Fist Youth Update from CSD-12
Review Year
This session is a review basically on water sanitation and health
issues. Because it is a review year, the atmosphere is very relaxed,
open and flexible. Groups are speaking about most issues very
openly (except for Human Rights which whenever mentioned in the
plenary, the US delegation promplty notes that this is not the
forum to be discussing this issue). For full reports of what was
said and the details of the discussion you can visit
the IISD site.
The Canadian Delegation
The NGO and Youth reps have integrated well to the Canadian delegation.
We are given times to speak at each meeting to sum up what is
happening in the caucuses but also what we felt were the most
interesting and or important points of the previous day. It is
very relaxed again because there are no negotiations involved
in this years CSD. It has been noted by many, both in the delegation
and at the meeting that this is making a lot of people nervous.
Many people at the CSD are so used to negotiating that they are
feeling useless here. They have been trying to get the Chairman
to release part of his text for negotiating, even though it had
been decided at CSD 11
that there would be no negotiating this time.
Side Events
One side event I went to I can honestly say was the best side
event I have ever attended. It was called Water Youth and Education
and was organized by some of my colleagues from the UN. They had
Vanessa Tobin who is in charge of water at UNICEF, Mr. Gosh, who
is in charge of the Water Supply and
Sanitation Collaborative Council, the US Ambassador to the UN,
and the person in charge of the water supply here in NY City.
In the audience, there were 120 elementary school children. The
four panelist spoke in very simple terms about how children need
to wash their hands and be careful and respect water. This was
followed by a question and answer period where the children basically
attacked the panelist with very complex and difficult questions
about raising water rates, the consequences of water being a human
right, providing water to the poor, ect. When the panelist avoided
the questions, the 12 year olds would attack again. It was fantastic!
A real eye opener to those adults in the room who did not realize
that the children of today are smart, they know their stuff. The
session ended with this very interesting
quote '"If you sprinkle while you tinkle, please be neat,
clean the seat'"
Education for Sustainable Development
There have been many side events about this issue and all caucuses
and governments have been discussing this.
Learning Centers
These are 3 hour courses on different issues. I just came back
from one on
Education for Sustainable Development organized by Norway. They
have created
a network of schools who are working in partnership with government
divisions, through a partnership facilitated by the internet. It
was noted however by
those attending that although a very successful project, many
of the best
practices rely on internet technology, a technology that many
around the
world lack or have only limited access to.
Partnership Fairs
These are short 1.5 hour sessions about different partnerships
including
some special sessions on how to create a partnership, how to find
funding,
how to involve stakeholders. This is a great idea and the topics
covered are
very good. The only thing is that the speakers do not stick to
the topic
that is supposed to be discussed, so most session always speak about
partnerships in general and go in all sorts of different directions.
It
still is very interesting.
Youth Caucus
The youth caucus is a lot different that in the past, everyone
is new and has not followed the caucus in the past or even been
part of the listserve. The focus has been on education and the caucus
meetings have been much too long, usually one hour during the day
and then up to 5 hours in the evening. There are several Canadians
who have taken a leadership role. UN Habitat came to ask us for
input on the new youth strategy they are creating. I have a copy
that I will send out when I get back to Paris in my report so that
Canadian youth groups can submit their comments.
Im going to leave it at this for now. I have been to several
of these meetings and this one is very different. The Chair, the
head of delegation, everyone is encouraging the delegations and
NGOs to participate more in the side sessions, learning centers,
partnership fairs etc., to really learn and share best practices
on the issues. There are however very few people attending the
pleanaries.
I will go more in depth about our impressions and recommendations
on a lot of these issues in the report we will submit to CEN at
the end.
If you have any questions or comments please let us know. Also
if youth in
Canada have any examples of best practices that they would like
to share,
they can write a short article that we can submit to some of the
newsletters
that are being written up and distributed here every day, SDIN
and Outlook.
Hope all is well!!
Giselle
1. for major groups, education is the most talked about cross-cutting
concern and point being raised by almost all of the major group
and they
are trying to come up with a common statement on this concern
or
setting it as a highlight of all major group statement.
2. Global Environment Facility (GEF) did a side event about their
project and how to access for funding. As i mentioned last year
if anyone intersted to be linked with the GEF they have a accredited
NGO and the coordinator is lhisas@feu999.org
3. During the interactive discussion, Sweden highlight in their
statement the value of youth participation and how the youth in
Sweden is engaged in the process. They encourage other countries
who are interested to learn how Sweden has engaged young people
they are more willing to share information.
4. Science and Technology recognized the role of the youth and
highlight some projects, capacity building and trainnig programs
they have
for
the yotuh.
5. we are planning to do a campaign activity here in connection
to recycling...there's a lot of trash here and UN people don't
seem to know how to do the segragation...so youth caucus is thinking
of doing some campaign for this. Another event we are planning
to organize is in loving memory of Meril (dutch youth delegate)
who passed away last year. So if you guys have pictures and videos
of her it would be great to send it
to me...
6. There was a side event hosted by the UN Habitat and attended
by their Director General and some other, they requested me to
make a presentation re youth caucus, what we expect from UN-Habitat
for possible partnership, and some of the projects youth are doing
e.g. Philippines. With the expectations we've raised the concerns
of youth: little knowledge on UN Habitat, availability of funding
for the conferences UN Habitat is organizing, participation of
Middle Eeast, Asia and Africa, training, capacity building etc,
transfer and exchange of info and others. At the end they have
requested for a one on one session with the youth caucus to discuss
this concern.
7. Major group coordinator is planning to start an egroup discussion
open to everyone who wants to participate to have a wider consultation
for the CSD process. They plan to start it ASAP.
8. In the discussion on the status report of CSD11, China highlighted
their support for para 152/153: strengthening and establishing
of local youth councils (we assigned someone to check on the validity
of this statement). Then UNEP emphasized in their statement that
major group should just be included/consulted when needed and
not in the decision-making policy (we assigned someone to validate
this statement).
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