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Listening to the Youth of CambodiaRebuilding the FutureAt the request of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, an ESCAP advisory mission visited Cambodia in March 1996. It assisted the Ministry in the initial formulation of a national youth policy framework for the country. The framework will provide a basic platform for developing programmes and activities for youth by the Cambodian Government. The methodology followed by the mission, as well as some of the issues faced by Cambodian young people today, are highlighted below. In any country, youth represent the future. This is especially true for Cambodia, where the young constitute a sizable section of the population as a result of a generation of armed conflict in the country. The development of Cambodia depends largely on the harnessing and nurturing of the potential of its young population. For a national youth policy to effectively address the needs of Cambodian youth, a good understanding of the problems and needs of young people themselves is required. Therefore, a major part of the work of the ESCAP mission was used for direct consultation with Cambodian youth. This was primarily done through the conduct of two situation analysis workshops (SAWs) with a cross-section of young people in Phnom Penh and Kampot province. In SAWs, priority issues are identified in a participatory manner. Most of the discussions are done through group work and with moderation, not teaching, by the trainer. In the workshops conducted, participants were first asked to identify subgroups of youth, for example by occupation and by their access to resources. Problems faced by young people were then identified. After trying to find solutions to these problems, participants then allocated priorities to the problems. This of course required constant discussion among the participants. The SAWs are a simple, cost-effective and highly participatory method to obtain inputs for policy formulation. About 25 young people with varied backgrounds gathered at each SAW - high school students, university students, disabled youth, NGO staff, youth department officials, youth organization members, school teachers and unemployed youth. Despite the heterogeneity of their backgrounds, they were able to communicate and work effectively as a team. Contrary to the general belief that young people do not have a broad perspective of economic and social issues, the participants at both workshops had a very clear understanding of the general situation of their country as well as the core issues affecting them. Some of the issues, such as peace and security (including land mines), unemployment, school-related issues and corruption in the society, were listed among the priority problems in both workshops. Although limited in terms of the sample size, the experience of conducting the two SAWs presents a strong case for the conduct of similar workshops by government officials, both in Cambodia and in other countries, to obtain reliable information on the real needs of youth. The workshops can also be used as opportunities for building youth groups at the grassroots level, and could be expanded by including exercises for project formulation, planning and implementation, opening up new opportunities for longer-term action for youth. Through the consultations, seven major issues for a national youth policy were identified: peace and order; education; poverty alleviation; and employment; health and sanitation; environment; sports; and empowerment, participation and institutional development. ESCAP hopes to continue to provide similar services to other countries as part of its HRD programme for youth in development. |