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Connecting Local to Global: Networking Urban Youth Councils

SM Shaikat

Moderator

date June 28, 2022 | 13:30 - 15:00
place
Multifunction Hall Room 13
organization
Serac-Bangladesh
country
Bangladesh
language
English
theme
Integrated Governance in Spatial Planning for a More Just, Green, and Healthy Urban Future
Reference: 
NE 53

Summary

The Urban Youth Councils or Local Youth councils are units of grassroots youths transforming cities and towns realizing SDG11 for a better urban future. Young people aged 15 to 24 years, make up 1.2 billion accounting for 16 per cent of the global population. Despite political commitments, political participation among the youth is scarce. Many national and local development policies have quoted youth skill development and involvement in decision-making, particularly at the local level, but actual involvement of youth in decision-making is absent and access to participatory practices is limited and nominal. The local government bodies across the world are facing internal challenges such as corruption, lack of transparency in development projects and partisanship in appointments to municipal jobs, and the consideration of young people as “just voters” primarily by elected officials. Many local youth groups formed youth councils, while in many cities municipalities came forward to accommodate youths. Local or urban youth councils have been working closely with the city governance and improving civic participation of young people in the cities. Many great examples can be drawn from Bangladesh, Turkey, UK, Morocco, USA, and around the world which is a cause to ignite this event with the aim to share best practices how to improve equitable engagement of young people in local level decision-making, particularly in the governance processes of city authorities, through the initiation of urban youth councils.

Objectives

The objective of this networking session is to showcase best practices of urban youth councils making huge difference in achieving sustainable development goals, by being a part of the municipalities across the world. Being a shadow to the city governance mechanism, youth councils are playing a major role in civic engagement and achieving the New Urban Agenda. The session will include stakeholders, UN agencies focused on youth works, and urban youth councils from all regions to share and build communication through this event.

Session speakers

Speaker
Role
Organization
Country
Mr. SM Shaikat
Executive Director
SERAC-Bangladesh
Ms. Shamoy Hazare
Consultant
UN-Habitat
Mr. Douglas Ragan
Youth Specialist
UN-Habitat