Contact : Global Youth Action Network: Vidar Ekehaug, (212) 661-6111, vidar@youthlink.orgYouth are Key to Development, States New Report,
To be Released April 19 at United Nations Headquarters
New York City, USA (19 April, 2005) – When asked how the United Nations intended to involve young people as partners in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Professor Jeffrey Sachs’ reply last spring was: “You tell us!”
And so an international team of youth experts responded by producing a report that contains recommendations on how national and international institutions can successfully engage young people in efforts to achieve the MDGs. The report, “Youth and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): Challenges and Opportunities for Implementation,” will be launched on April 19 at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development.
Distinctively, the report has been authored not by World Bank economists or UN diplomats, but by a global team of young people themselves. The report finds that, while young people often comprise 70% of the population in many developing nations, much work needs to be done to address the needs of youth and their potential to contribute significantly to achieving the MDGs.
During an intensive 12-month process, the Ad Hoc Working Group on Youth collaborated in research and drafting the report, and organized a consultation process that spanned more than 100 countries. An interim version of the report was released in November 2004, and circulated for feedback from young people. More than 24,000 downloads of the Interim Report were recorded as of March.
“The Secretary General is very pleased with your assessment that the MDGs are an opportunity to mobilize youth and your determination not to miss this occasion,” commented Mark Malloch Brown, Chef de Cabinet to the U.N. Secretary General.
The Report’s many recommendations include: encouraging the establishment of grant programs for young ‘social entrepreneurs’ who are leading development programs but lack access to mainstream funding and loan financing; an emphasis on partnerships between youth and their local authorities; and peer-led awareness campaigns to rally young people in western countries in support of their peers in developing countries.
Luis A. Davila-Ortega, a 22 year old Venezuelan with the New York-based Global Youth Action Network, the acting secretariat for the Ad-Hoc Working Group, said: “Young people must be recognized as key partners in implementing the MDGs; investing in youth today will provide the best return for tomorrow.”
About the Millennium Development Goals
The MDGs are a global agreement between developed and developing countries, to make a better world for all by 2015. The Goals originate from the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, where 189 Heads of State and Governments came together and agreed on specific time-bound targets the world should meet, in areas such as poverty, education, gender equality, health, diseases, and environmental sustainability. In 2002, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Jeffrey Sachs, an economist and professor at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, to lead the Millennium Project in developing a concrete action plan to achieve the MDGs.
About the Ad Hoc Working Group on Youth
The expert taskforce is comprised of youth leaders from: Development Partners International, Earth Charter Youth Initiative, Global Youth Action Network, International Young Professionals Foundation, Lutheran World Federation, NGO Committee on Youth, Mexican Youth Alliance, Millennium Project Taskforce 10, Rescue Mission: Planet Earth, South Asia Youth Environment Network, TakingITGlobal, UN Commission on Sustainable Development Youth Caucus, United Nations Environment Program, United Nations Programme on Youth, UN Youth and Student Association of the United Kingdom, World Federation of Engineering Organisations, and Young Volunteers for Sustainable Development.
