Authors: Joyati Das and and Jaya Srinivasan
20 November 2024, Nairobi. – The Youth as Evidence Builders session was held to review the current Global DeclarACTION on Youth and Sustainable Urbanization, bringing together the year long Road to the World Urban Forum series which engaged thousands of young people globally. Facilitated by Joyati Das, Expert on Children and Youth, session encouraged conversations and discussions on urban sustainabilty with young people attending the World Urban Forum. Featuring the members of UN-Habitat’s Junta Asesora Juvenil, the session created a space for the participants to consider and review the Global DeclarACTION adopted at WUF-11 during previous phase of Youth 2030 Cities, and share recommendations to strengthen it, based on their own lived experiences and insights.
Youth leaders participated in the discussion and based on their experience in their respective cities and countries, as well as their priorities for global action, and identified themes that needed to be added to or strengthened in the Global DeclarACTION. These themes reflected the young people’s current perception of their cities, as well as local, national and international priorities, thus bringing a local to global to local perspective.
The participants identified ways in which various stakeholders at different levels should be involved in acting on the Global DeclarACTION. The young people also recommended avenues to strengthen their own participation in implementing the DeclarACTION. They emphasized the need for multilevel collaboration in achieving the SDGs through the DeclarACTION.
The key emerging themes from the discussion with young people are:
- Education and skill building
- Health nutrition and well being (transport, water management, waste management, air pollution)
- Housing and safe environment
- Employment, entrepreneurship and professional development
- Environment and climate action
- Gender and inclusion (indigenous laws disability
- Peace and security
- Equitable access to innovation and technology
- Collaborative governance for sustainable urbanisation – Voice, participation and contributions of young people in shaping city systems and informing urban planning
These emerging themes will form the revision of the current Global DeclarACTION, along with other activities that have sought youth input for this iteration.
The Youth 2030 Cities initiative is supported by Fondation Botnar, UN-Habitat, youth and youth-led organizations and cities globally. See a video on Phase One.
