Visit to Jamaica: Youth Conference

Senator the honourable Dana Morris Dixon,
UNDP resident representative Kishan Khoday,
Professor Canute Thompson,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Young leaders of Jamaica,

Wah Gwaan? Yuh good?

I am very happy and privileged to be visiting your beautiful country for the first time over these past few days. Later today, I will be going back home with precious memories of people and places that have made a deep impression on me. I have been inspired by the stamina, creativity, knowledge and will power of the Jamaican people. Qualities you will need in your continued efforts to deal with challenges such as climate change and poverty.

We are gathered here to focus on the role of youth in creating transformative change across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

I would like to start by asking you to take a moment and think about these questions:

What is a leader?

What are the qualities you appreciate in a leader?

In my experience, anyone can be a leader.

It doesn’t depend on formal position or status.

It depends on values, on the courage to stand up for something that you believe in.

There is always someone around you – who looking to just you as a role model. A family member, fellow students, colleagues, neighbors.

This gives every one of us power and possibility to make a difference.

And the youth leaders gathered here today, of course, you are already many of you engaged in organizations and taking leadership positions which gives everyone the power and possibility to be part of the change that we want to see.

The change you want to see in your local community, on campus and in your country.

Over a period of 20 years as UNDP goodwill ambassador and even before, I have met different kind of leaders, many without formal positions. Impressive young people who have chosen to make a difference – because they could.

And you are, of course, also part of that solution. Young people in Jamaica represent 1/3 of the country's population, and your perspective and contributions matter immensely. 

Why the issue of development? Why is development important? Well, I would agree with Amartya Sen; development is freedom, freedom to make decisions on your own life, freedom to pursue a good, secure life for your children and for yourself and your loved ones, to be able to live in a just and secure society.

Okay, so let's look at the big picture. 

When we look at the world as a whole, what is the status of development? Okay, so according to the 2025 Sustainable Development Goals report, there is progress on 65% of the targets, but most of the progress, unfortunately, is too slow to be on track for 2030 and falling way behind also. But 65% is making progress. 35% of the targets, there is stagnation or regression. The fact is that the progress on the SDGs has slowed, but remember that we are still making progress on 65%.

And that is because of the hard work of people. It is not a given someone is working very hard to make that happen. As for Jamaica's progress, specifically, there are some results. And I think some of these figures are compiled from this university, and from UNDP:

Approximately 27 of the targets are on track. 41 show limited progress, but still progress, and 41% show limited progress, and 32% have worsened. So moderate improvements are observed in SDG one, no poverty, improvement in SDG five, gender equality, SDG nine, industry innovation and infrastructure is also moving in the right direction and SDG 13 climate action.

But it is also worth noticing, and even applaud, that the SDG 17 partnership for the goals is on track, providing strong support for achieving the broader SDG targets, and I have to say that is encouraging. 

Young people in Jamaica are turning challenges into opportunities in a way that stimulates employment and helps abate climate change.

I can take you through a few examples: sargassum, seaweed, bottles, tires and old computers are being converted into marketable goods, igniting the circular economy. Green jobs and new sources of income are created, including green energy services and coral reef restoration, entrepreneurship ventures and the increased utilization of climate smart farming are engaging youth creativity in productive directions.

So UNDP is committed to supporting the needs and dreams of young people. Through strategic investment in youth led projects. These projects span from Citizen Security to climate action and a trust grants to youth led enterprises. The UNDP Ready set great initiative that we've already heard about, co piloted by youth exemplifies this commitment. It created a call to action on youth poverty advocacy for meaningful effort to address the major contribution factors to poverty.

Before I close, I would like to show a couple of snapshots of what I have experienced and we have experienced when we have been here in Jamaica the last couple of days.

And here we see Cecilia Harvey and LeTroy Morgan, both fishers in Rocky Point fishing village. So here the topic was oceans, and they were very proud when they showed us the tracking devices. And they also got radios, and this way, they can track on their phones, on an app, all the fishing vessels that are out at sea. And they can also communicate through the radio, and if they then see illicit activity, illegal fishing, they can report it back, and the Coast Guard and the Harbour police  can do something about it, so maybe the illicit fishermen can get caught, but also, hopefully that
will lead to less illegal fishing, because the word will get out that there is sanctions if you do not follow the rules. So this is illicit fishing has been a problem because the fish stocks, of course, need to be taken care of and to be administered in a way that is sustainable. They were very into this project and had taken ownership to it. And I think that is very important, and there's a nice link here also, because Norway initiated the green Justice Project, and this is the Blue Resilience Project here, which the UNDP is partnering with the Jamaican authorities on. And it's interesting that this small place Vardø in Norway, they actually sent data, and you can see on the app here in Rocky Point Fishing Village. So there's this nice link that we're working together to improve the lives on
the ground in real time.

Let's go to the next picture.This is Nicola Bailey. She is community development officer in Clarendon, in the Victoria community, up in the mountains. So this is water security. Basically this is a water harvesting project that we visited up there, and she is in charge of managing it. So when the water source has problems because of a lot of rain. Actually, too much rain is also a problem for water as usual. I'm sure you know, because the river that they're getting the water from gets too much debris in it, too dirty, so they can't actually bring it up and use it. Or if you have too long dry spells, droughts that are now more and more unfortunately happening because of climate change, then also you need an extra security and extra water source. So this is what they were doing, and they were taking very good care of it up there. And the primary school that we were at right across the street said that they do not have to cut short their school days anymore, because they now have water enough to go through the day so that everything can work in the
school.

Next picture - this is Nyoxa Graydon Johnson and Shantel Phoenix. This is the So-JUST programme that the Minister of Justice was so kind to show to us. And these are legal busses that we're standing next to, and they go around the country, and they have up to three solicitors, lawyers that are there to advise whoever customer comes on board the bus and needs help. So these two women, the one on the left is the lawyer, and the other is someone that needs some advice on the matter. And these busses have been, of course, a corporation.The Jamaican government took the initiative. UNDP, and Canada has helped with actually getting the busses, and buying the busses. So there's three nap busses. So that's very good. 

The last picture I have is of Captain Michael Sterling that we met yesterday. He's been a fisher all his life. So from he was 15, and he lives in Oracabessa at the Oracabessa Bay fish sanctuary. That's what we saw yesterday. So basically, there's a stretch of the outside the beach in the ocean where it's not allowed to fish, and you're not allowed to take out products of the ocean. It's not a super large area. But within the last 10-12, years, because it's been efficient, the biomass in the ocean there has increased by more than 500% just by not fishing in that particular area. And the fishermen were very much taking ownership to this project. They could fish outside the perimeter. They could fish on both the beach to the north, the beach to the to the east and west and they could see that they were now catching more than they used to. So this is a very effective way of preserving nature. And they were also looking after the coral reefs. The coral reefs are, of course, in jeopardy because of the warm water coming from climate change, and especially this year with El Nino. So we see very warm temperatures. So when they get to 30 degrees, 31-32, it's really a problem for the coral reefs. They bleach, and sometimes they' die. So they're taking the parts of the coral reefs that are still healthy and replicating them, breeding on them, so that they can hopefully restore the reefs, and with the parts that are a bit more resilient, that's the ones they use so that hopefully they can withstand the next time when there's very warm water.

So those were just some examples of this wonderful visit that I've had these last couple of days. So ladies and gentlemen and young leaders of Jamaica, the question to ask yourself is not am I a leader, but what kind of leader do I want to be?

As Bob Marley once said, and this applies as much to women as it does to men: The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively. Stand together. Together, you can be the change that you want to see.

I definitely believe in you, and I wish you every luck, and I'm looking forward to hearing more from some of you now on stage. Thank you.