Interlinkages & cross-cutting issues (IPM)

It is crazzzzzzzzzzy that we have collectively come together to draft some great statements for the IPM. It is refreshing to engage with the thematic topics and our position paper.

It forces me to remember that one of the defining features of the 21st century is the global demographic divide, with an increasing youthful population. The world has the largest group of adolescents ever and globally, people under the age of 25 are making up nearly half of the total global population, with more than 500 million living in poverty. These stats scare me. I am young. I am not rich. I come from a country where unemployment is on the rise and I am lucky to have a job. But it still scares me when I consider how close it is. I would hate to be one of the 500 million living in poverty and only small things stand between me and poverty. I have lived in New York City on less than 5 dollars a day. I have lived in Africa on less that 1 dollar a day. I was lucky but I never considered myself to be living in poverty. I know that our definition of poverty is fundamentally flawed. And it all comes down to perspective.

Effective and efficient poverty eradication strategies are needed. Ones that do not merely consider monetary aspects as an indicator of wealth. Education is a catalyst of human development, therefore, it is imperative to ensure gender equality and equity, universal primary education with equal access for boys and girls and to promote formal and non-formal education regarding sustainable development. But this alone is not enough. There also needs to be an enabling environment for the creation of appropriate means of implementation and will encourage and support the operationalization and implementation of sustainable development. More efforts should be put into protecting human and environmental health through command-and-control regulatory systems based on monitoring and enforcement actions.

It is a massive task. But it is not unachievable. I can almost hear you scroff and dismiss me for being idealistic. But I am not. I merely know how much potential we have and how much we waste.