EVERY DELEGATION TO UNITED NATIONS SHOULD HAVE ONE PERSON UNDER 25 YEARS OLD, WORLD YOUTH FORUM RECOMMENDS
Press Release
ENV/DEV/387
SOC/4410
EVERY DELEGATION TO UNITED NATIONS SHOULD HAVE ONE PERSON UNDER 25 YEARS OLD, WORLD YOUTH FORUM RECOMMENDS
19961202 Representatives from 150 Countries End Five-Day Meeting in Vienna; Final Document Includes Proposals on Problems in 12 Priority AreasVIENNA, 29 November (UN Information Service) -- A call for the inclusion of a person under 25-years-old, representing a youth organization, in every national delegation to the United Nations was one of a number of recommendations set out in the final document of the World Youth Forum, which ended here this evening.
Five days of debate and consultation between youth groups and representatives of United Nations agencies in 12 working groups on various topics were condensed into a draft preambular declaration to the Forum's recommendations, which will be conveyed to the General Assembly next fall.
The recommendations cover youth concerns in the 12 areas addressed by the Forum's working groups, namely: education and leisure; employment; health and population; hunger and poverty; environment and sustainable development; human settlements; drug abuse; juvenile delinquency; girls and young women; tolerance, racism and xenophobia; participation and rights; and communications.
The recommendations were regarded by participating United Nations officials as reflecting the vision of their future as seen by young people and as signalling their desire to participate in shaping policy on youth matters, particularly in preparation for the next such forum in 1998.
Over the course of the week, the impact of the presence of such a large and multifaceted gathering of young people -- more than half were between the ages 18 and 25 -- could be seen and heard throughout the Vienna International Centre, which is the third United Nations headquarters. Walls of meeting rooms and corridors on four floors of the conference building were papered with posters and fliers offering dramatic graphics and headlines in the many languages of the delegates and observers. One poster depicts a huge eye with a map of Europe in the pupil and the slogan "Open borders -- open mind". Another offers various scenes illustrating the dangers of alcohol.
Bill Angel, Officer-in-Charge of the United Nations Youth Unit, said he was impressed by the commitment of young people to find solutions across geographic and cultural boundaries. He described the Forum as a "new and positive form of globalization".
A recurring theme during the five-day Forum was the desire by young people to have improved two-way communications between youth non-governmental organizations at local, regional, national and international levels, and with the United Nations. They also expressed a desire to be better informed and to learn more about the workings of the world body.
Touching on youth health, Bruce Dick of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said there was a growing consensus about what has to be done to improve the health of young people. He said young people were becoming more skilled and self-confident and thus increasing their ability to avoid risky behaviour. Healthy young people went on to become healthy adults with healthy children, he said. He endorsed the Forum as "fertile ground for the exchange of ideas and information".
Reviewing the Forum, Jane Ferguson of the World Health Organization (WHO) said the event had offered the possibility for young people to learn from each other and strengthen communications between non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies.
More than 600 participants from youth organizations in 150 countries attended the Forum, which is the second such gathering organized by the United Nations, the first having taken place in Vienna in 1991. At the close, Antonio Jose Seguro, Secretary of State for Youth of Portugal, conveyed his country's offer to host both a meeting of Ministers for Youth Affairs and a third World Youth Forum in 1998.
Education
The working group affirmed education to be a "universal right". Delegates recommended the development of a multi-cultural curriculum to be used worldwide in both formal and informal education. Among other suggestions, their projects included training schemes, a "United Nations cafe" and a tool kit training programme to promote self-employment.
Declaring its intention to build on the momentum of the convergence in 1995 of the tenth anniversary of the International Youth Year (1985), the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations and the adoption by the Assembly of the Action Programme for Youth, the group stressed that education and leisure required new methods of organization, financing and conceptualization to respond to the emerging challenges of the twenty-first century.
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Employment
The working group on employment emphasized the seriousness of the problems confronting the world's youth in that area. Participants called for United Nations funding for youth groups involved in specific programmes designed to promote youth employment and self-employment. They believed governments should collaborate with youth to design programmes, and that training should always take into consideration the requirements of the labour market.
Health and Population
Affirming the need to invest in young people's health in order to ensure a transfer of health to future generations, the working group on health and population called on the media and entertainment industry to promote positive role models and images which support rather than undermine health and development.
Younger health personnel should be included in policy-making, delegates said, also citing a need for refresher courses on youth concerns and exchange programmes for youth involved in health and population-related issues. One member of the group said that anonymous screening for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) could break down people's reluctance to be tested, particularly in certain cultures.
Hunger and Poverty
The working group analysed the causes of global poverty. It was stated that unequal distribution of resources contributed to unemployment and under-employment, and that a lack of international strategy as well as deficiencies in education and environmental protection exacerbated those problems. Participants said only an integrated global effort could solve those problems, and called for efforts to identify and share available resources.
Environment and Sustainable Development
The environment and sustainable development group called for channels of communication in order to echo youth concerns on the environment and sustainable development. They called for a "Youth Project Contract" that would empower young people to forge partnerships with United Nations entities, organizations, governmental institutions, local authorities, non-government organizations and scientific institutions.
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Human Settlements
The human settlements group proposed that the recommendations of the second United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (HABITAT II) in the areas of shelter and urban planning be given higher priority on the agendas of all United Nations programmes, including the World Programme of Action for Youth. Delegates discussed the possibility of establishing training programmes on human settlements to promote common understanding between professionals and youth groups. They urged the establishment of a newsletter to disseminate Youth Habitat news and information.
Drug Abuse
Prevention was the main focus of the working group on drug abuse, which proposed the development of "youth-friendly" methods to communicate anti-drug-abuse messages to youth at risk. Among its recommendations, the group called on the United Nations to "invest in the future" by supporting a range of youth projects on drug prevention around the world; to encourage training in drug prevention for youth leaders; to support workshops for teachers and youth groups to develop training manuals and information kits on drug prevention, and to support non-judgmental youth programmes aimed at enabling young people to make informed choices in relation to substances.
Crime
The group on crime and juvenile delinquency asked that juvenile offenders be viewed as current and possibly future victims. Delegates stressed that hopelessness, desperation and adverse economic circumstances be seen as contributing to juvenile criminality and called for training seminars for juvenile justice professionals, parents and other concerned adults.
They declared that imprisonment is "not an adequate solution" to ensure that youthful offenders are re-integrated into society and urged that non-governmental organizations be given access to young prisoners.
Girls and Young Women
The working group on girls and young women, that began with the participation of 29 women and one man, was paradoxically the only group at the Forum which did not reflect the organizers' expressed intention to achieve gender balance throughout the proceedings. It called for better dissemination of information to all women concerning international issues that affect women and girls, including "disaffected groups". Delegates wanted to see wider circulation of key international documents on women's rights, including various United Nations conventions. Women, they said, should be "empowered to communicate at all levels as equal partners".
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Participation and Rights
In addition to its call for youth representation in United Nations delegations, the working group on youth participation and rights proposed the creation of a "Youth Rights Charter" and the appointment by the General Assembly of a special youth rapporteur to monitor youth rights for no less than three years. It recommended that young people should have the right to travel freely, including representatives of youth organizations.
Governments, the group recommended, should include human rights education in school curricula. Another proposal was the establishment of training courses for trainers in the field of human rights and for the development of relevant training materials.
Tolerance, Racism and Xenophobia
The group on tolerance, racism and xenophobia called for the promotion of increased knowledge in order to counter intolerance. Stressing the equal value of each individual, participants called for a "tolerance network" database to help fight racism and xenophobia as well as for special efforts to break down ethnic and racial stereotypes. Youth, they said, was a resource which could be used to eliminate racism and prejudice in the world.
Delegates asked that the issue of intolerance be identified as an additional priority area to those already included in the World Programme of Action for Youth, and that young people put pressure on governments to implement existing human rights instruments having a bearing on tolerance.
Communications
On the basis that "information is power", the working group on communications said global communication among young people meant giving them a chance to empower themselves. "To realize our vision of this world-wide dialogue, we have to force the unhindered access to information for every young person", the group's report stated.
Noting that decentralized information reached the greatest possible number of young people, the group suggested a number of research projects aimed at identifying special channels of communication favoured by youth. Another suggestion was the establishment of an information centre for conflict areas.
New technologies, such as the Internet, should be improved so that young people could establish a real exchange on their situations and needs, leading to the setting up of a "world youth network". Particular emphasis was placed on the need to incorporate mass media education in school curricula in order
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to provide young people with criteria for understanding the workings and pitfalls of media.
Participants
National youth organizations from the following countries were represented at the World Youth Forum: Algeria, Angola, Anguilla, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, China, Colombia, Dominica, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Finland, Gambia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Hungary, India, Iran, Italy, Jamaica, Kazakstan, Kenya, Republic of Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Niger, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Russian Federation, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Republic of Tanzania, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Youth organizations from the following regions were represented: Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Also represented were 44 international youth organizations.
The following United Nations entities were represented: Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat), International Labour Organization (ILO), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Centre for Human Rights (UNCHR), United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), United Nations Department of Public Information (DPI), United Nations Division for Social Policy and Development and United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).
The following intergovernmental organizations were also represented: Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN), Commonwealth Youth Programme, Council of Europe, Ibero-American Youth Organisation, Inter-American Development Bank, League of Arab States, Organization of African Unity and South Pacific Commission.
The following countries participated as observers: Andorra, Angola, Canada, Ecuador, Guatemala, India, Iran, Myanmar, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, South Africa, Thailand and United Arab Emirates.
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