The National Youth Development Authority (NYDA) is translating Prime Minister James Marape’s “1 million jobs” and “I will find you” youth policy commitments into a nationwide engagement programme.
Over 15,000 disengaged youths have registered themselves in eight months as the Western Highlands Province this week became the 11th province to roll out the National Youth Engagement Strategy (NYES).
Related news: https://pnghauslain.com/over-15-000-disengaged-youth-registered-as-western-highlands-joins-national-youth-strategy/
The NYDA and Western Highlands Provincial Administration have affirmed their commitment to implementing NYES, with Dei District identified as the pilot district for the strategy.
The rollout provides a practical mechanism for identifying disengaged youths, registering them through the NYDA online platform and connecting them to employment, skills and economic opportunities.
NYDA Director-General Mr. Joe Itaki said Papua New Guinea already had enough sectoral policies to guide youth development, but what had been missing was a single strategy to bring those policies together through localized action.
Developed following the 2024 Prime Minister’s directive, NYES is designed to mobilize disengaged youths and connect them with pathways including agriculture, livestock, fisheries, cocoa, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and technical and vocational education and training (TVET).
Mr. Itaki, in a statement, described NYES as a “single vehicle” for coordinated youth engagement, reducing duplication while complementing the work of individual government sectors.
The strategy is therefore shifting the focus from simply identifying unemployed and disengaged youths to collecting data on who they are, where they are and what opportunities best match their interests and skills, he said.
The Western Highlands rollout is the latest step in that process.
Deputy Provincial Administrator Mr. Esley Tikil welcomed the province’s inclusion in NYES, saying disengaged youths made up a large portion of the population but had rarely been adequately consulted or included in development streams.
He said provincial public servants were ready to work with NYDA to implement the strategy.
A central component of NYES is the online youth registration platform, which provides districts and provinces with data on disengaged youths, including school pushouts, to help connect them with available sectoral pathways.
In Western Highlands, NYDA and the Provincial Administration will implement activities under the Joint Inception and Implementation Plan.
Based on information collected through the registration process, youths will be processed and referred to appropriate sectors for engagement, while youth programmes in the province will increasingly be informed by data and the interests identified by young people themselves.
The provincial administration has also called for continued political support and counterpart funding, while asking NYDA to help connect local youths to labour and skills mobility opportunities through the province’s TVET institutions.
Related news: https://www.thepngsun.com/eastern-highlands-becomes-first-highlands-province-to-complete-nyes-socialization-program/
With administrative protocols now cleared, the next step in Dei District is to mobilize and register disengaged youths through local-level governments, process their information and refer them to relevant employment, skills and economic pathways.
The rollout gives a measurable implementation component to the Government’s broader youth policy agenda: finding disengaged young people, registering them, identifying their interests and skills, and connecting them with existing opportunities.