Tahiti, December 23, 2024 – The draft law on the 2025-2030 youth master plan, “Forever Young 2035”, was submitted for opinion to the Economic, Social, Environmental and Cultural Council this Monday. It was unanimously approved by the institution which insisted on the involvement of local actors in the islands, interministeriality and the coordination of the governance of youth policy.
Fragmented by geographic, social and cultural disparity, youth is not uniform. By youth, the Country means age groups ranging from 0 to 24 years. If the number of young people tends to decrease – a reduction in births of 12% was noted in Polynesia between 2016 and 2021 – their share remains 33% in the general population.
Several roadmaps, master plans or strategic plans have already attempted to address the issues that concern young people: schooling, training, health, leisure, etc. but mobilization and support remain difficult to unify. Some mention “a thousand sheets of devices that have become unreadable”. The intervention of youth and popular education associations presents a strong heterogeneity. “Everyone tries to do the best.”
Also, work has been carried out to establish a Youth Master Plan entitled “Forever Young 2035”. Launched in December 2023 at the time of the Youth Conference under the authority of the Minister of Sports, Youth and Delinquency Prevention, it took as a model the co-construction method applied to the Fāri'ira' approach. a Manihini 2027. Thus, a very wide audience of professionals was involved, but also the population. In total, more than 700 people intervened or were consulted on 16 islands of the five archipelagos.
“We lack numbers”
Even if “we lack numbers”, recognized Patricia Teriiteraahaumea, president of the Union for Youth and project rapporteur for the Economic, Social, Environmental and Cultural Council (Cesec), five objectives were listed to bring together public action over the next ten years. The first consists of acting for physical and mental well-being (addictions, nutrition, health promotion and mental health).
The master plan also aims to overcome social injustice, territorial imbalances and the generational renewal of precariousness (housing, youth protection, transport and mobility), to ensure an educational path adapted to each young person (infrastructure and boarding schools, decentralization, transmissions, financial support), to increase the autonomy and professional integration of young adults (entrepreneurship, integration, administration, priority sectors) and to encourage community engagement and citizen and cultural initiatives for the youth (cultural commitments, sports and leisure, community life, identities).
To manage this plan, governance “adapted and innovative” was imagined with a youth steering committee, a youth observatory and a Polynesian youth council. Which did not fail to provoke a reaction in the audience. What will be the cost of this triple governance? The choice of this governance would be justified to guarantee plurality and neutrality and allow the evaluation of actions.
Transversal governance
Transversality and interministeriality have been “at the heart of exchanges and work”. Youth, “invaluable source of innovation, creativity and opportunities“, East “bearer of future and hope for Polynesian society”. According to Cesec, “Forever Young 2035” is “a necessary document for those involved in the youth world”. The Council “is delighted” that it can promote a global and unifying vision around common objects.
However, he must not “remain a simple catalog of good intentions”. To implement this scheme, it will be necessary “prioritize, plan“, think “a multi-annual program and budgets accordingly“. Cesec calls on public authorities and public-private partnerships and requests the involvement of local actors in the islands. “It must be strengthened.”
The project was unanimously approved, subject, in particular, to strengthening actions targeted at early childhood, to developing initiatives aimed at supporting parents, to supporting and reinvesting in prevention and awareness-raising or even to developing a plan to renovate and modernize boarding schools.
