KYRGYZSTAN: successful youth – successful country
In reality, the state’s investments in youth are considerable, but they are made within a variety of different fields, including education, healthcare, cultural activities, and employment. The structure of the budget makes it complicated to perform a holistic analysis of how much the government spends on youth and how effective such expenditures are. All ministries and agencies say they provide services to everyone in society, without singling out the needs of youth as a separate target group. They focus their efforts on covering the maximum possible part of the population, as written in their regulations. Furthermore, the volume, standards, and quality of government services are not assessed by a single state agency. Thus, the problem is not a shortage of state resources invested in youth, but the lack of a strategic vision for such investments and a lack of focus in state youth policy. Due to the shortage of resources, the state is forced to move away from central planning and encourage youth to organize and motivate themselves. Defining the state’s role in youth policy remains an urgent task. Current approaches to working with youth have become obsolete and do not fit the reality of the modern market economy. The target of the policy (youth) is too broad, encompassing the entire population aged 14 to 28 (until amendments were introduced to the law “On the Bases of State Youth Policy”, it was 14 to 35). The existing analytical work on the problems of youth is insufficient. That is why the policies and measures that have been implemented have had a preventive, rather than reactive, nature. There is no system for collecting and processing information, no analysis and prioritization of problems that are identified, no classification, no forecasting, no alignment of policies with forecasts, and no coordination of work among ministries and agencies. Youth are not segmented, which leads to overly broad policies that don’t address the specific needs of different youth groups. That is why youth policy remains ineffective, poorly targeted, and formalistic, and is treated as a low priority among the state’s domestic policies. This can be explained by uncertainty in the conceptual approach to youth policy. There are no adequate institutional mechanisms or resources (neither financial nor human) for its implementation. In particular, the government organization that handles youth affairs changes its legal status nearly every time the government is reorganized, which shows a lack of consensus among decision makers on the goals, objectives, and functions of youth policy. The question of what, exactly, a government agency on youth affairs is responsible for and what it is supposed to manage – i.e., its mandate – remains open. Provincial committees on youth have been shut down (along with other state bodies at the provincial level) and the model for youth policy management at the provincial and district levels has not been clearly identified. Recently, the government began to signal changes in its approach to youth policy. In the past, 11 youth have been treated as objects (beneficiaries) of youth policy, rather than as subjects. The Kyrgyzstan Jashtary programme was developed without the broad participation of stakeholders, discussions with the public, or – most importantly – participation by youth. There have never been plans to monitor the achievement of the goals and objectives of the programme, let alone to involve youth organizations in independent monitoring of the program’s implementation. The new law “On the Bases of State Youth Policy,” which was adopted by the Jogorku Kenesh (the national parliament) on June 25, 2009, states that youth policy is to be developed with the participation of youth and implemented together with youth organizations. In other words, young people and their organizations were included among the subjects of youth policy. The preparation of the new law served as a good example of involving youth in policy formation: an initiative group comprised of representatives of youth organizations was formed, which developed a vision for a youth policy, which became the basis for the new law. This law also introduced some other innovations, including:
11 The subjects of policy are those who actively and consciously participate in political activity. The objects of policy are those at which this policy is aimed: for example, a group of people whom the state is trying to influence in order to change their behavior and social status.
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separation of powers among state bodies; support and stimulation of youth initiatives through provision of grants for social projects; identification of mechanisms for involving youth in the development and implementation of youth policy; a legal mandate for state bodies to engage youth in the development and implementation of youth policy; securing the rights and interests of youth in the development of targeted programmes;