Focus on Youth

“Apart from encouraging entrepreneurship through the Creativity for Employment and Business Opportunity Programme, CARICOM is seeking to prepare its youth through the continual alignment of education and training with the emerging academic, technical and social skills and attitudes required for the twenty-first century labour market and society,” he stated.

“To guide this process, we have established a Commission on Human Resource Development which will, among other things, devise a Regional Education and Human Resource Development Strategy. One of its main guidelines is for the adoption of a holistic approach to education in the Region. That Commission is undertaking a comprehensive high-level and empirical review and, in so doing, particular emphasis will be placed on fostering creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship from the earliest level. Focus will also be placed on education as a means of addressing the gender gap in the labour market,” he said.

The Secretary-General also observed that a notable shortcoming identified by the authors of the Report relates to the unavailability of statistics, or of up-to-date statistics which they point out makes evidence-based decision and policy making “extremely difficult”.

According to him, it is a deficiency that has been recognised by the Heads of Government.

“At their Meeting last July, in acknowledging the importance of statistics to governance, to planning and policy making, and to the Region’s efforts to attain sustainable development, they endorsed an Action Plan for Statistics. That Action Plan, among other things, will seek to strengthen national statistical systems, as well as upgrade the Information and Communications Technology infrastructure to support these systems. Success in this regard would provide a more reliable foundation for research in your succeeding Reports.”

“Furthermore, the Community will be requesting of the UN that with regard to Statistics, CARICOM should be viewed as a distinct grouping within the Latin America and Caribbean area. This distinction is fundamental, as the data will be focussed on the peculiar challenges that are faced by the Small Island Developing and Low-Lying Coastal States (SIDS), which constitute our Community, most of which are designated as Middle Income Countries. This Report has demonstrated the value of such an approach,” Ambassador LaRocque pointed out. (TL)