- By Kabita Gautam and Shreejana Bhattarai
Mr. Sagar Aryal, Core Team Member of Nepal Youth Task Force started the program with a short welcome speech and brief introduction of Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20 and its past activities such as discussion series, workshops, webinar, online discussions, photography competition, and other various consultations. The ultimate impact of the task force has been made at Rio as 3 delegates from the Nepal Youth Task Force raised their voice in Rio via different activities. Representing the voices of Nepalese youth Nepal Youth Task Force also commented and gave their inputs to the zero draft, a draft output of the Rio+20. Then he invited Mr. Tek Jung Mahat, focal point for Rio+20, ICIMOD to deliver his analysis on Rio+20 and status of Mountain Agenda.
Mr. Tek Jung Mahat initiated his delivering by reading out some of the sayings of some international persons and organizations regarding the success or failure of Rio+20 Conference. He said that there are mixed comments regarding success or failure of Rio+20. Some has said that Rio+20 was a success but some has called it as a big failure. But he thinks that Rio+20 was a great achievement however it is not the time to judge its success or failure, time will judge it because its success or failure will depend on how the world can implement its outcomes in the future. Since Earth Summit 1992, there are lots of changes in the world, several agendas have changed with the passage of time, the priorities have changed, new environmental problems have challenged the world and so on. For example, Green Revolution was considered biggest achievement in the history of mankind before some years but now it is considered as a big mistake that man has done after the emerging of several problems due to use of intensive fertilizers, water and pesticides. The world scenarios keep on changing and so do the priorities. In this context, the gathering of so many world leaders at a same place to discuss on the future of our common planet is not a small and easy task. It is obvious to make big expectations when so many world leaders meet at the same time. However, we don’t have a baseline to compare success or failure of Rio+20. According to him, Youth as a group is not included in the Rio+20 outcome document however the document has created an enabling environment for the youth to work and they can give pressure to their local and national government as well as world leaders to hear their voices and include them in decision making process. He further said that mountains have gained special attention in the outcome document. Mountains fall under few groups that receive good attention in the document.
Ms. Prerana Shakya, Program Coordinator of Finland-Nepal Partnership Project at Nepal Scouts shared her experiences during her visit to Rio+20 Conferences. She participated in the Conference as a WAGGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) Young Delegate among other 24 young women from 14 different countries. She said that WAGGGS key messages on Rio +20 was: a) Education; b) Right base approach; c) Gender Lens; and d) Be ambitious. Among them, the more important are Education and Gender Lens. WAGGGS promotes women leadership. In Rio+20 Conference, it was successful in lobbying for Non-formal education and finally Non-formal education was included in the outcome document of the Conference. Ms. Prerana also participated in the UN Women event called "Future Women Want: Gender Equality and Women Empowerment for Sustainable Development" where she got an opportunity to present her statement in the panel of high level women leaders such as Ms. Michelle Bachalet-Under Secretary General and Executive Director of UN Women.
Ms. Kabita Gautam, Core Team Member, Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20, shared her experiences regarding her involvement with UNCSD Major Group of Children and Youth (MGCY). She said that MGCY is working since 7 years for making voices of young people to be heard. It is an officially recognized group of UNCSD which plays vital role in such negotiations pressurizing head of states to recognize youth as a major stakeholder and to engage them in policy and decision making processes. She shares her bitter truth during Rio+20 preparation processes that there were very few youth involved in online meetings of MGCY from Asia. She was only a youth from Nepal representing the voices of Nepalese youth, actively participating, facilitating and incorporating different ideas in such online meetings. Due to zone time variation, there was lack of youth involvement in such conference calls which used to be held most frequent at midnight hours. Moreover, the agendas didn't get much priority as she along with few other South Asian youth were advocating whereas there were high number of youth who involved in such conference calls whose voice were easily recognized and was taken into consideration. She urged for a big mass of youth movement and engagement from our region for our voice to be heard. She encouraged the participants that such negotiations are a platform for youth to make clear visions for our future and the future of coming generations.
Besides, she was also selected as the team leader for Green Economy Youth Task Force of MGCY, where she advocated for different issues regarding Education and Youth Employment in the document the teams were working on. During her involvement in UNCSD MGCY as a Social Media Focal Point, she tried to engage as many youth as she could via social networking, campaigning and sharing the information regarding Rio+20. “It was one of our achievements that youth were also included in the employment sector and education was given a major priority for sustainable development”, adds Ms. Kabita Gautam. She also highlighted upon the challenges and opportunities for Nepalese in coming days and requested the youth participants to take leadership in such activities to pressurize the government for the implementation of the outcome document that has been committed by different head of states.
Mr. Jaya Jung Mahat, one of the four Nepalese delegates to the 6th World Youth Congress, shared his experiences about his participation in the congress which was held from 4th-13th June, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Jaya mentioned that there were more than 300 future leaders from more than 100 nations from across the world in the congress. He said that usually, the youth conferences and programs are held in hotels and other comfortable modern buildings which are very close to the city centers, but WYC was organized by camping in the Brazilian rain forest at Sitio da Pedras. The event venue was located far away from the city center where the participants had very limited access to internet and telephone services. Basically, the event, as mentioned by the president of WYC organizing institution, Peace Child International, Mr. David R. Woollcombe, was meant to bring together all the tomorrow's world leaders for action oriented discussions and come up with achievable ideas and solutions for more sustainable future globe. As a result, the participants were discouraged to get attached to their gadgets and online social networks including Facebook and Twitter, rather they were motivated to attend all the event sessions and regional & networking meetings. It was a great experience as one day due to rainfall, the camps started to float in water. Some of the participants left the camps and went to the available hostels but Jaya and some other delegates stayed there. He says. “We have to practice adaptation because we never know what will happen next due to climate change and other natural events. It is necessary to learn to adapt.” They had field visits and cultural exchange programs in some of the Favelas in Rio de Janeiro. On the first day, they went close to the people living in the favelas, on the second day they had cultural exchange program with exclusive cultural dresses and dance. On the final day of their action projects, the participants listened to the problems of the slums and they helped them by organizing various joint action programmes with the favela inhabitants like by accomplishing activities including wall painting, maintaining their library and building temporary buildings. It was a great learning on practical basis. WYC 2012 concluded with 20 solutions for sustainable world which were handed over to the world leaders at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD).
Ms. Shreejana Bhattarai, Core Team Member, Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20, shared about her learning from the side events. She explained that about 500 side events of the Conference were held from 13th to 22nd June. They were organized by Youth groups, Major Groups, Governments, United Nations Organizations and different International Organizations. Nepal Youth Task Force and Asia Pacific Youth Task Force themselves co-organized “Global Youth Forum on Mountain Issues and Sustainable Action” on 15th June which was organized by ICIMOD, SDC and Mountain Partnership. In this side event, different youth representatives from youth organizations representing Asia, Africa, North and South America were the speakers. They shared about their initiatives they have taken regarding sustainable development and activities to bring about change in their community and they also emphasized on the importance of youths to mainstream in the decision making process. ICIMOD conducted other side events like “Mountain Knowledge Solutions for Green Economy”, “Global Importance of Mountains in Promoting Green Growth” and “Women and Sustainable Mountain Development”. In these side events, the speakers highlighted the importance of Mountains and managing natural resources of the mountains for the uplifting of the livelihood of mountain people as well as those who directly or indirectly depend on mountains. She also shared about a side event regarding Sustainable Transport in the Context of Green Economy. Application of Green Economy in Transport Sector involves technological change including efficiency enhancement, changes in consumer behaviour: abandoning use of private cars in favour of public transport and non-motorized transport. Improving Communication System can reduce the need to travel and hence reduce traffic. She said that the side events were very useful in widening her horizon of knowledge.
Following the sharing by the speakers, there was intensive interaction regarding the queries of the participants who were very curious about carbon trading, zero emission and education for sustainable development. The workshop also came up with the importance of education and including a different course regarding such issues in the curriculum of educational institution in a country like Nepal. It also concluded that sustainability is not achieved by stating the policies in documents but also bringing it into practice from ground level which seems possible by empowering children and youth towards its implementation phase.
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