Australian youth lead the way

08 February 2010 17:30

This week, Australian youth leaders are in London to attended the first ever world youth summit. One Young World is said to be the Davos for the under 25s. Former Australian of the Year, Hugh Evans shares with Australian Times how we are to lead the way forward.

editor@australiantimes.co.uk

www.australiantimes.co.uk/news/Every-day-there-is-a-Haiti-tragedyBy Ashlea Maher

Australian youth leaders have appealed to expats in the UK to take immediate action in order to ensure the next generation leads their nation in a positive direction.

Twelve young Australians are joined with 800 leaders from across the world at the inaugural One Young World in London from Sunday to Tuesday.

As climate change and economic development are deciding the fate of Australia’s future in Federal Parliament this week, the summit provided the attending Australians with an important platform to shape their nation’s future.

The leaders were joined by Kofi Annan, Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof, US Senator John Kerry, and formed resolutions to help create a future direction for climate change, interfaith dialogue, global business and health, politics, government and the media for the next generation.

The purpose of the summit is also for youth to show how the next generation will work towards achieving the requirements of the 2015 Millennium Development Goals deadline.

The Millennium Development Goals are eight goals that United Nation member states agreed upon in 2000 and aim to spur development by improving social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries.

Ahead of the summit, Former Young Australian of the Year and CEO of Global Poverty Project Hugh Evans told Australian Times that youth need to raise their voice and keep their political representatives to account, and for big business to listen.

“One Young World is an amazing opportunity. There are people there from all over the world and young people will be able to present ideas and take others back to their own countries,” he said.

Mr Evans’s work with the Global Poverty Project aims to end extreme global poverty and he seeks to get the world working together to solve the problem at the summit. To tackle poverty, he said investment needs to be equal to the need, by governments and business.

He said governments continually renege on aid promises to developing nations, and even re-pledge previous ones, because there is not enough pressure on governments from the community to help.
“World leaders say that they can’t afford to help developing nations anymore. But given that £5.2 trillion pounds was invested to bail out failed banks, this is untrue.”

He also said that big business needs to contribute their fair share.
“There already has been fantastic development in regards to working towards the Millennium Development Goals. When Bill Gates invested his wealth in battling HIV/AIDS in developing countries the levels dropped dramatically,” Mr Evans said.

“When the Global Fund for Education was set up the levels of education increased. These developments show what can happen.
“In the last 25 years we have halved extreme global poverty. I’m 23, and it’s incredible to think that in 1981, the figure of the extremely poor was 52%. That figure today is 25%. It’s amazing to think that in my lifetime extreme global poverty could be abolished.”

“If you look at an issue such as maternal health, the solution should seem so simple. But globally 500,000 women die due to birth complications. But if they could only get the assistance of midwives their lives could be saved.”
Statistically, Mr Evans said extreme global poverty could be eliminated in the next 25 years, which is why the One Young World summit is so important.

Mr Evans is presenting a special preview of Global Poverty Project’s 1.4 Billion Reasons campaign, organisatio’s road show which is travelling the world highlighting how everyday efforts are having a massive positive impact in the world’s poorest regions at the One Young World summit.

Other Australian delegates taking part were Rodney Balech representing Woolworths, Angela Sehan Marc Brian Harris representing Westpac, Jun Sik Yoon representing Sony, Rowan Te Kloot representing Macquarie Group Limited, Steven Burnside and Gabrielle Prohn representing Burt’s Bees, Fiona Paton, Marissa Sceri and Jennifer Bosch and Joe Sequira representing HP, Mohammed Assoum, Oliver Squires representing University of Queensland and Chris Eigeland who won a One Young World YouTube competition.
 

Hugh Evans talks about how bad the situation really is on the ground in developing countries

 

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