8 Feb 2013

US-sponsored summit in American Samoa gathers future leaders

3:02 pm on 8 February 2013

The American Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, David Huebner, says the young people at a summit in American Samoa will come away with a Pacific wide network of future leaders.

People from the 16 Pacific Islands Forum nations under the age of 25 have been meeting in Pago Pago at the inaugural Future Leaders of the Pacific Summit.

It is the brainchild of Mr Huebner who wanted to see the same sort of dialogue among young people as happens at the Forum leaders' summit.

He says they have heard from several Pacific leaders and had discussions on key issues affecting the region but networking will be the biggest gain.

"So they will leave a little bit better informed but the most important is they will leave with a very large network of peer future leaders which spans the region, and we have set up a facebook page so they can stay in touch.We are hheavily using social media so that the network can continue and deepen as these young people move through their careers. And that is the real value we see in it."