Policies and Programmes Involving Youth

Encourages all States, all United Nations bodies, in particular the Economic and Social Council through the Commission for Social Development, the specialized agencies and the intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations concerned, in particular youth organizations, to continue to exert all possible efforts for the implementation of the guidelines for further planning and suitable follow-up in the field of youth;⁵

Calls upon Member States to enable young people to obtain a comprehensive education, including in human rights questions, environmental questions and cross-cultural issues, with a view to fostering mutual understanding and tolerance;

Requests the Secretary-General, in close cooperation with Member States and youth organizations, to evaluate youth programmes that were developed during the follow-up of International Youth Year and to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-second session, with a view to ensuring effective implementation of a world programme of action for youth to the year 2000 and beyond;⁶

Encourages the preparation by Member States that have not yet done so, of a national youth policy, based on an analytical national evaluation of the situation and needs of youth;

Calls upon the regional commissions that have not yet done so, together with regional youth and youth-serving organizations, to finalize the comprehensive review of the progress achieved and the obstacles encountered in the regions since 1985 and to propose draft regional programmes of action for youth to the year 2000 and beyond;

Invites once again Member States to include, whenever possible, youth representatives in their national delegations to the General Assembly and other relevant United Nations meetings, with particular emphasis on the fiftieth session of the General Assembly, in order to mark the tenth anniversary of International Youth Year, thus enhancing and strengthening the channels of communication through the discussion of youth-related issues, with a view to finding solutions to the problems confronting youth in the contemporary world;

Requests the Secretary-General to make recommendations on the need for specific programmes aimed at encouraging school attendance through various means, in particular by the provision of lessons free of charge and, where appropriate, free food in schools, in close coordination with the United Nations Children's Fund, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the multilateral financial institutions, bearing in mind the fundamental importance to youth of increasing literacy rates as set out in the draft world programme of action for youth to the year 2000 and beyond;