Youth Call For Full Participation in Shaping Future Development Agenda

Global Youth Forum recommendations will be highlighted in UN General Assembly report in 2014

BALI, Indonesia — The ICPD Global Youth Forum concluded in Bali, Indonesia Thursday producing a set of recommendations which outline the vision of young people around the world for their future.

600 youth leaders from more than 130 countries attended the Forum, with over 2500 virtual delegates participating online. Representatives of governments, UN agencies, non-governmental and private sector organizations also took part.

“This has been a groundbreaking engagement of young people around issues they have identified as key to their futures,” said UNFPA Executive Director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin. “This Forum has provided enormous insights into where the youth agenda stands twenty years after the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The world has changed dramatically since then, and so have young people. I have been inspired by their passion and their vision for their future, and I am determined that UNFPA will continue to lead the UN system in ensuring that this vision is fully incorporated into the discussions and design of the next development agenda.”

The three-day Forum, co-hosted by the Indonesian Government and the UN Population Fund, UNFPA, generated recommendations on health, education, employment, families, youth rights, civic participation, well-being including sexuality. The recommendations include calls for governments to:

• Provide non-discriminatory, non-judgmental, rights-based, age appropriate, gender-sensitive health education including youth-friendly, evidence based comprehensive sexuality education that is context specific.
• Provide, monitor and evaluate universal access to a basic package of youth-friendly health services (including mental healthcare and sexual and reproductive health services) that are high quality, integrated, equitable, comprehensive and affordable.
• Ensure universal access to free, quality comprehensive education at all levels, and allocate sufficient funds to achieve universal access to comprehensive education.
• Eliminate harmful traditional practices (such as forced circumcision and genital mutilation, early and forced marriage, gender-based violence and violence against women.
• Guarantee an environment free from psychological, physical and sexual violence, including gender based violence and bullying in the home, school, workplace and community.
• Develop and strengthen multi-stakeholder partnerships to collect, analyze, use and disseminate reliable, disaggregated, qualitative and quantitative youth data to support evidence-based national youth health policies and programmes.
• Prioritize creation of jobs and a skilled workforce by increased investment, along with the private sector, in programmes that foster youth entrepreneurship and job training including paid internships.
• Ensure equal and equitable access to decent work free from discrimination, respectful of diversity and promoting human development for all young people, particularly young women with children and other marginalized groups.

The Forum also called upon the United Nations to “urgently appoint a Special Advisor on Youth who is a young person”.

The final recommendations from the Forum will be included in a UN Secretary-General report to the General Assembly in 2014 and will feed into discussions on UN development goals for the next 20 years.

The Global Youth Forum is part of a formal UN process to review progress, gaps and challenges in achieving the objectives of the Programme of Action of the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD). The ICPD was a landmark event that made a fundamental connection between advancing the rights and health of young people, in particular young women, and delivering effective, sustainable development. The Forum is the first of three thematic meetings to review progress and produce recommendations. The two other global meetings will focus on Human Rights and Women and will be held in 2013.

“It is our hope that this Forum, in addition to producing substantive recommendations will also generate the momentum for ongoing youth engagement globally, regionally and nationally to support and advance the aspirations of young people and their communities in the post-2015 agenda,” explained Kwabena Osei-Danquah, Executive Coordinator of the ICPD Secretariat.

For media enquiries or to request an interview with Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin contact:

Mandy Kibel: kibel@unfpa.org
 

Notes to editors

About ICPD Beyond 2014

ICPD Beyond 2014 is a mandated review of the Programme of Action that was agreed by 179 member states who attended the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in 1994. The ICPD review process will assess progress, gaps and new challenges in achieving the goals of the Programme of Action through process which engage all stakeholders including governments, civil society and youth. For more information about ICPD Beyond 2014 visit www.icpdbeyond2014.org

About UNFPA

The United Nations Population Fund is the international development agency that works to deliver a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person achieves their potential. UNFPA helps countries use population data to anticipate tomorrow’s challenges. It provides empowering technical guidance, policy advice, training and support and ensures that the reproductive health and rights of women and young people remain at the very heart of development. UNFPA has been mandated by the UN General Assembly to facilitate the ICPD review. It established the ICPD Beyond 2014 Secretariat to conduct the process on behalf of the UN system. For more information, visit www.unfpa.org