The Government sessoin chaired by Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov today considered the Concept of State Youth Policy for 2023-2029.

The main idea of the concept, as Minister of Information and Community Development Darkhan Kydyrali said, is a paradigm shift from "for youth" to "with youth".

The document contains 7 strands for comprehensive support to young people. Kydyrali spoke separately about each of them.

Youth and Rural Strands. Today, 43.7% of young people live in the countryside. The Concept emphasises the professional development of rural youth and the realisation of their potential through entrepreneurship. In addition, vocational orientation work will be carried out.

"As part of the above measures, 1 million rural youths are to be employed by 2029, 1.5 million youths are to be digitally literate and 3.8 million youths are to be provided with social services through resource centres," the Minister said.

The Civic Participation and Participation in Decision-Making strand. The 30% quota for young people in representative bodies of power, established as part of the political reforms of the Head of State, has given a new level of political participation of young people. It is planned to gradually involve young people in the decision-making process from their school years: from the development of school and student self-government and debates, to participation in public councils of state bodies.

"By 2029 it is planned to increase the quota of young people in public councils to 20%, to increase the rate of young civil servants to 25%, and to involve more than 2 million young people in volunteer, charity and environmental initiatives," Kydyrali added.

The Modern values and patriotic education strand. The Concept provides for the popularisation of modern intellectual games in the state language, the improvement of Family Support Centres and the strengthening among young people of their readiness to defend their state.

According to Darkhan Kydyrali, by 2029 it is planned to involve up to 22,000 young people in the Aibyn and Naiza patriotic games, increase the number of young people visiting military museums to 75,000 and increase the number of young people participating in military sports events to 880,000.

The Healthy Lifestyle strand. The development of sports infrastructure will continue in order to attract young people to grassroots sports.

"As a result, the culture of prevention and support for young people's reproductive health is moving forward. There will be increased coverage of free HIV testing and prevention of the problem. Further development of the infrastructure of over 2,000 youth sports clubs in the regions is also being considered," the Minister informed.

The Youth Health Centres will increase the proportion of young people covered by mental and reproductive health prevention to 3 million.

The Realisation of Potential and Entrepreneurship strand. In order to reduce the percentage of young people who are temporarily unsettled, volunteer projects for vocational guidance work will be implemented. Systematic monitoring of the social situation and well-being of NEET young people will be organised on an ongoing basis.

As a result, the share of NEET young people is expected to fall from 6.7% to 3.5%. Also by 2029, 18.2 young people will be given soft loans. One of the indicators added as a result of the elaboration is youth employment and provision of higher education. In particular, there are plans to employ 2.3 million young people.

The focus will be on new media and working with opinion leaders among young people. The emphasis here will be on new media and working with opinion leaders among young people. Support measures will be collected on a one-stop-shop basis in a user-friendly digital format.

A Youth Development Index will be introduced to objectively evaluate the measures implemented.

The Youth Research Centre will be transformed into the Single Republican Scientific-Methodological Institute. As a result, 90% of young people will be informed about state support measures.

The strand of education and culture. The creative industries are becoming an environment that awakens the interest of young people to realise their abilities.

A set of measures to support talented youth, including various grant projects, will continue to be implemented. Creation of creative clusters is planned in Astana, Almaty and Shymkent. Grant financing of projects aimed at the development of youth and volunteer initiatives will be increased.

As a result, the number of talented young people involved in cultural and creative activities will increase from 500,000 to 1.1 million and 1,000 research grants will be awarded annually to young scientists.

Funds earmarked from the national and local budgets for the project will total 492.1 billion tenge, including 385.6 billion tenge from the national budget and 106.5 billion tenge from the local budget.