Colombo, Nov 17 (IANS): Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has announced a special donation of $100,000 to the newly established Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC) to fund the youth-led development projects of the CYC in its early years, official sources said Sunday.

Prime Minister Sharif is here attending the ongoing Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which runs from Friday through Sunday, Xinhua reported.

The CYC was formally launched during the Ninth Commonwealth Youth Forum held on the margins of the Commonwealth leaders' summit. It will serve as the representative voice of 1.2 billion young people in the 53-member Commonwealth.

It will also provide a framework for youth-led development initiatives, which cover global efforts to deal with climate change, according to news.lk, the official government news portal of Sri Lanka.

Sharif said that climate change was a defining reality of the times and called for a multi-pronged and revitalised global partnership for generating the needed financing to confront its effects.

In this regard, he proposed the formation of global policies to motivate the private sector, enhance availability of grants and soft loans to the public sector and early operation of the Green Climate Fund.