Nepal National Youth Consultation on Response to Rio+20 Zero Draft held

National Consultation, Kathmandu

- By Kabita Gautam and Shreejana Bhattarai

Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20 organised a national youth consultation on Rio+20 Zero Draft at the ICIMOD headquarter on Friday, 24 February 2012. The youth consultation was organised as part of the Earth Debate in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas, ICIMOD-British Council initiative to debate on Earth Summit issues in the region.
Approximately 50 participants attended the consultation which was facilitated by Mr. Abhisek Shrestha and Ms. Kabita Gautam. The program started with introduction of all the core team members of Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20. Then, the briefings on Rio+20 and Zero Draft document was done by Ms. Kabita Gautam.

Focusing on what is there in the Zero Draft and Mountain Issue (Para 94), the session was carried further with an informative discussion by Mr. Abhisek Shrestha. The participants were asked what are the missing links in the mountain issue in the zero draft and what can be the role of youths in that. All the inputs from the participants were collected in meta cards. The discussion was quite fruitful which came up with curiosity of the participants on the matters. The level of interest they showed in Rio+20 and Role of Youth highly encouraged the team to share the information in coming days. Some of the participants also suggested the team to conduct such type of program to engage number of youth participants  and make the issues more inclusive.

Some of the comments from youth participants:

A. Missing links in the Zero Draft regarding Mountain:

1. Watershed management and sustainable mountain development should be urgently addressed because these have an impact on millions of people who depend on the mountains for their water”.
2. As the development of infrastructure can degrade mountain environments and increase migration to urban areas, mountain development should aim to provide basic services and employment opportunities for local communities.
3. There should be an emphasis on providing opportunities for young people in mountain areas, because without these people the indigenous communities will rapidly die out.
4. Capacity building initiatives should address gender, caste and other social inclusion issues in order to build a sustainable future for mountain communities.
5. Responsible eco-tourism should be promoted and supported as one means of sustaining mountain communities and environments.

B. Role of Youth:

1. Youth should be responsible towards environment conservation implementing eco-ideas and eco-friendly techniques.
2. Young people are generally better educated about the threats to our environment than older generations, and are therefore likely to be effective agents of change.
3. Governments should engage directly with concerned youth groups on environmental issues, involving them in policy discussions and being responsible to them for policy implementation, because in the longer term it is the young who will live with the consequences of those policies.
4. The huge problem of labor migration and brain drain of youth needs to be addressed.
5. Selected young people should be trained in advocacy and communication skills so that they will be able to mobilize other people to take appropriate action to limit environmental degradation.
6. Governments should make use of the energy and commitment of concerned youth groups to spread messages about effective environmental management to the wider population.
7. Youth can play an effective role to share the outcomes of Rio+20 among the local people from the grass-root to national level.