Young leaders of the University of the South Pacific (U.S.P) Samoa Campus are on a journey to eradicate corruption and joined a regional conference on Tuesday to discuss the importance of integrity.

The Pacific Youth Summit is currently being held across the various campuses of U.S.P in the region and is attended by members of the University of the South Pacific Student Association (U.S.P.S.A).

The regional conference aims to bring together students and youth leaders from around the Pacific region to discuss the importance of integrity and stronger youth action on anti-corruption, transparency, and accountability towards progress on the sustainable development agenda in the Pacific.

In an interview with the Samoa Observer on Tuesday, the newly elected U.S.P.S.A President of the Samoa Campus, Richard Narinam said that U.S.P is hosting the summit with the support of the United Nations Development Programme.

He said it is a project that is funded by the New Zealand government with the program and activities focused on anti-corruption.

"Our participation her as students, we are gathered here with all students around the region," Mr. Narinam said.

"We communicate through the video conferencing meeting. 

"We discuss issues towards leadership, how corruption is a problem and how can we as a leaders for tomorrow, youths, can identify what is corruption, what drives corruption and how to eradicate corruption in our societies."

According to Mr. Narinam, they found out from the discussions that everyone had different structures of governance in their respective countries.

He said some countries were colonised by other nations and most of them have now been independent for about 40 years.

"And the corruption is everywhere. Its starts from the household level, it goes to the community level, it goes up to the national level, the government level and it also goes into the regional and also globally," he said.

"What is for us leaders for tomorrow as youth coming from a regional institution as U.S.P, we are participating in this summit and we want to achieve this outcomes that we want to be able to identify the best values possible and the environment that will help us help our countries to eradicate poverty."

Mr. Narinam added that in the future they will contribute effectively without corruption to boost their country’s social and economical standings.

"All of our country’s in the South Pacific region is a member to the United Nations and the United Nations has a global agenda for a period of 2030 and all over national governments, corporate plans have been aligned to that agenda," he said.

 Mr. Narinam said that the focus is also on Sustainable Development Goal 16 on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

He said that what has shocked him and the students is that corruption is one of the enemies that is killing prosperity in all nations and it is something they have to work on.

It is the responsibility of young leaders to eliminate corruption so that countries can prosper, he added.