Adopted Youth Strategy: Enable young people to return to Montenegro

At today's session, the Government of Montenegro adopted the Youth Strategy for the period 2023-2027. year with the proposal of the Action Plan for 2023-2024, at the proposal of the Minister of Sports and Youth, Vasilij Lalošević, it was announced from that Ministry.

As stated in the announcement, the new Strategy foresees basic principles as a starting point for a better position of young people in Montenegro.

As Lalošević said, this is the most important document in the field of youth.

"We worked for a long time on the Strategy and succeeded. After consultations with UNDP, the European Commission and UNICEF, we organized more research. Worrying data shows that almost 55 percent of young, educated people want to leave Montenegro. With the spatial plan that we talked about here today, the development of the north..., we have a chance to stop a part of those young people. Part of them wants to go back. Which is positive. Will we enable them to return, with their knowledge and experience that they gained in the West", said Lalošević in his introductory speech.

He emphasized that 141.000 young people under the age of 29 in Montenegro deserve the adoption of the mentioned document.

"There are four operational goals of this Strategy: the development of a sustainable and high-quality system of services and programs to support young people during the transition to adulthood; creation of conditions for young people to be active citizens, involved in the creation and implementation of public policies; making an interdepartmental contribution to improving the overall position of young people and improving mechanisms for the effective creation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of youth policy", explained Lalošević.

Director of the Directorate for Youth, Martin Lulđuraj, announced that the Ministry of Sports and Youth will propose the formation of a Coordinating Body whose task would be to monitor this five-year strategic document, and which would include representatives of other departments dealing with youth issues.

"The issue of youth is not an issue of one department, but an issue of other Ministries as well. Also, I think that we should have a bigger budget in the future, when it comes to this department", said Lulđuraj.

"In order to bring the strategic framework of youth policy closer to young people, the Ministry of Sports and Youth will, after the adoption of the Strategy for Youth 2023-2027, proceed with the creation of a "youth-friendly" version of this document," the announcement concludes.