The Pacific Youth Summit: The values of integrity for the achievement of Sustainable Development

 

Deputy Secretary General of the USP SA, Mr. Aneet Kumar while giving a live interview on Fiji One TV regarding the first ever Pacific Youth Summit:

Project Status: 2021 activities completed, see press release at: https://www.undp.org/pacific/press-releases/pacific-youth-summit-values-integrity-achievement-sustainable-development-0 

Background 

The UN Pacific Regional Anti-Corruption (UN-PRAC) Project is a joint United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) initiative, funded by the Government of New Zealand, aimed to support Pacific Island countries (PICs) to strengthen their national integrity systems. The UN-PRAC Project is firmly anchored on two very important international initiatives, namely i) the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) as the only international legally binding framework on how to prevent and fight corruption, and ii) the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 16 which six of their twelve targets have direct and/or indirect focus on stronger action on anti-corruption, transparency and accountability.

Within UN-PRAC, one specific component deals with promoting integrity among youth, with increased focus on business integrity in the context of COVID-19.  The methodology for promoting business integrity among youth was based on UNDP developed toolkit  https://www.undp.org/publications/business-integrity-toolkit-young-entrepreneurs already implemented with pilot target groups in Fiji, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Palau.  This partnership with USPSA was aimed to further scale up this initiative and spread the knowledge across the Pacific. This activity and partnership are organized and funded through UNDP.

Introduction

Placed under the ‘Enhancing anti-corruption awareness and advocacy on integrity, anti-corruption, transparency, good governance and right to information among USP students from across the Pacific Project’ under the United nations Pacific Regional Anti-Corruption (UNPRAC) Project, funded by the New Zealand Government. The summit brought together round 5,000 youths, professionals and anti-corruption practitioners  from across the Pacific converged to commemorate International Anti-Corruption Day (9 December) with the 2021 theme, “Your right, your role: Say no to Corruption”, and renew their commitment to advancing anti-corruption, transparency and accountability to achieve progress on the sustainable development agenda in the Pacific.

Participants from 12 member countries of the University of the South Pacific (USP), namely Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, engaged in discussions with focus on the importance of integrity and stronger youth action on anti-corruption, transparency and accountability in governance in public and private sectors.

They also discussed the linkages between the SDGs, including between SDG 16 on good governance, SDG 5 on gender equality, and other SDGs related to youth employment, decent jobs for youth, whereby young people have access to decent, productive work.

 

 

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