The theme for this year International Youth Day is "Tackling Poverty Together".

The General Assembly on 17 December 1999 in its resolution 54/120, endorsed the recommendation made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth (Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998) that 12 August be declared International Youth Day.

The Assembly recommended that public information activities be organized to support the Day as a way to promote better awareness of the World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond, adopted by the General Assembly in 1995 (resolution 50/81).

Viewing this year’s theme from a broad context of the millennium development goals, one will assume that the World is yet to deliver.

The Millennium Declaration was endorsed by 189 Heads of state and government from both South and North at the 2000 UN Millennium Summit. The aim is to free all men, women and children from extreme poverty.

Nearly half of the World’s population is young people. In our World today, 325 million people still live on less than a $1 a day but if they are empowered to become independent and generate reasonable income for themselves and create employment opportunities for others, our world will become free of poverty. If they are empowered, then our World is empowered.

The bottom line is that we are still behind the target. These goals are meant to be achieved by 2015 and without more and more actions, we will not get there.

The way forward is for us to make our voices heard. We need to advocate for more political will and hold our governments responsible to their millennium declaration commitments to be able to achieve these goals. The north has to deliver on its part for more sustainable dept relief, Unconditional aid and fairer trade in order to achieve goal 8 which is global partnership for development. Again, the south has to deliver on its part by ensuring it achieves the first seven goals. The first seven goals are eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and ensure environmental sustainability. Efforts from both South and North must have to run concurrently if these goals must be achieved. Let us spread the word move from rhetoric to action.