CSD-16: Young People: An Untapped Global Resource (1 of 4)
Thanks to Selene Biffi, ECYI member, Youth Caucus Coordinator, and Founder and Director of Youth Action for Change for submitting this piece leading up to the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development meeting (CSD-16) to be held in May in New York City. It contains excerpts from the Discussion Paper for CSD-16 submitted by the Children and Youth Major Group.
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 (source). 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 to shaping:
• More than 1 billion people living on less than 1USD a day – 238 million of whiom are young people
• 8,000 people dying every day from AIDS
• 2.4 billion people lacking access to clean water
Data sources: Agenda 21 (1992) and World Bank's World Development Report (2007).
Global environmental crises are no exception, with young people rarely allowed to voice their concerns and speak up for themselves and future generations.
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Include the next generation!
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, and the social, environmental and political imperative for young people's participation will need to be taken seriously by development actors nationally and globally.
Strong voices and important ideas
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 panellist, thus reflecting the global trend of disregarding young people as experts in their own right. The reasons for ignoring young people in the global efforts for a sustainable and just world seem irrelevant when: youth-run programs have longer-term sustainability by including the next generation; greater inclusion and participation allow for greater ownership and continuity, preventing disengagement and ensuring a safer, more equitable future for all.
The opportunity presents itself yet again, at the UN’s Commission on Sustainable Development, at its sixteenth meeting (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 – toward 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 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, hopefully in all five languages.
As youth, we have inherited not just the misfortune of a warming planet, but also the responsibility toward future generations to make this world a better place for all. There are no more excuses now not to listen to us.