“Technology and Youth” to be Featured in Second OECS Human Development Report

was the main focus of discussion as architects of the second OECS Human Development Report (HDR) gathered in Castries on Tuesday, October 21st.

A joint meeting of the Policy Advisory Committee comprising staff from the OECS Secretariat, representatives from the United Nations Development Programme Office for Barbados and the OECS as well as Lead Author Dr. Thomas Otter is coordinating the production of the second OECS Human Development Report.

Ezra Jn Baptiste heads the Social Policy Unit at the OECS Secretariat. He says technology and its influence on youth participation in social development was among the key discussion areas: “Technology and youth! That is an inescapable issue for the next OECS HDR. In fact, it is now recognized that youth have greater access to the technology and by technology we are referring specifically to gadgets like cell phones and facilities like the internet. It is an ever changing field of technology and in many cases the majority of youth are always ahead of the game and ahead of the adults and sometimes the adults have to be catching up. The report will be looking however at how that kind of technology can assist youth in their positive development. You would well imagine that in some cases you will have a negative spin off. There are certain dysfunctions of that kind of facility. But the report is going to try to identify how best the youth use the technology for information sharing, access to employment and other opportunities and it is also important to recognize that technology in that format is going to add value to positive youth development. So it is an issue that we will consider. One of the challenges is to obtain the data to sought of validate a lot of the findings that we will probably get But that is a challenge that we can overcome quite easily.”

Through the use of quantitative as well as qualitative data, authors are focusing on producing a dynamic OECS Human development report which captures youth vulnerabilities and resilience, opportunities and choices as well as actions and changes to help inform development of OECS economies over the next 10 to 20 years: “We would like to place equal emphasis on qualitative data because in the past we recognized that  a lot of the data that has informed the decision making or the recommendations in such reports have been mainly quantitative and so the report is going to as best as it could, capture the views of youth on topics such as health, education, employment, participation and we need to bear in mind that there are different categories of youth. These different categories of youth have different views about certain things for example, on the question of employment, out of school youth may have their own views about this issue versus in-school youth, in the same way employed youth may have their own views on issues as against unemployed youth. So the qualitative data base is going to dig deeper into the questions and to answer why certain things exist. The report is going to make an effort to capture both types of data to better inform the strategies and interventions, in order to sustain positive youth development in the OECS.-Jn Baptiste. 

Youth and the family union, resources for youth empowerment and participation in nation building as well as health matters such as HIV and Aids are among other issues raised to help identify challenges and areas of development regarding OECS youth.

Youth is the focus area of the second OECS Human Development Report which is due for release in early 2009.           

Written by Media
Thursday, 23 October 2008 15:28
Youth participation in national development
Last Updated on Saturday, 30 May 2009 17:15