Navigating New Oceans: Reflecting on the Importance of the Commonwealth Youth Forum in Amplifying Indigenous Pacific Youth Voices in High-Level Decision-Making
Jasmine Koria
Jasmine Koria is the head of the English and Social Sciences Department at Samoa Adventist School and outgoing curator of the Global Shapers Apia Hub.
The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policies or positions of the Pacific Islands Development Program or the East-West Center.
Featured photo courtesy Jasmine Koria, The Commonwealth.
The Independent State of Samoa will host the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in October, thus becoming the first Small Island Developing State in the Pacific to do so (The Commonwealth 2023). This means that the country’s youth will have the opportunity to host the Commonwealth Youth Forum, and that the young people of the Pacific Commonwealth member states will have a more direct influence upon its proceedings and outcomes.
To begin with, the Commonwealth Youth Forum’s 2024 Declaration will be finalized and presented to global leaders at the end of this forum. This document will be a collated list of recommendations by the youth of the Commonwealth for how governments as well as international and regional non-state stakeholders can best support youth for the next two years.
Secondly, the dialogue sessions into which the youth forum will be divided will provide Pasifika participants with the opportunity to interact directly with several key leaders from both state and civil society. Being that the Commonwealth Years of Youth, 2023 and 2024, will culminate at the close of this year’s CHOGM, it is also highly imperative that Pasifika youth contribute to the planning of the “way forward.”
In February 2024, seventeen other youth leaders from around the Commonwealth and I were selected to form this year’s Commonwealth Youth Forum (CYF) Taskforce (Sagaga 2024). Our role is to plan and implement all aspects of the upcoming Youth Forum. This particular CHOGM event will take place from October 21 to October 22, alongside the People’s and Women’s Forums, and before the Business Forum (The Commonwealth 2024). One of the most key aspects of the Commonwealth Youth Forum is the biannual Commonwealth Youth Declaration, which is drafted and refined in the months leading up to the two-day event. It is to be presented to the heads of all Commonwealth governments as the Youth Forum closes and the remaining plenary sessions commence.
This list of recommendations guides and directs the work of the region’s most influential decision-making bodies. The policies and initiatives that are implemented by governments, international organizations, and civil society actors in the Commonwealth are to be based on the needs and concerns which are highlighted in this document (Commonwealth Secretariat 2022). As a member of the CYF Taskforce’s Policy Subcommittee, it has never been more apparent to me that this is an imperative opportunity for the young people of the Pacific Commonwealth member states to have their perspectives, aspirations, and lived experiences accurately reflected and appreciated by the wider Commonwealth. This year’s foundational touchstone is resilience (The Commonwealth 2024).
As a sub-region of the Commonwealth, few words can more aptly describe Oceania’s colonial and post-colonial journeys. The Commonwealth is an association which has promoted shared understanding and cooperation for many decades, but due to its large membership, it has also had the tendency to gloss over the specific circumstances and struggles that pertain to our supposedly isolated part of the world. Fellow representatives of the Independent State of Samoa and I who are taking the lead in drafting the sections of this year’s Commonwealth Youth Forum declaration have a rare and important opportunity to change that (Mika 2024).
Because the Commonwealth Youth Forum aims to put high-level global decision makers at the same table with the association’s youth, this year’s event in Apia will give the young people of the Pacific Commonwealth member states a space to hear directly from many of the leaders who make important decisions which directly impact their lives (Sagaga 2024). It will also give these youth a much-needed platform via which they can address leaders and ask questions. While the Pacific Way itself still does not have a “dictionary definition,” we as Pacific Islanders understand that it includes “respect” (Mara 1997).
Many youths in our region grow up learning of this “respect” as a concept that is synonymous with obedience, reverence, “doing as we are told,” and “not answering back” (Vakalahi 2008). This is still very often expressed within our societies as a quiet agreeableness in the presence of high-level authority; it is particularly true when this happens to be foreign, non-Indigenous “authority.” A space like this year’s Commonwealth Youth Forum will play a critical role in facilitating a sense of equilibrium between the youth of the Pacific Commonwealth member states and the world leaders whose decisions still shape the world that they live in.
The year 2023 was initially assigned “Year of Youth” by the Commonwealth, in the hope of promoting the interests and potentials of the approximately 1.5 billion young people who live in its fifty-six member states. This same year marked the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Commonwealth Youth program, which has, since its establishment, been a direct avenue for the voicing of youth-related concerns on sub-regional and global issues (The Commonwealth 2024).
The success of this Year of Youth resulted in its extension to two “Years of Youth,” which will conclude at the 2024 CHOGM. The Independent State of Samoa’s hosting of this event will allow Pasifika youth to not only be part of this momentous closing event, but also to see firsthand the importance of their role as Indigenous people in an increasingly globalized world.
A major part of this encompasses their responsibility to continually influence the way regional policies and initiatives are contextualized when they are applied to Oceania. The officially delegated “Years of Youth” are culminating in October 2024 (The Commonwealth 2024). However, youth participation in such areas as governance processes, economic empowerment, advocacy for the preservation of the natural environment, and the strengthening of societal and communal support for young Indigenous people, will continue to be important markers by which we can measure the resilience of democracy in the Commonwealth.
Democracy is essential to the very survival of the Commonwealth (Leask 2010). For this reason, too, the involvement of Pacific youth in the planning of the way forward after these two years is most imperative. There can, and should be, nothing about us without us. In October, several thousand delegates from around the world are expected to gather in Apia, the Independent State of Samoa, for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. The Commonwealth Youth Forum, in particular, is expected to provide youth from the Pacific Commonwealth member states with a unique opportunity to help chart the Commonwealth’s course for the next two years. In participating in the drafting of the Youth Forum Declaration, as well as attending and speaking at forum sessions facilitated by international and regional decision-makers, Pacific youth will be able to provide world leaders with much-needed perspectives on our goals and struggles. These will hopefully help them as they endeavor to continue steering the Commonwealth in ways that support and empower us all for the next two years.
References
“Commonwealth Youth Forum.” 2024. CHOGM Samoa 2024. April 11, 2024. https://samoachogm2024.ws/cyf/.
Commonwealth Secretariat. 2022. “Commonwealth Youth Forum, 2022.” In 12th Commonwealth Youth Forum: Declaration by the Young People of the Commonwealth, 12:1–2. Kigali: Commonwealth Secretariat. https://production-new-commonwealth-files.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/2022-06/12th%20Commonwealth%20Youth%20Forum%20%28CYF%29%20Declaration.pdf?VersionId=SpUelT.FGX04uw4bMNpOri3.qL5y7Pl1.
Leask, Rognvald. 2010. “Just a Drop in the Ocean? Commonwealth Support for Its Pacific Island Members in the Face of Growing International Interest in the Region.” Cahiers Charles V 49 (1): 191–214. https://doi.org/10.3406/cchav.2010.1572.
Mara, Kamisese. 1997. The Pacific Way: A Memoir. Honolulu: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawaiʻi : Pacific Islands Development Program, East-West Center : University of Hawaiʻi Press.
Mika, Talaia. 2024. “Youth Taskforce Meets to Prepare for Big Event.” Samoa Observer, May 18, 2024, sec. SAMOA. https://www.samoaobserver.ws/category/samoa/109285.
Ofahengaue Vakalahi, Halaevalu F., and Meripa T. Godinet. 2008. “Family and Culture, and the Samoan Youth.” Journal of Family Social Work 11 (3): 229–53. https://doi.org/10.1080/10522150802292319.
Sagaga, Anetone. 2024. “Nine Youths Chosen for Commonwealth Forum.” Samoa Observer, April 15, 2024, sec. SAMOA. https://www.samoaobserver.ws/category/samoa/108825.
The Commonwealth. 2024. “The Commonwealth Year of Youth Extended until CHOGM 2024.” The Commonwealth. The Commonwealth. January 19, 2024. https://thecommonwealth.org/news/commonwealth-year-youth-extended-until-chogm-2024.
The Commonwealth. 2023. “Samoa Announces Theme for the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.” The Commonwealth. The Commonwealth. September 21, 2023. https://thecommonwealth.org/news/samoa-announces-theme-2024-commonwealth-heads-government-meeting.