Youth advocates engage with decision-makers ahead of the UN Summit of the Future
Amelie and Isabella pave the way for meaningful and empowered engagement with government representatives in New York.
11 April 2024
With the much-anticipated UN Summit of the Future one of the main multilateral decision-making events scheduled to take place later this year, young advocates Isabella and Amelie, who are part of the Youth Task Force for the Future, travelled to New York to meet key Member State representatives and ensure that decisions taken respond to the needs of future generations.
Supported by Plan International, the Youth Task Force for the Future advocates for youth priorities at the upcoming Summit and aims to influence ongoing negotiations on the Pact for the Future and the Declaration on Future Generations, two of the outcome documents of the Summit.
The UN Summit of the Future will bring world leaders together to accelerate efforts to meet our existing international commitments – the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals – and take concrete steps to better respond to emerging global challenges. The Summit of the Future presents a once in a generation opportunity to reaffirm existing commitments and reform the multilateral system to better respond to the challenges of today and tomorrow. But without ensuring gender is a central pillar of these discussions, we risk recreating a system that does not deliver for girls and young women.
Key messages and reflections from the Youth Task Force
In their interactions with Member State representatives in New York, Amelie and Isabella, together with staff from Plan International’s UN Liaison Offices in NY and Geneva and Plan International USA put forward the following key messages:
- The importance of learning from the past as we look to the future. The Declaration on Future Generations aims to ensure that our decision-making today has the best interests of future generations in mind. However, we cannot create a better future if we do not acknowledge and learn from the past.
- The need to mainstream gender equality in the text. The zero draft of the Declaration only has two mentions of “gender equality”. A better future is a future where gender equality is a reality, and it is crucial that this be strongly reflected in the text.
- The importance of ensuring that today’s children and young people are not left out of the definition of (and conversations on) future generations. The current draft of the Pact for the Future has strong language on “youth and future generations”, ensuring that today’s young people are not left out of the discussions. However, we cannot talk about future generations in the Declaration on Future Generations without also recognizing that today’s children and young people will also inherit the planet.
Youth advocate Amelie reflected on the experience, saying: “The Member States all reacted differently to the ideas and thoughts and experiences that we shared with them, but I always felt like I was being listened to and as if everyone was seriously invested in what our future will look like. Yes, the road before us is long and difficult. But – also yes – we are empowered by some very amazing people who have responded very well to our ideas.”
Amelie added: “I am hopeful that the Member States will take our worries and concerns to the big tables. Democracy, change and justice start with us, here and now – and I think that the future simply cannot wait for all the amazing things yet to happen along this way.”
“Yes, the road before us is long and difficult. But – also yes – we are empowered by some very amazing people who have responded very well to our ideas.”
Amelie
Promoting youth advocacy for a sustainable future
The Youth Task Force for the Future includes 35 young people aged 15 to 24 from 22 countries. It acts within Plan International’s focus areas of gender equality, girls’ rights, and leadership, and is engaging in research, policy advocacy, and campaigning ahead of and during the Summit of the Future. A key milestone will be the Civil Society Conference in Nairobi, which is organised by the UN to discuss the Summit of the Future, with advocacy to continue at national and international levels from June to September.
The importance of young people engaging directly with governments was underlined by Isabella. “Having a young person engage directly with representatives from Member States breaks the narrative that young people are only meant to be invited to big conferences to give speeches or only to take a picture,” she said. “It also breaks the cycle of tokenism and allows for the brainstorming of new ideas that are necessary for building a collective future.”
Isabella added: “Running from one meeting to another in the busiest streets of New York, engaging in meaningful conversations with different diplomats, advocating for gender equality and intersectionality… things that one day I dreamed of for my future, and now they were part of my present. Representing the Youth Task Force for the Future has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life, and I consider that this is how meaningful youth engagement should look. I feel equipped with all the necessary knowledge and skills to be able to speak on behalf of the 30 young advocates from around the world with whom we have been working jointly to draft the “Girls’ Pact for the Future”.
Looking ahead to the Summit of the Future, there is an opportunity and a need to reaffirm existing commitments, which have come under pressure in recent years by global shocks including the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the Triple Planetary Crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
And more than ever, it is vital to have young people involved in decision-making processes about our future. The Summit of the Future will help to guide the international community forward but will fall short of its ambitions if it does not adequately take into consideration the voice of those who will be most affected.
“Representing the Youth Task Force for the Future has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life, and I consider that this is how meaningful youth engagement should look.”
Isabella
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