Asuncion, National Radio.-The Minister of the National Secretariat for Youth, Edgar Colmán was invited to participate in the Youth Forum of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC 2023) of the United Nations, which will be held in New York, United States, next Tuesday 25 and It will run until Thursday, April 27.
This Forum will address the theme of ECOSOC and the High Level Political Forum 2023, mainly focusing on “Accelerating the recovery from COVID-19 and the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development at all levels”.
The invitation issued by the president of ECOSOC, Lachezara Stoeva, was sent by the Permanent Mission of Paraguay to the United Nations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which in turn extended the communication, where the head of the SNJ is also requested to participate of the special session of the Forum: Financing Our Future SDG 17 “Youth-led innovations for decent jobs for youth”, to be held on Wednesday, April 26.
Paraguayan initiative on entrepreneurship interests UN Youth to implement with young people around the world
A Paraguayan initiative on entrepreneurship calls the attention of the United Nations Organization – UN Youth, to be implemented as a public policy aimed at young people from other countries in the world. The National Secretariat for Youth is working on a proposal that will be sent to the Permanent Mission of Paraguay before the international organization, based in New York.
Minister Edgar Colmán, in his participation in the UN assembly last June, spoke about the public policies promoted by Paraguay in various areas such as education, employment, health, security, citizen participation, entrepreneurship, creative economy, and innovation.
Among them, entrepreneurship was what most impacted the organization, with the creation of Simplified Action Companies (EAS), the Entrepreneur Support Center (CAE) and the implementation of Seed Capital for entrepreneurs from 18 to 29 years of age with the Grow program.
The Secretary of State assured that by strengthening entrepreneurship in young people, the generation of employment in this age group is strengthened; hence the importance of this initiative implemented in the country, which aims to be emulated in other nations.
In addition, he recalled that he held a meeting with the envoy, envoy of the UN Secretary General for Youth, Jayathma Wickramanayake, where they discussed public policies promoted by the State for the country’s youth.
This office is the youth segment whose work focuses on the involvement of the UN with youth, and which currently proposes the creation of an agency aimed at people between the ages of 18 and 29, such as UNDP or UN Women, among others. others.
He explained that, at that time, the envoy found the aforementioned project interesting and currently the SNJ is working on an executive summary about this initiative, to be presented from April 25 to 27, at UN Youth; occasion when the launch of this United Nations agency will be made official.
Youth Business Development Services
“What we are looking for is that young people come to the CAE and have the opportunity to receive business development services, such as training, workshops, canvas projects, business projection and even seed capital. We want the CAE to have the opportunity to generate and obtain information and that, according to the business project that is presented, it can determine its projection, its validation and also the capacity it will have within the market”, he emphasized.
He stressed that these are the programs carried out by the National Directorate of Entrepreneurship and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce with the Vice-Ministry of MSMEs, and that from the SNJ they accompany and strengthen this process, specifically in two projects such as the CAE (Centro de Apoyo al Entrepreneur) and the Crece program, which is a Seed Capital program for entrepreneurs.
“We support the UN’s own proposal to create its segment, an agency for youth within this agency called UN Youth, approved by the plenary, but in the administrative process of consolidation. We talked about some projects and programs, today we received the news from the Paraguayan mission at the United Nations, that they are interested in the Entrepreneurship Programs that we were discussing on that occasion”, he pointed out.
He added that they seek that this association of the triple alliance, public and private sector and academia can be integrated in a coordinated manner to develop an entrepreneurial ecosystem in the best possible way in each district where these CAES can be generated.
An outstanding piece of information provided by Minister Colmán is that, according to a study carried out by the Development Finance Agency (AFD), in which Paraguay, for every thousand dollars invested in a young entrepreneur, through training or seed capital, in the country a job is created.
“We understand that the more ease and access to credit can be had, either with non-refundable contributions or with reimbursable contributions, but with the entrepreneur’s ability to pay, taking into account the duration of the credit, the interest rate and a term of grace necessary for the young person at the time of undertaking. This can really contribute to strengthening the most vulnerable sectors and generating employment through entrepreneurship”, he concluded.