« Intern with a mission – The Youth 2030 Agenda: Empowering Youth and the Sustainable Development Goals »

On April 18th IIMA attended the event « Intern with a mission – The Youth 2030 Agenda: Empowering Youth and the Sustainable Development Goals » in Palais des Nations, organized by UNOG with the support of the Permanent Missions of Switzerland and Belgium.

This year the event was an initiative to promote dialogue between UN officials, diplomats and UN interns about the topic of Youth empowerment through the Sustainable Development Goals: the scope was to underline the contribution that young people can give in shaping the world’s future.

The event was twofold: the first part, consisting of four panellists, considered what SDGs can do for young people and what youth can do for the implementations of SDGs.

The second part of the event asked panellists and the audience to consider the following motion: « The current SDG framework provides enough opportunities for youth involvement and empowerment ». In this case, two panellists opposed the motion and the other two defended it.

Finally, after an interactive discussion and the considerations of the panellists, the audience voted for the motion.

The conference opened with the remarks of Mr. Michael Moller, Director-General of ONUG; the moderator, Ms.Charlotte L.Warakaulle, Director of International Relations at CERN proceeded to introduce the different panellists, two against the motion and the others defending it.

The first “pro-motion” panellist was Ms. Arancha Gonzàlez, executive Director of ITC, who stressed the importance of SGDs for youth empowerment but, at the same time, affirmed the need to translate this opportunity the SGDs give to young people into governmental policies.

The second “pro-motion”pannelist was Ms Lyne Calder, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, who affirmed how the seventeen Goals are so fundamental for young people but more cooperation between society, government and national and international institutions is necessary to put into practice what the SDGs provide for the participation of youth.

The first panellist that opposed the motion was Mr. Paul Ladd, Director of UNRISD, who admitted the importance of SDGs but, according to him, they don’t permit the participation of young people in an equal way; for example young people that live in a country ruled by a dictatorship don’t have the same opportunity to apply the SDGs like their peers in a democratic country.

He concluded by saying that we have to create platforms and policies that involve all young people of every country to enforce the SDGs.

The second panellist that opposed the motion was Ms. Malika Dreyfuss, Training Programme Coordinator at Euforia that pointed out the need to create more institutional and social relations as well as training courses to bring together young people in order to implementent the SDGs.

The event, after an active discussion, ended with the audience vote regarding the motion: sixty-two voted for the motion and the majority, one-hundred and two, voted against the motion.