Reflection written by Halima Gikandi, TDN International Development Coordinator
ECOSOC Youth Forum & 53rd Session of the Commission for Social Development

Monday, February 2nd – Thursday, February 5th

When I found out that I had been approved to represent the Transdiaspora Network (TDN) as their International Development Coordinator at the 2015 UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum, I felt both excited and a bit disbelieving. “Me?” I thought, “what am I doing at the UN?” After working with TDN for only a short time, I already felt like I was having opportunities others get much later in their careers. Over the next week, I truly learned what being an ECOSOC accredited NGO meant.

Over the next two days, I attended sessions that attempted to address the challenges of youth engagement in international development policy frameworks. I had the privilege to hear UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon make his energetic opening remarks the first morning. His calming presence and assured words encouraged and empowered youth like myself, especially when he said that youth have the “legitimate right to challenge their governments.” In a single effective sentence, the Secretary General both relieved young people of the fear of demanding more from their governments and reminded them of their power, and responsibility, to do so.

The Session One followed the opening remarks and its objective was to discuss the views, insights, and concrete recommendations of youth on how the world can move from the pre-2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The central question was how to engage youth in the post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals. What I learned most from the forum was that this question is not easy to answer. Although the UN members and international stakeholders who spoke at the forum readily agreed that youth must be integrated in the transition to SDGs and that they are in fact necessary to engage, it was significantly more difficult to determine how this can substantially and meaningfully happen.

Many informal discussions between youth representatives and youth delegates regarding the question of youth engagement actually happened on the floor in between panels. From my conversations with delegates from Bangladesh to Bolivia and with representatives from organizations such as the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, I saw that the consensus among young people was that we wanted, needed, the opportunity to be engaged in the first place, at both governmental and institutional levels in our countries. In parliaments, in senates, in city councils, and in ministries, we see the places for us but not the chairs.

Later that day I attended a breakout session on “Partnerships, Capacity Building, and Implementation,” where I meet and debated with other youth representatives and delegates to make suggestions on how to build strong multi-stakeholder partnerships. Our conclusions were to be presented to Commission on Social Development during Emerging Issues session later in the week. My group’s question was: how can institutions generate synergies across policy areas and ensure institutional coordination? Our final recommendation was to have all levels of society (government, institution, civil society) and their diverse sub divisions (i.e. different ministries within government) at the table when addressing how they will address the SDGs in their specific national context. The other groups also delivered concrete recommendations on this subject.

Before the forum, my image of the UN was of well-dressed men and women entering and exiting the first avenue building from all parts of the world. However, the Youth Forum was just as much about establishing youth engagement as a viable way to meet international development goals as about transforming the image of who is engaged in the establishment of these goals and policies. As Mr. Kurt Davis, Counsellor of the Permanent Mission of Jamaica to the United Nations, said to me, the UN is just people; people with ideas and the effort to implement them. As the forum demonstrated, there is no reason that those people can’t be under the age of twenty-five. In fact, some of the most empowering words came from youth like Thandiwe Chama, who founded KidsRights Youngsters and Vivian Onano, Education Spokesperson for Moremi Africa, who have already engaged with their national stakeholders.

As I listened to the closing remarks of United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth Ahmad Alhendawi, I thought what does it mean for me to be an empowered youth and would my own engagement look like? What opportunities are there for me to take? Then it occurred to me that although there is still much for stakeholders to do in terms of following through with their commitments to youth and the SDGs, all of the youth who attended the forum and myself, not to discount the countless of youth globally, are already finding places, sometimes holes and crevices, to engage. We may not be in parliaments or on ministry councils, but we are where we have found spaces for us. That said, as the TDN International Development Coordinator I am in fact a youth engaging to meet the health challenges of my community.

To conclude, I think TDN President and Founder Ariel Rojas has demonstrated how exactly stakeholders can encourage youth engagement, by bringing me on the TDN team despite my age, by registering me for the Youth Forum, and by giving me a seat at the table during the preceding 53rd Commission on Social Development (CSocD53).  If more organizations were to mimic Ariel’s lead, we would already be closer to the UN’s vision of engaging youth in the post-2015 development agenda. It is time for everyone, including youth themselves, to have confidence in the energy and commitments of youngsters. Not tomorrow, not in 2030, but today. Thank you Transdiaspora Network for giving me this opportunity of a lifetime.