The impact of COVID-19 has intensified the pre-existing challenges faced by young people in their day to day lives. Ranging from unemployment to lack of access of resources and services, there has been an increasing need for policies that will urgently address these issues. Because of this UN-Habitat has developed a Policy Brief on Youth, Cities and COVID-19, that seeks to capture the challenges that youth in cities face during the pandemic, and the responses needed to ensure positive change.
“COVID-19 has led to the loss of jobs of most youth in Mathare and enhanced the lack of purchasing power of food commodities and basic services. We are always approached by young people enquiring on job opportunities and whether we will distribute food commodities at our Handwashing stations”, Rodah Ingashani, Wonderful Mothers Group based in the Mathare informal settlement in Nairobi Kenya.
These challenges revolve around 8 cross cutting themes of Climate Change, Livelihoods, :
The policy brief further underlines several priorities that will counter the challenges faced by Youth. These are: ensuring young people’s equal representation in all response planning, decision-making and implementation; targeting young people in all efforts to address the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 and; facilitating transformative change for equality by creating more opportunities and solutions for youth in informal settlements.
There is an urgent need for accurate and timely data and analysis on youth specific programmes. Hence, we are calling on young men and women including all stakeholders to participate in UN-Habitat’s Consultation on the Policy Brief on Youth, Cities and COVID-19 to inform its development and to facilitate recommendations that will influence policy and programmes at a local, national and international level. To participate in the consultation, please click here or paste the link below to access the draft Policy Brief document and make your contribution on different themes of the Policy Brief through the comment feature.
This document will be accessible throughout this month until September 30th, 2020. We will then revised the document and then circulate it on our web and social media platforms.
UPDATE: The Policy Brief on Youth, Cities and COVID-19 has been finalized and can be downloaded here.
