund. “Infrastructure support was provided by the provincial government,” she added.

Shaheen said once the policy was approved, an implementation plan and the institutional mechanism for the department will be charted down over about three months.

The department currently looks after four areas (youth affairs, sports, archaeology and tourism). A proposal has been sent to make youth affairs a separate directorate in the department with a director general looking after it, she said.

However, after a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Sports, Youth Affairs, Archaeology and Tourism Department and Plan International Pakistan on youth policy in February, objections were revised to it. Bargad members said that the organisation had already been working on similar projects in collaboration with the Punjab government.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2012.