White Paper: Meaningful Youth Engagement in the Intergovernmental Energy Space
Introduction
It is clear that in order to ensure a rapid and equitable energy transition, the youth must be a key group involved in planning, decision making, and implementation. This summary lays out the main points of the white paper on meaningful youth engagement in the events and processes in the intergovernmental energy space. The recommendations are built upon the principles and barriers for meaningful youth engagement developed through consultative processes by The Youth Cafe. This document was developed by the SDG7 Youth Constituency (SDG7 YC), which is the formal and dedicated youth engagement mechanism in UN sustainable development processes focused on energy. It is associated with The Youth Cafe. It also promotes youth engagement in other energy-related initiatives in the multilateral system.
General good and bad practices for meaningful youth engagement
To enable meaningful youth engagement, organizing entities are encouraged to utilize global and regional platforms – such as the SGD7 YC – for gathering inputs, recruiting speakers, and sharing information, instead of creating ad hoc discretionary youth bodies. It is crucial to create a safe and all-inclusive (gender, disability, location) environment and provide translation to allow for active participation and contributions from diverse youth (including indigenous groups). Furthermore, it is important to create equitable opportunities for engagement for youth who may be left behind due to technical issues and the digital divide. To mitigate this and other forms of exclusion, organizing entities should allocate necessary resources to cover the costs borne by youth participants and contributors. For in-person events, it will be important to maintain broad access facilitated currently by virtual events.
Engagement of youth must be conducted in a transparent and genuine manner in regards to project timelines, the amount of commitment and input expected of youth, and potential reasons for not implementing youth inputs. When gathering youth inputs, it is crucial to create a collaborative environment as opposed to creating opportunities that entice unhealthy competition between youth and undermine their self-organization and collectivism.
When creating youth-focused events, organizers should ensure that at least 50% of speakers are young people and that these sessions are moderated by youth. Organizers should avoid structuring processes and events where youth are the subject of the conversation but do not have a space at the table. This directly leads to the tokenization of youth. Nothing about us without us.
Co-creation and preparations
Effective co-creation with youth, including agenda and goals setting and format selection, requires a rights-based and designated approach that guarantees diverse representation and enables universal access. This can be achieved by conducting regional consultations that reduce barriers due to language and time zone differences and unveils region-specific needs. Organizers should refrain from seeking youth inputs only at a later stage when details and desired outcomes have already been set and are guided by the institutional goals of organizing entities. The involvement of youth employees of the organizing entity should not substitute for meaningful co-creation with youth.
Metrics of equality and inclusion should be the key indicators of success, and the results and impacts of youth inputs should be reported. Failing to implement the inputs from youth and lacking the tools for successful follow-ups risk alienating youth from engaging with organizers in the future.
Run-up activities can be leveraged to create a wider engagement beyond the usual target audience and strengthen the participation of youth. In promotional efforts, it is best to utilize the full range of available communications channels and adjust the message to fit the culture of young people, which will sometimes mean having more casual language.
Content and implementation
Global convenings need to provide a platform for youth to further escalate pressure on countries to raise their ambitions. Enabling youth to self-organize, internally coordinate, and offer a transparent selection of speakers for advocacy opportunities are ways to ensure meaningful youth engagement. Youth should be allowed to make their advocacy statements without prior review of their interventions as well. There should be a clear distinction between interventions of young experts speaking in their individual capacity and collective advocacy statements. There should be dedicated spaces to showcase the work of youth practitioners, as well as leverage their expertise and insights in exhibitions, panels, and talks.
At the same time, individual youth speakers should not be treated as representatives of their entire generation. Expecting them to be knowledgeable about all youth-related issues directly undermines their standing as thematic experts and dismisses the complexity of issues faced by youth as a non-monolithic constituency.
Putting youth in formal or informal spaces with the mere goal of talking about youth engagement, in particular when there are no tangible outcomes or decision-making power of the conversation directly leads to tokenization of youth. Rather, young people should be given a say on the substantive matters and a fair share in the decision-making process. While separate youth-focused events are important for the exchange of ideas, the outcomes need to be streamlined to the main events. These outcomes and youth advocacy statements need to be incorporated in the main outputs of the events and processes, such as policy reports and strategic plans.
A critical component of events and processes is mobilizing resources. Focusing on networking rather than investment or other forms of tangible support may discourage market-oriented youth from participating in the processes and events.
Follow-up
Ultimately, event organizers, partners, and attendees must discuss what can be done to turn events into effective long-term action, since the purpose of events is to act as catalysts for long-term impact. Engagement of youth should be consistent all year and different entities should coordinate concerning their events to avoid repeating the same topics and discussions. After the closure of each event or process, there should be a collection of feedback and a debrief on successes and failures.
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