Monday, May 5, 2008

Experienced, Involved, Ignored

Young people are the most untapped resource in the world.

By: Selene Biffi, Youth Major Group Coordinator

The Rio Earth Summit made monumental progress in the acknowledgement of young people as part of the global equation for sustainable development. While in 1992, young people accounted for approximately 30% of the world’s population, today they account for 50% of the world’s population. Many years and resolutions after the adoption of Agenda 21 in 1992, real change in the inclusion of young people's participation in the decisions that affect their communities and their lives is something young people continue to hope for.

Today’s young people have inherited a world they did not contribute in shaping:

• More than 1 billion people live on less than a dollar a day – 238 million of them are young people

• 8,000 people die every day from AIDS

• 2,4 billion people lack access to clean water

Include the next generation!

Young people are the most untapped resource on earth, but more often than not our age and experience – or lack thereof, according to adults - is the main criteria by which we are judged, and therefore excluded from many consultations, processes and actions. Even here at the CSD, no young person has been selected as a panelist, thus reflecting the global trend of disregarding young people as experts in their own right.

These reasons for ignoring young people in the global efforts for a sustainable and just world seem irrelevant and irresponsible when: youth-run programmes have longer-term sustainability by including the next generation; and greater inclusion and participation allows for stakeholders ownership, thus preventing disengagement and ensuring a safer, more equitable future for all.

All over the world, at any given time, there are scores of young people responding to the development challenges of their communities. In spite of their lack of recognition, their message remains the same: Youth want to be involved. The social, environmental and political imperative of young people's participation needs to be acted on by serious development actors nationally and globally.

Strong voices and important ideas

The opportunity presents itself yet again at CSD - 16. While we battle the scourges of global poverty, climate change and deadly pandemics, let us not forget the role that young people have to play – and have been playing – towards building our collective future.

This year especially, we would like to speak up for ourselves and our peers around the world so as to voice our concerns and share our ideas even more than during past CSDs. Our ‘Commitment Desk’, located in the so-called ‘Neck Exhibit Area’, will give government delegates and other stakeholders the chance to show their willingness to involve young people by writing pledges and other commitments, on which we will duly follow up after the CSD. We are providing information to our peers and ways to contribute to the Youth Caucus in five different languages, through our new website www.youen.org, where as part of our desire to empower young people coming from less-represented regions of the world, we will offer blogs, podcasts and articles daily, in five languages possibly.

As youth, we have inherited not just the misfortune of a warming planet we did not contribute in shaping but also the responsibility toward future generations to make this world a better place for all. There are no excuses not to listen to us.