World Youth Conference 2010
23-27 August 2010, Mexico
Web Consultation on the Statement from the NGO Global Meeting to the Governments Forum
The main outcome of
the NGO Global Meeting will be a set of recommendations to the Governments
Forum which takes place from 25 to 27 August. You and your colleagues will be
working on these recommendations during the NGO Global Meeting and
they will then be presented to the Government Forum during the opening ceremony
on 25 August.
These recommendations will focus on 12 different key issues, which correspond
to the priority areas discussed during the Governments Forum:
- Poverty and exclusion
- Employment
- Education
- Technology and innovation
-
Health
-
Gender equality
-
Security and Social Justice
-
Sustainable development
-
International migration
-
Participation
-
Global partnership and cooperation
- Culture
Consultation on NGO declaration preamble
The Social Forum Organizing Committee (SOFOC) has prepared a draft preamble to
the recommendations mentioned above. You can find the below. Please
note that this preamble focuses solely on the general and overall global
cooperation in the field of youth, including topics like youth rights, the UN
World Programme on Action for Youth, the cooperation of youth organizations and
the UN system. Recommendations that address the 12 core themes above will be
incorporated into the recommendations produced in the workshops during the NGO
global meeting.
Please review the document and leave your comments and suggested
amendments no later than 23 August 2010. This will help the members of IMCS who were selected to participate. Thank you!
DRAFT STATEMENT
Keep your promises and make them true!
We, 400 representatives of youth‐led NGOs from 163 countries, have
gathered in Mexico on the occasion of the World Youth Conference 2010 to advise
decision makers on youth and development and hold them accountable for their
broken promises.
We remind the decision‐makers present that the largest generation
of youth ever is also the greatest asset for achieving development – and we are
utmost disappointed with the lack of progress. Almost half of the world’s
population is under 25 years of age and 85 per cent of the 1 billion people
aged 15 – 24 live in developing countries.
When failing to achieve their own Millennium Development Goals,
Governments are not only leaving young people left in poverty but jeopardizing
the future of their own countries. Still, as the annexes to this statement
clearly demonstrate, we stay committed to strengthening global cooperation and
investing what is needed in order to eradicate poverty – both before and after
2015.
In return we expect recognition both of the need to invest in
youth to achieve development and of the crucial role of youth‐led organizations
in our joint efforts to ensure Human Rights and social and sustainable
development. Therefore:
Convinced that investment in youth leads
to development in every single country of the world we have assessed and
consulted the needs of young people from various backgrounds.
Conscious of the particular needs of young
people in general as well as of the diversity of youth groups we have aimed at
consulting young people with fewer opportunities.
Concerned that our governments are failing
in delivering what they promised in the Millennium Declaration we have aimed at
looking beyond 2015 and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
We recommend
To ministers responsible for youth, ministers of finance,
ministers for development and other decision‐makers with impact on our daily
lives to:
1. Ensure, through legislative measures like the Ibero‐American
Convention on Youth Rights and the African Youth Charter, a rights‐based
approach to the development of national youth policies, guaranteeing the basic
rights of youth, including the right to education, the right to health, the
right to public participation, the right to decent work and the right to
nondiscrimination.
2. Recognize and engage in the efforts of youth‐led organizations
in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and as important actors
for development.
3. Strategically and continuously invest in youth when designing
national development programs, and also ensure participation of youth‐led organizations
in the development, implementation and evaluation of Poverty Reduction Strategy
Programs as well as National Youth Policy.
4. Put in place programs to overcome the crisis through creating
jobs for young people, in particular in the renewable and “green” sectors.
5. Recognize the links between the World Program of Action for
Youth and the MDGs and reinforce the efforts carried out by national
governments in order to achieve the MDGs by 2015.
6. Implement new or strengthen existing national plans of action
on the World Program of Action for Youth in order to achieve the MDGs.
7. Identify and overcome the barriers for achieving the MDGs and
for the next period not only recommit as a whole but also on the country‐level towards
the specific goals and targets.
8. Strengthen the access to statistics on youth development.
9. Analyze and debate, in the framework of the United Nations
Commission for Social Development, the initiative to establish a UN Convention
on Youth Rights, bearing in mind and assessing already established legal mechanisms
like the African Youth Charter and the Ibero‐American Convention on Youth.
10. Define, together with the UN secretariat and youth‐led
organizations, how to improve the coordination between UN agencies, member
states and civil society on matters related to the UN youth agenda.
11. Recognize and strengthen the United Nations Inter‐Agency
Network on Youth Development.
12. Request the United Nations Inter‐Agency Network on Youth
Development to take the necessary political and operational role in the
implementation of UN policy and cooperation with youth‐led organizations,
ensuring Youth NGO participation from all regions of the world and include them
in the work of the network.
13. Ensure that the UN Program on Youth as the permanent co‐chair
of the network is adequately staffed and resourced in order to actually implement
UN policy on youth, including supporting member states in their implementation
of the World Program of Action for Youth.
14. Invest, during the International Year of Youth, Dialogue and
Mutual Understanding, 5 per cent of the national defense budget in youth development
programs.
15. Initiate, through the UN General Assembly and the Commission
for Social Development, the preparations for a revision of the World Program of
Action for Youth in 2015, stemming from an evaluation of the implementation of
the WPAY.
16. Mandate the UN Secretary General to publish a World Youth
Report in 2013, focusing on how young people are contributing to the
achievement of the MDGs, in order to prepare for a youth‐friendly post‐2015 development
agenda.
Our recommendations have come to life through an extensive
consultation with youth‐led organizations. We stress the absolute necessity of
national governments doing the same on the local, regional and national level
when developing and implementing all national policy affecting youth.
We commit
We, as representatives of youth‐led organizations around the world
commit to continue working to achieve development through:
•
Recommendations per area of the key issues.*
•
List of commitments, preferably to mirror our demands.*
* To be developed
