Authors: Joyati Das and Jaya Srinivasan
29 October 2024, Nairobi. – The Youth 2030 Cities initiative is designed as an urban governance programme that focuses on youth empowerment, strengthening citizen voice and action through advocacy. The aim of the initiative is to promote meaningful participation of young people to shape local and global agendas that translate to realistic and practical action plans for ensuring sustainable cities for all. The objective is to empower young people with knowledge about their local and broader global issues and agendas, aid them with effective training and tools, as well as create spaces that allow young people to contribute to the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their local communities and cities.
The three-year initiative has resulted in 11 city DeclarACTIONs, informed and documented by young people’s assessment of their respective cities proposing innovative solutions, and presenting a new narrative to implementing SDGs at the local level, as well as contributing to dialogues that are shaping global discourses post SDGs.
Local action is critical to achieve the SDGs by 2030. UN-Habitat has been at the forefront of SDG localization since the very endorsement of the Agenda 2030. Since then, UN-Habitat has been working to advance SDG localization by providing technical expertise to partners across the globe, by capacitating local and regional governments on SDG localization, and by strengthening the voice of local governments and local actors within the main international and UN-led fora on SDGs. The Youth 2030 Cities initiative continues to build on these investments and ensure youth voice is heard and considered in local to global discussions.
Youth are an invaluable stakeholder and force of change in cities, yet, they often lack the knowledge, space, recognition, skills, and representation to take action in their local communities. If we are to confront the many global challenges of this century, youth must have a place at the decision-making table and capacity to become competent actors of today and leaders of tomorrow.
Youth often have a good understanding of urban environments as they frequent spaces and are also the ones most impacted and thus, must contribute to conversations around how to make these spaces more safe, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable for all.
For the first time in 2018, the UN launched a Youth Strategy recognising this demographic dividend and calling for their meaningful participation in contributing to local innovation and sustained change, as well as to lend their experience in global discourses and dialogues. This momentum has been recognised at the “Summit of the Future” hosted by the UN in September 2024 that culminated in the passing of the resolution “Pact for the Future”. The Pact for the Future recognises the necessity to work with young people meaningfully to shape the future of sustainable development through intergenerational dialogue, supporting youth-led and youth-focused organisations, and support mechanisms to include youth voice in local, national and international policy-making and decision-making processes.
The Youth 2030 Cities project was launched as a 6-month pilot initiative by UN-Habitat in collaboration with the Healthy Cities for Adolescents programme, a Fondation Botnar initiative. The objective of this pilot was to strengthen local youth capacity to map issues that were important to them, share knowledge, and propose ideas and solutions that were documented and meant to serve as a resource for city decision makers to progress sustainable cities. Seven cities participated in the pilot initiative: these were Accra (Ghana), Thiés (Senegal), Da Nang (Vietnam), Jaipur (India), Cali (Colombia), and Quito and Otavalo (Ecuador). The output was a DeclarACTION from each participating city which was developed by young people working with local youth organisations, city stakeholders, and UN-Habitat.
Youth 2030 Cities has continued to foster true partnerships with young people and build this momentum, advocating for more cities to welcome youth contribution and their lens on sustainable cities through the development of DeclarACTIONs that serve as a planning tool for all partners committed to the localisation of SDGs. The DeclarACTIONs have proven to be a planning and communicating tool for city-wide collaborative action to progress partnerships and enable young people to lead and facilitate city-wide networks of collective action.
Using the DeclarACTIONs, youth can play a role as evidence-builders, gathering data and documenting their observed knowledge, and sharing this as valuable information regularly through formal and informal spaces to engage with decision makers, present their perspectives and negotiate their position, and leverage their knowledge for change that is meaningful and sustainable for all.
Youth 2030 Cities is about enabling multi-sectoral partnerships, recognising that every voice has a contribution to make to enable the localization of SDGs and getting city stakeholders to commit to collective action through investments, however big or small. The three-year initiative has informed a program model that includes 8 essential activities for any city partner to consider and implement according to their contextual relevance. They are:
- Youth committee: Select group of young people from the city with experience in youth activities established as a committee
- SDG orientation: Orientation of youth committee and other relevant stakeholders in the SDGs and New Urban Agenda through offline and online modules to build a shared understanding of the objectives and outcomes of the program
- Youth survey: Virtually-administered questionnaire to seek youth inputs widely on city context (challenges, potential solutions) from the SDG perspective
- Youth journalism: Young people trained to gather opinions from youth and city stakeholders on issues, challenges and solutions for the city to consider localization of SDGs
- Youth forum: Convening of young people to create draft DeclarACTIONs
- Youth council: Convening of young people with local authorities in the city to reflect on the draft DeclarACTIONs together, and negotiate and develop an action plan for the localization of SDGs in the respective city
- City dialogues: Intergenerational dialogue among youth, local authorities, and wider groups of stakeholders drawn from those with decision-making, implementation, and funding roles in the city for the sign-off of DeclarACTIONs and the action plan for the city
- City alliance: Alliance of youth-led and youth-focused organizations and key stakeholders in the city established to jointly implement the city action plan
The above suite of activities was further tested as a three-month initiative during this year in five cities: Mymensingh (Bangladesh), Otavalo (Ecuador), Cúcuta and Armenia (Colombia), and Querétaro (Mexico). Below are three examples of developing and reviewing city DeclarACTIONs:
Mymensingh, Bangladesh: SERAC-Bangladesh deployed the elected Youth Council of the city to develop a draft DeclarACTION. Youth leaders from the Mymensingh Urban Youth Council were trained in the SDGs and conducted a consultation with community stakeholders representing different sectors, drawn from youth organizations, educational institutions, NGOs, and local leaders from diverse backgrounds. The Youth Council then developed and administered a survey across the city. The consultation and survey were aimed at identifying issues related to the city’s development.
Data from these activities were analysed and used in the development of the Mymensingh DeclarACTION, where city priority SDGs have been mapped and are expected to contribute to informing upcoming local policies. The DeclarACTION seeks to enhance service delivery, particularly for youth and marginalized groups in Mymensingh. The activities carried out by the Youth Council with the city stakeholders have strengthened relationships in the city and the DeclarACTION met with a positive response from the city administrator, who expressed commitment towards moving the recommended actions towards policy implementation to be led by their new administration.
Cúcuta, Colombia: A youth forum was organized by youth groups in Cúcuta with the objective of creating a space for participation for young people, using a methodology based on dialogue and exchange of ideas. Over two days, young people in the age group of 18-25 years discussed the importance of the SDGs in the development of their city and their activities with various organizations. They also shared their experiences and identified SDG-linked objectives to be prioritized for the improvement of the city, and proposed solutions in coordination with the city’s institutions to generate policies, programs, and projects led by young people. Following this, the participants leveraged their experiences to identify commitments they would make to support the implementation of the SDGs in the city. Roles of key stakeholders were also mapped to support significant youth action towards achieving the SDGs: these included young people, local governments, UN-Habitat, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, private companies, etc.
This activity led to the development of a draft DeclarACTION and actionable insights, along with the identification of key SDG themes.
Otavalo, Ecuador: Hosted by the Otavalango One Stop, activities in Otavalo were tailored to address the lack of formal platforms for youth participation in the city. Youth forums were identified as an appropriate activity to bring stakeholders from diverse backgrounds together. The youth forum was organized in Otavalo following initial virtual meetings for planning and preparation. 15 young people participated in the youth forum and were trained in the areas of community leadership, project management, and citizen participation. They produced a revised DeclarACTION based on the current SDG priorities of Otavalo. The trained young people also lead social and environmental development initiatives in their communities, promoting active participation in decision-making. Three key partnerships have been established which are supporting the financing and training of young people in sectors related to sustainable tourism and environmental conservation. Greater youth participation, acceptance of the action plan based on the priorities, and cultural integration are expected through this ongoing work.
