Productive Engagement of Youth in Fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals

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Productive Engagement of Youth in Fulfilling
the Millennium Development Goals

• The YES Experience!
• June 23, 2004
• Dr. Puneetha Sagar Palakurthi
• Research and Development Coordinator
• Youth Employment Summit Campaign

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The Youth Employment Challenge
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Consider this

• There are a billion youth between the ages of 15-
  24
• 850 million of them live in developing countries.
• Another 1.5 billion are behind them in school
  systems
• About 10 million young people aged between 10 and
  24 years are infected with AIDS.
• Approximately 130 million youth live on less than
  a dollar a day.

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Other challenges

• No clear structures for youth participation in
  policy formation and program design
• Youth employment is still not a compelling issue
  on the global agenda
• Lack of resources and the will to support young
  people in their efforts
• Lack of information on youth employment.

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Cost of exclusion!

• .. are too high! Weve seen it over and over
  again!
• Failure to include and engage young people a
  prescription for disaster!

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The choices are clear...
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Alexandria Youth Employment Summit
Launched a Decade Campaign for Youth
Employment Engaged youth as equal partners Built
the commitment of leaders Shared the knowledge
base on what works Made a call for Action!
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• More than one billion jobs need to be created
  between now and 2010 to accommodate young workers
  entering the labor force and reduce unemployment
• - UNFPA State of the World Population Report 1998

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The Alexandria Youth Employment Summit

• Co chairs H.E Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak
• President Hon. William J. Clinton
• Bibliotheca Alexandrina,Alexandria, Egypt
• September 7-11, 2002

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Alexandria SummitCivil Society Forum
1600 delegates - 120 countries

Fifty percent youth delegates A meeting for 60
YES Country Networks

All sessions supported by background
papers Capacity Building Workshops Building
partnerships
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Ministerial Forum (10-11 Sept. 2002)
Over 70 government delegations 45 led by
Ministers Developed and adopted the Alexandria
Declaration Committed to collaborate with YES
Country Networks Pledged to work to achieve the
goals of the YES Campaign
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The Alexandria Declaration6Es

• Employment Creation
• Employability
• Equity
• Entrepreneurship
• Environmental Sustainability
• Empowerment

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What works?
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We know the winning options...
Voice
Support
Creativity
Productivity
Platform
Hope
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What Works

• Recognizing young people as assets
• Harnessing their creativity and innovation
• Paying attention to their ideas and offering
  opportunities to learn by doing
• Offering a non-judgmental space for experimenting
• Mentoring and coaching

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YES Country Networks

• Multi-stakeholder networks focusing on youth
  employment
• Youth driven vanguard of the YES Campaign
• Committed to Action
• Raising awareness and resources locally to
  address the youth employment challenge.

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YES Networks platform for youth participation
and agenda setting

• In preparation for Alexandria YES Networks
  organized over 50 consultations
• Placed youth employment on the development agenda
  of their countries

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Building the Capacity of Youth

• Not enough to demand that youth be consulted in
  framing policies and developing programs
• Essential to provide them the opportunity to
  learn about what works and whats missing
• The Importance of gap analysis - SIDA/YES project
  for engaging youth as leaders for employment

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Creating an infrastructure for youth
participation

• Building on existing National Youth Councils,
  Youth Commissions and other youth focused
  organizations are the
• YES Country Networks!
• ...building the coalitions for youth employment
• Governments, NGOs, Academic Institutions,
  Employers, Trade Unions, and other stakeholders

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Opportunity to meet with the ministers!

• At YES2002, Youth Delegates had the opportunity
  to meet with Ministers from their countries and
  build relationships

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Impact of such Opportunities

• YES Mozambique
• Met with their Minister at YES2002, presented
  action plan upon return, Ministry adopted the
  plan as a program and policy item
• YES Gambia
• Met with their Minister at YES2002, upon
  return launched a joint program with the
  government to create 100,000 sustainable
  livelihoods during the YES Decade Campaign

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Impact of such Opportunities

• YES Paraguay
• Met with their Minister throughout 2002 in
  preparation for the Summit, invited local
  governments and authorities to YES Network
  meetings, engaged national government and hosted
  discussion for presidential candidates on youth
  employment as a campaign and policy matter
• Many more stories. See monthly YES Insider

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YES Model of Youth Engagement

• Respect An enabling environment of transparency,
  opportunity, dialogue and respect needs to be
  created in all communications with young people
• Tools Developing the tools, working intensely
  and closely, and providing incentives are
  fundamental to facilitate genuine youth
  participation
• Trust The most important ingredient in the
  recipe for youth engagement

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Working with youth for youth
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Skills Development

• The YES Academy

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YES Academy

• Building the Capacity of
• YES Networks
• Leadership development
• Project planning and implementation
• Understanding Policy
• Learning what works
• Establishing effective partnerships

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Skills Development

• Two broad classifications on skills development
• 1. Technical Skills vocational training, formal
  education etc
• 2. Life skills problem solving, negotiation,
  leadership development, consensus building etc

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Skills DevelopmentYES Networks take the lead..

• YES Pakistan has launched a YES Skills
  Development Center for orphans to meet this need

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Whats next?

• Working in collaboration with you in ensuring the
  success of the YES Campaign
• A WARM INVITATION TO ALL OF YOU TO THE YES MEXICO
  2004
• October 4 7, 2004 in Veracruz, Mexico

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Closing thought...

• Never doubt that a small group of committed
  people can change the world, indeed nothing else
  ever has
• - Margaret Meade
• THANK YOU
• www.yesweb.org