BY RAYNALD C RIVERA
DOHA: The youth are most vulnerable during disasters and conflicts yet could be strong partners in humanitarian action, says a UN official.
“The youth have shown lots of maturity and potential, that they don’t want to be seen only as beneficiary as well as problems. They don’t think that they are a liability for development in humanitarian settings, but an opportunity,” said United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Youth Ahmad Al Hendawi.
Al Hendawi was commenting on the outcome of the participation among the youth at the first-ever Global Youth Consultation (GYC) of the UN’s World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) which concluded yesterday. The two-day Doha conference, he said “marks a new era of youth engagement in a fundamental area of the work of UN which is the humanitarian response. “Traditionally in humanitarian response, the youth was looked at as victims and liability not opportunity. I think now we are changing that narrative.”
Considering youth as partners “is not only the right thing to do but also the strategic thing to do to maximise the impact of humanitarian response leading to faster recovery.”
“Youth engagement in humanitarian efforts has not been in that level we were hoping,” he observes, “And this is not because they don’t want to but maybe because the international system and even the humanitarian system fail sometimes to systematically engage them in the humanitarian response system in a meaningful way.”
He said revisiting the humanitarian architecture in a way that engages youth as partners, recognising their role and empowering them would guarantee speedy recovery. The two-day discussions have yielded innovative ideas from the young delegates on how to improve humanitarian action. They include localisation of human resources in response, recognition and inclusion of young people in peace building in recovery and in fragile states and use of social media platform to empower the affected community, among others.
“We recognise ourselves as special population who might be vulnerable to disasters and conflicts, but we are also agents of change,” said Sam Li Wing Sum, Steering Group, UN Major Group for Children and Youth (UNMGCY).
Looking at the role of youth as catalyst, he stressed on the need for “a localised station of response in which we want to build capacity locally, in which young people will be one of the first responders.”
As the GYC concluded yesterday, he said information exchange and experience sharing would continue even beyond WHS through online and offline platform.
As the host and partner of GYC, Reach Out To Asia (ROTA) Executive Director Essa Al Mannai vowed commitment to supporting the youth, citing the annual Empower youth conference as a proof of that commitment. He said the event could evolve in the future incorporating other international agenda in which the youth can be engaged.
The proposals and issues discussed at the GYC will be presented in the Global Consultation to be held from October 14 to 16 in Geneva. The final recommendations will be incorporated into the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s report, and the overall recommendations for the WHS to be held in Istanbul, Turkey on May 23 and 24 next year.
The Peninsula
