final September, to mark the seventy fifth anniversary of the United Nations, the Secretary-fundamental referred to as for youthful people to assist to sort Our widespread Agenda, his visionary report on the means whereby forward for world cooperation. For me and seven fully different youthful activists all by way of the world who turned the subsequent period Fellows, this was too good a probability to overlook.
It’s not typically one in all many essential influential people on the earth goes out of their strategy to incorporate youthful people. and the means well timed! The previous 12 months has confirmed that the world we’re set to inherit is a scorching mess.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a scary reminder of how susceptible youthful people are. on the onset of this disaster, we had been the most important to lose our jobs and leaders did not defend our training. and trying out on the reckless and unsustainable means that restoration funds are being spent, it seems the response to the subsequent disaster could be the identical, if not worse.
So, with the assist of the United Nations basis, BRAC, stressed enchancment, and the Secretary-fundamental’s Envoy on Youth, we took the Secretary-fundamental at his phrase.
offering up thus far ideas for the UN
Over the previous 9 months we’ve consulted a full bunch of our friends. Our dialog has spanned the globe from the Pacific Northwest of the usa to the quick-rising cities of sub-Saharan Africa and the financial engines of India. alongside the means whereby, we had engagement from the very greater of the UN system, collectively with Deputy Secretary-fundamental Amina J. Mohammed and Jayathma Wickramanayake, the Secretary-fundamental’s Envoy on Youth. you will uncover out extra about our session occasions — a large Brainstorm, nationwide Conversations, and a Dialogue with the Deputy Secretary-fundamental — right here. It has been an thrilling, eye-opening, and typically exhausting course of.
We centered on figuring out up thus far options to the most vital challenges going by way of people beneath 30, who symbolize virtually half the world’s inhabitants, and future generations — the roughly 10 billion people extra likely to be born over the subsequent century.
As requested, we compiled our proposals into Our Future Agenda — a companion report setting out a imaginative and prescient and plan for the subsequent and future generations — and likewise fed them again to the Secretary-fundamental’s workforce drafting Our widespread Agenda. We had been hopeful that our ideas could be taken on board and mirrored inside the remaining report.
discovering Shared options throughout Generations
So had been we heard?
As you presumably can think about, Our widespread Agenda was saved beneath wraps till its launch on Friday. till the Secretary-fundamental launched it to the whole meeting, we waited anxiously to get hold of out whether or not any of our recommendations made the decrease.
And certainly, they did! youthful people have undoubtedly made their mark on Our widespread Agenda.
one in all many report’s three pillars is a name for renewed solidarity with youthful people and future generations. If achieved, this may even be a drastic and constructive shift in how the multilateral system views and works with youthful people.
We had been delighted to get hold of that recommendations we had made beneath all three dimensions of our proposed “New Deal for a mannequin new period” — on training, employment, and the environment — are priorities for Our widespread Agenda.
It was additionally tremendously encouraging to discover that Our widespread Agenda displays simply a few of the proposals we outlined in our Ten-level Plan to Rejuvenate the Multilateral System.
simply as we name for UN Futures — a UN program for youthful people primarily based on the open and inclusive governance of UNAIDS — the Secretary-fundamental proposes a UN Youth office to current a mannequin new voice for youthful people inside the UN system. And akin to our thought for a Contract for the prolonged time period which will set out the world’s obligations to the people who may even be born on this century and for the centuries to return, the Secretary-fundamental has proposed a Summit for the prolonged time period in 2023 as a platform to agree upon a Declaration for Future Generations.
So I think about we’re ready to say with confidence that Our widespread Agenda truly displays the wishes and wishes of youthful people. Now the place can we go from right here?
whereas there’s a lot to have a good time, we’re decided to meet the ensures we made to the youthful people we labored with over the previous 12 months. As we consulted with youthful people from all backgrounds, we realized that lots of them have “session fatigue.” they’re understandably uninterested in being requested to share their opinions and options with out seeing any exact change.
the good information is that Our widespread Agenda was by no means imagined to be the prime of the highway. it is a sturdy name to movement. as a outcome of the UN basis’s President and CEO Elizabeth Cousens writes, it is going to most likely encourage the reinvigorated multilateralism now we should safe our widespread future, and it will require all sectors and all of society, to return collectively.
a transforming training Summit and a Summit for the prolonged time period, for event, give us new alternatives to push our agenda.
Our widespread Agenda additionally presents us a clear mandate to push leaders to imagine bravely and innovatively with regard to the means whereby to deal with the most vital challenges going by way of the subsequent and future generations inside the twenty first century. It presents us a hook to ask for the sources we want, each monetary and political, to assemble a better future for all.
Taking movement immediately for a better Tomorrow
the subsequent period Fellows have already begun the work to level the ideas in Our widespread Agenda and Our Future Agenda into actuality. On Wednesday Sept. 22, we joined the world’s best youth-led and youth-centered organizations to discover how we can work collectively to ‘Unlock the prolonged time period’. Leaders of these organisations launched the ‘Unlock Declaration’ – a dedication to constructing the coalition for youthful people and future generations. you presumably can watch the whole Unlock the prolonged time period event right here.
This rising coalition presents me hope that the tide is popping for youthful people. we’re going to proceed to fight with out concern for a extra simply, resilient, and sustainable world. As we instructed Leaders in Our Future Agenda, “it is time to catch up, or hazard being left behind.”