In his statement at the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum of the United Nations, the Minister of People’s Power for Youth and Sports, Mervin Maldonado, reaffirmed on Wednesday Venezuela’s will to promote youth as agents of social transformation in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Maldonado stressed the importance of youth in the global sanitary emergency and their decisive role in all the areas of development, highlighting that “Venezuela relies on a primarily young population (over 35% of the total population), and millions of children that will add up in the following years.”
In this regard, the Venezuelan youth minister highlighted the Venezuelan state’s public policies on youth, aimed to create opportunities of studies, jobs, production, entrepreneurship, sports, culture, recreation and political participation “centered on the enjoyment of human rights.”
“All these efforts are made amid a sophisticated, criminal program of calculated cruelty and the imposition of unilateral coercive measures against the Venezuelan population that dramatically affect our youth and undermine development, social inclusion policies in our country,” explained Maldonado, who condemned the economic blockade imposed by the United States and its allies.
Minister Maldonado said that Venezuela’s youth join the world call for “making COVID-19 vaccines a global public asset of equitable access for both the South and the North.”
“This emergency must become an opportunity to boost multilateralism, solidarity and transparent cooperation, and global coordination to achieve the sustainable development goals with the youth leadership as the significant guide demanded by humanity,” said the Venezuelan youth and sports minister.
The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum is a key platform where young people can contribute to policy discussions at the United Nations through their collective ideas, solutions and innovations.
On this occasion, participants took part in discussions with Member States on the annual ECOSOC/High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) on sustainable development: “Sustainable and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that promotes the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development: building an inclusive and effective path for the achievement of the 2030 Agenda in the context of the decade of action and delivery for sustainable development”.