Sri Lanka and the World Youth Conference 2014: Day 1 Opening Ceremony

Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka.

I have to admit my knowledge about the country was fairly limited before I was accepted to attend this conference.

What I have seen is a very proud and patriotic country. Kind of reminded me of home, but is also very unique in it's own ways. 

There is a big enough Indian community in NZ to know Sri Lanka is quite different. Pictures of their much loved President splashed in just about every free corner you can find. Not once have I come across one sour faced Sri Lankan. They all appear to be genuinely happy and very friendly people and have gone out of their way to make us delegates feel extra special ..... and extra welcome. 

Everywhere we go we are accompanied by a police escort, partially because the traffic here in Colombo is crazy, but it's also an extension of their warm hospitality. They have stopped at nothing to make sure we are safe and happy. I kind of get the feeling that being happy is the national motto for Sri Lanka.

The Opening Ceremony was splendid, filled with so much life, colour and beautiful insights into Sri Lankan culture. The venue for the ceremony, the Magampura Ruhunupura International Convention Centre is approximately 3 hours away from our hotel, but well worth the wait.

The multimillion dollar complex put on the best of the best to welcome the worlds international youth delegates formally to Sri Lanka and with Sri Lanka's much beloved President Mahinda Rajapaksa, officially declared the conference open. I felt like royalty walking up the aisle past 100's of young Sri Lankan's dressed in their nation's best to welcome us (see photos)

Just as admirable as the opening ceremony is Sri Lanka's genuine commitment to advancing the lives of it's young people, ensuring that young people are part and parcel of decision making processes within the country.

With such a wonderful start I am looking forward to the rest of the conference. There are several key themes and foundations being addressed at this conference, more information here. I am participating under the foundation of empowering margenalised youth including most at risk young people, and in the theme of Environmental Protection, Emergency Preparedness and Youth Centered Urbanisation, two things I am particularly passionate about.

Will keep blogging over the next few days to let people know how the discussions go. The objective is by the end of the conference, that we are able to develop our contribution for 'youth in the post-development agenda', for the United Nations and international community to consider.

Now time for some much needed sleep :)

Hold the Pisupo! Let's not celebrate just yet

Yesterday New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key announced a $5 million dollar package in Education Aid to pay for the school fees of more than 16,000 high school students in Samoa. While most of my friends on Facebook were celebrating what on the surface level appeared to be a very generous and kind hearted gesture to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Treaty of Friendship between the said countries, I held back from peeling open that can of pisupo (I ran out of wine, shush) in celebration of the said gesture.



I've posted a few articles I have found which confirm my suspicions, and not that you need a PHD in Puliliness to understand it; you either have to be interested/ passionate in/about these sorts of issues or have done some random paper at University which briefly covered the topic (Pac 204, anyone?).

My initial reaction was that this was a well timed PR gimmick,  typical National Party show and tell, but it reminded me of some of the more poorly informed, backward reforms this government has made in relation to Aid, or Overseas Development Assistance. 


Not only was this act a facade, highlighting so many things wrong this particular administration, it does show that they are good at one thing: blinding the public with a whole lot of gimmicks - and people lap it up - naturally given preference for feel good stories with only a sound bite of background information- no one wants to get into the nitty gritty of at all.  


However, in situations like this, it is important that we do. For several reasons. The main one (for now) being that we don't jump up and down screaming 'Hercules, Hercules', when there is much more to the story than meets the eye.


The $5 million dollars was part of an already existing Aid Budget, which NZ provides to Samoa and other countries in the Pacific through it's Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).

Short story, real Aid from NZ, whilst it has confusingly increased in this terms Budget, has decreased in real terms, and has a very bleak future.


In 2002 NZ, with most of the international community were party to the Monterrey Concensus (and several other international agreements) in which developped countries would commit 0.7 of it's GNI (Gross National Income) to Development assistance, as part of the international bid to eliminate poverty by 2015. I'm sure we've all heard of the Millenium Development Goals. 


In typical National fashion, their friends in the Business community of New Zealand have dictated their policy, where they would rather the government reduce it's ODA budget, and help them by  “removing barriers and smoothing the way” to offshore investment. Neo-colonial rape anyone? 


In response National has slashed $133 million over three years of the Aid Budget, putting us even further behind other countries in the OECD. By 2014 New Zealand will only be committing 0.24 of GNI, the lowest amount it has committed in the history of NZ overseas development assistance. Great friendship huh? This comes at a time in which we've seen remittances from NZ drop, a weak demand in Samoan exports and the excruciatingly high prices for imported food.


These are very real things we need to be concerned about. So tell me again why are we celebrating?


On the other side, the Treaty provides grounds for dialogue on ways in which the friendship can be improved. But it will take all of the might of our people, in both Samoa and NZ, to push these issues, and to not jump up and down everytime the (former) master throws us a biscuit.


Tim Baice
Pulili News.