Taliiagi Mauga, Ministry of Women, Community & Social Development – Samoa

UN ESCAP in collaboration with UNDP held multiple consultations with youth and policymakers from six Pacific island countries both before and during the Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF). On 26 September 2017, ESCAP took part in UNDP’s Youth CoLab, which focused on understanding the unique challenges youth in the Pacific face as well as solutions from government and youth led organizations. From 27 to 29 September 2017 the participants from the Youth CoLab along with ESCAP and UNDP joined SEWF to learn more about how entrepreneurship and social enterprises can help achieve the SDGs, including addressing youth unemployment. Each evening youth specific consultations were held, where many interesting plenary and break-out sessions took place, and also gave youth from the Pacific opportunities to interact with youth participants from other countries, especially Australia and New Zealand. The events proved to be an effective way of increasing the capacity of participants from the Pacific islands and drawing greater attention to the benefits of investing in youth, especially with regard to social enterprises.