Regional body calls for Pacific nations to invest in youths

Transcript

A new report by the United Nations Population Fund points to the need for developing countries to invest in their youth.

The UNFPA Pacific Director says Dr Laurent Zessler says many countries in the Pacific have large youth populations and their governments need to create policy and investment around education, employment and reproductive health in particular.

Dr Laurent Zessler told Koro Vaka'uta governments need to invest now to realise what he terms a demographic dividend.

LAURENT ZESSLER:  The demographic dividend, it's the time in the history of a country when the number of people that are in the workforce exceeds largely, in a very large way, the number of people that are dependents.  We feel that in many countries around the world there is a demographic dividend.  So we feel that it is very important that countries like Tonga, Vanuatu, Samoa, that have large groups of young people, the population, they should invest more in young people to make sure that if they want to sustain their development in the future that they give to the young people the opportunity that they need in terms of secondary school education, in terms of access to reproductive health information in school.  What is important to us at the UNFPA is the reproductive health service, where young people can have access to contraception.

KORO VAKA'UTA:  In terms of the Pacific situation, are we far off from reaching that particular or that ideal demographic dividend?

LZ:  We consider that these countries are in a transition.  They have a reduced mortality, infant mortality but they still have a high fertility.  We feel they are in an early transition phase and they really have to realise, unless they invest now, today, in youth, they will not be able to sustain their development in the future.  Which means better governance system, macroeconomic management, open trade, all these depend on if they invest in the young population they have now.

KV:  You mention high fertility and that seems to come up a lot across the Pacific, how important is it then for things like sexual education, reproductive health?  What part does that play?

LZ:  This is key and I thank you very much for emphasising this.  For us we call it comprehensive sexuality education which is the vocabulary that we use but we are very pleased to see that countries in the Pacific like Fiji and Tonga, they call it family life education.  You can call it the way the country wants to call it however what  is important is for young adolescent boys and girls to have in the school setting basic information about reproduction, reproductive health, reproductive health and rights, how they will in the future manage their own family situation and how they want to plan their lives in terms of number of children and when they want to have children.  We emphasise again and again, it is essential for young women to decide when they want to be pregnant and to be pregnant by choice and not by chance.