The United Nations will mark 75 years of existence this year. To celebrate this anniversary, the UN has continued to stimulate conversations around the role of global cooperation and the UN that we want. The World is in the middle of a huge pandemic which has affected our normal as we know it. Due to this pandemic, major activities have been halted and this has affected major UN meetings with regard to the UN75declaration. Under the able leadership of António Guterres secretary general UN, the conversation around this declaration has continued online.

H.E. Mrs. Alya Ahmed bin Saif Al-Thani, permanent representative of the State of Qatar, and H.E. Mrs. Anna Karin Eneström , permanent representative of the State of Sweden are the co-facilitators overseeing the inter-governmental negotiations for the commemoration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the United Nations. Under their guidance an elements paper that encompasses critical issues expressed by member states was published. This elements paper continues to guide and aid discussions toward the UN75 declarations. 

Through their Permanent Representatives to the United Nations in New York, the Governments of Qatar and Sweden, in collaboration with the Office of the President of the General Assembly (OPGA), and the Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth (OSGEY), hosted a Youth Town Hall to collect young people’s input to the Member States Declaration for the United Nations 75th Anniversary  – which will be adopted on 21 September 2020. The UN Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY) - in its roles as the General Assembly created, formal, and self-organized mechanism for meaningful youth engagement across numerous processes in the UN. 

The Youth Townhall was complemented by a survey. The survey was conducted prior to the Townhall. This survey was aimed at dissecting the zero draft of the elements paper. The questions were mainly open ended. This ensured that those who took the survey were able to effectively criticize and properly analyze the elements paper. It is important to note that young people from more than 110 countries responded to the survey. At the onset of the townhall the results of the survey were presented. A key question that had been asked on the survey was, out of the eleven topics listed on the elements paper, which THREE require urgent response? The first topic that youth responders thought needed prioritizing was Recovery from COVID-19, preparedness, building resilient systems and societies. 

The second topic was Peace and security, ongoing conflict, preventive diplomacy, non-proliferation and disarmament. The third topic was climate change, oceans, sustainable consumption. There were topics that the youth felt that needed to be added to the elements paper. These topics included social protection systems, immigrant rights, refugee crisis, clean energy, quality education and addressing other macroeconomic issues such as debt. 

In her opening remarks, H.E. Mrs. Anna Karin Eneström noted that the UN75 declaration is about the future. Noting that the future is the future of the youth. She further noted that the current crisis is not only a health crisis, it’s much broader than that. Insisting that the crisis has made public the need for strengthened multilateral and international cooperation.

The entire conversation of the townhall revolved around the concerns of the youth with regard to the UN75 declaration. The youth guest contributors’ panel was truly diverse. These individual contributors touched on various topics that were on the elements paper. Ms. Aya Chebi, who is an African Union Youth Envoy in particular sighted that the UN75 declaration needs to put youth central to the policy making process of the UN moving forward.  This should be informed by the underlying fact, that the youth cannot inherit systems that they did not co-design and institutions they did not co-form. 

A majority of these youth contributors sighted an array of concerns with regard to how UN policies are interpreted and adopted by member States. The increasing global patterns of major human rights violations was a huge concern. One of the contributors sighted that 49% of the 282 human rights defenders that were murdered in 2016 were indigenous people. At the center of that statistic, the UN’s stand on Human Rights and violence against marginalized groups was put to test. Further, the Q and A session revolved around major topics that the young people felt should be part of the elements paper. This session concluded the townhall and a commitment was made by the co-facilitators to include some of the suggestions to the elements paper. ensuring that the UN75 declaration leaves no one behind. 

In conclusion, the UN75 presents a critical turning point for the UN in terms of accessing where we are, where we want to be and how we can get there as humanity. This will be mainly driven by strengthened multilateralism to create sustainable global systems that are futuristic and all inclusive. Ongoing conflicts further exacerbate human rights violations, thus, the UN should prioritize silencing all the guns. This is because Article 1 of the UN Charter sights the first purpose of the UN as,  “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.” This will ensure that moving forward truly no one is left behind. 

Antony Karanja is a Student of International Studies and Diplomacy at UON, Pursuing a B.A in Business Administration with the University of the People, Entrepreneur Pan-African, Young Leader.