Qatar pays special attention to youth

The State of Qatar has confirmed that the wise leadership pays special attention to young people and exerts continuous efforts for the advancement of their important role in the development and the activation of this role by empowering young people to be future leaders, encouraging their initiatives and providing them with the right environment for creativity and innovation.

This came in a statement of the State of Qatar made by Director of the Department of Planning and Quality Administration at the Ministry of Youth and Sports Maha Issa Al Rumaihi in front of the High-Level Event of the General Assembly to mark the 20th Anniversary of the World Programme of Action on Youth (WPAY) and to highlight Youth Priorities in the Post-2015 Development Agenda.

Maha Issa Al Rumaihi said that from the belief in the importance of youth empowerment, the State of Qatar established, at the institutional level, in the seventies the Supreme Council for Youth Welfare.

It then has developed youth work management structure over the past years by the establishment of the Ministry of Youth and Sports in June 2013 as a regulatory and supportive body of national efforts concerned with the advancement of youth and the development of their abilities.

She also noted that the Ministry of Economy and Commerce has organized Youth Economic Empowerment Forum on May 25, in order to encourage young people to launch projects and innovative ideas to promote entrepreneurship that gave them the opportunity to learn about the governmental mechanisms related to the business sector and the importance of economic diversification.

At the international level, she said that Qatar hosted in April the Doha Youth Forum on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, which is the first of its kind in the history of the United Nations conferences, as an initiative to enable young people to express their views.

The Director of the Department of Planning and Quality Administration at the Ministry of Youth and Sports also pointed out that the State of Qatar will host from September 1 to 2 youth congress on humanitarian work in preparation for the World Humanitarian Summit to be held in Istanbul in May 2016 under the auspices of Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) and in cooperation with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

She explained that the recent changes and various rapid developments in the world prove that young people have an influential and active role and they are the beneficiaries and victims of these changes at the same time, especially in countries with transitional stages or in conflict.

She continued, in this regard and from the belief of the Qatari leadership that the real development and sustainability depends on female and male youth and the need for educating them and providing them with opportunities for creativity and achievement, the state of Qatar gave considerable attention to the provision of public and private educational opportunities and brought the best universities in the Education City for young people from all over the world.

Al Rumaihi stressed that it was not confined to only inside the country, noting that Qatar’s development policies outside, especially in the developing and least-developed countries, are interested in promoting education sectors. She added that the country allocated large portion of its development assistance to finance education in those countries and also embraces an important regional initiatives such as Silatech and ROTA.

She also emphasized the importance of involving young people more effectively in the debate on the international development cooperation and the development agenda beyond 2015.

She hoped that the meeting will achieve a step forward in the efforts exerted to empower young people and to achieve their aspirations, which contributes in opening horizon for a better future for communities and young people in particular, pointing out that the celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the World Programme of Action on Youth is considered a milestone in the youth work within the United Nations system and one of the reference documents in its programs and activities related to youth.