Youth at the UN Peacebuilding and Innovation Forum in Gizo. Novermber 2018. Photo: UNDP
Unemployment, teen pregnancy and drug and alcohol abuse were some of the main concerns raised by youth in Solomon Islands during a recent UN peacebuilding forum.
More than 200 young men and women from across the Western and Choiseul provinces met in Gizo last week to talk about their challenges and hear about and discuss ways to overcome them.
The three-day forum was part of a UN Development Programme peacebuilding project and was hosted in collaboration with UN Women and the youth departments of both the local provincial and national governments.
Its project manager, Tony Cameron, said the forum focussed on using innovation and social entrepreneurship to address unemployment, pollution and other challenges affecting youth in the fragile border area between the western Solomons and Bougainville in PNG.
"Essentially we have used this innovation forum as the groundwork to perhaps extend the impact or the reach of these motivated young people maybe into decision making and political kind of arenas where they will have a voice to make decisions for themselves on behalf of the youth at a provincial and also a national level," he said.