Civil society, young people and development
Ukraine/region, 8 July 2008 – UNDP Civic Engagement Practice and UN Volunteers last week held a workshop on boosting the participation of young people, youth organizations and other civil society actors in efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals. At the workshop – held in Kiev – participants from across the Europe and CIS region shared experiences on support to developing civil sicety actors, and discussed regional trends and developments influencing civil society and youth volunteerism. Over forty participants from youth NGOs, volunteer organizations and UNDP and UNV offices across the region, took part in the workshop, entitled “Advancing youth inclusion, civic engagement and volunteerism towards achievement of MDGs” Youth participation in community dialogue and activities is considered by many practitioners to be undervalued and largely untapped, and yet offers important benefits in several areas of development. Communities benefit from increased service delivery and the new approach often brought by youth involvement, especially where young people are involved in design of activities.
For young people themselves, civic participation and involvement in the development process gives an opportunity to obtain life skills and capacities which would ultimately increase their employability, self-confidence, leadership, and sense of belonging to the community. Networking and youth associative life can further contribute to overcome ethnic cleavages and tensions and reduce the risk of conflict.
And participation helps meet a fundamental development interest in increasing civic engagement – the involvement of people in the running of their lives, particularly through participation in non-governmental organizations. UNDP supports such efforts across its thematic areas of work, with particular focus on poverty reduction and local governance. Recognition of the importance of including young people in social development has led to UNDP coming together with UNV – which has long experience in working with young people and voluntarism more broadly – in its work on civic engagement. The two organizations had their first joint community of practice meeting following the workshop.
On-going socio-economic change processes, coupled with growing young populations, offer a window of opportunity for expanding the scope of youth civic engagement in South East Europe and CIS, including through volunteerism. In several places, the potential for conflict renewal due to ethnic or environmental reasons gives another reason for the current importance of this initiative. This calls for reviewing and refining the strategic approach for promoting volunteerism for development (V4D) and civic engagement in development programming, to take better account of the potential represented by young people.
This workshop was a chance to exchange experience for those within UNV, UNDP and their partners responsible for promoting Volunteerism For Development in CEE/CIS. It laid the basis for future work on civic engagement in the region and brought forward a number of recommendations useful for strengthening further collaboration in this field. UN Volunteers
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