UNITED NATIONS, March 20 (NNN-KUNA) -- The UN's youth e-leaders team concluded Friday evening its week-long meetings for placing a 2010 strategic plan for youth and technology.

The meetings, which took place at the UN headquarters, saw the participation of Kuwait's Eng. Manar Al-Hashash, who is the Secretary General of Kuwait e-Award and an e-Leader at the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (GAID).

The meeting took place under the supervision of GAID Executive Coordinator Sergei Kambalov, among other UN officials.
Speaking to KUNA, Al-Hashash said that the meetings were "very positive" and that the team presented its plan to UN officials and discussed its different stages with them.

The next step, she said, would be to present the plan to the rest of the UN officials next month in order to list it as one of the tools that would held the UN achieve its Millennium Goals.

The UN General Assembly, convening in September, will review efforts to achieve the Millennium Goals so far.

She explained that when the UN announced its Millennium Goals in 2000, it had not expected that information technology and communications (ITC) would become such an important element of the lives of nations, which was why ITC was not listed as one of the tools to achieve these goals at the time.

This is why the plan placed by the youth e-leaders team was so important at this time.
Today, ITC has become a pivotal element in our lives, and the UN is convinced of the importance of technology tools and the need to encourage nations to use them as a means to achieve the Millennium Goals, she said.

"The UN invited us to this meeting to place a comprehensive plan for how technology could be used to achieve the Millennium Goals in general, and especially for youth, and to present it to the member states so that it can be endorsed in the General Assembly's next session," Al-Hashash explained.

The Kuwaiti e-leader expressed her happiness at having been given the opportunity to gain experience from these meetings, saying that the meetings with UN officials and listening to their suggestions and their guidance was an opportunity to gain new skills and information.

If the strategic plan is approved, Kuwait will be one of six countries that the UN will seek the assistance of in achieving the 2015 Millennium Goals, through its youth e-leader team. -- NNN-KUNA