What Did Youth Get out of Rio + 20?

R I O + 2 0

What Did Youth Get out of Rio + 20?

by

David Woollcombe

The much maligned Rio+20 outcome document (‘283 paragraphs of fluff’ – George Monbiot, The Guardian) – in fact contains several pieces of good news for youth. We can, and should, build on them as we develop our efforts to get youth to the heart of the post-MDG / Post-2015 / Sustainable Development Goal agenda. Here they are, in the order which they appear in the document:

24. We express deep concern about the continuing high levels of unemployment and underemployment, particularly among young people, and note the need for sustainable development strategies to proactively address youth employment at all levels. In this regard, we recognize the need for a global strategy on youth and employment building on the work of the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Their concern is merely touching – and the employment-building work of the ILO not perhaps the most shiningly successful example of youth job creation. But we can build on this: it a foot in the door – and one to exploit.

50. We stress the importance of the active participation of young people in decision-making processes as the issues we are addressing have a deep impact on present and future generations, and as the contribution of children and youth is vital to the achievement of sustainable development. We also recognize the need to promote intergenerational dialogue and solidarity by recognizing their views.

This clause adds little to the commitments made in Chapter 25 of Agenda 21 from the original ’92 Earth Summit. And it betrays the haste with which this final text was put together – as the ‘their’ in the last sentence could refer to either elders or youngers. It also egregiously leaves out any reference to ‘how’ that active participation of young people might be achieved?  Including youth on each government UN delegation is one way: having a seat at the table of the 3^rd Committee of the UN would be another. The language is distressingly vague – but your government signed it. Go ask them how they mean to implement it?

148. We are concerned about labour market conditions and widespread deficits of available decent work opportunities, especially for young women and men. We urge all governments to address the global challenge of youth employment by developing and implementing strategies and policies that provide young people everywhere access to decent and productive work, as over the coming decades, decent jobs will need to be created to be able to ensure sustainable and inclusive development and reduce poverty.

This appears to be a repetition of the sentiments advanced in Clause 24 – omitting the ILO – but adding much faff about the need for job creation and the ‘deficit of decent work opportunities.’  Nice that governments expressed their concern not once but twice about PCI’s priority issue: youth unemployment. Another excuse to go to your government and ask them what they intend to do about it?

149. We recognize the importance of job creation by investing in and developing sound, effective and efficient economic and social infrastructure and productive capacities for sustainable development and sustained, inclusive and equitable economic growth. We call on countries to enhance infrastructure investment for sustainable development and we agree to support UN funds, programmes and agencies to help assist and promote developing countries’ efforts, particularly the least developed countries, in this regard. 

This appears to suggest that governments should be pursuing public infrastructure projects to create jobs for youth. This is not a new idea: the South African ‘Expanded Public Works Programme’ has given thousands of young people their first taste of work experience and earning a salary while, supposedly, learning a skill at the same time.  But history has shown it to be the least-promising area of youth job creation – demonstrating the utter lack of knowledge or experience the drafters of this outcome statement have of our field. However, good that they mention it: it gives us a point of departure to discuss more effective approaches to youth job creation.

155. We encourage the sharing of experiences and best practices on ways to address the high levels of unemployment and underemployment, in particular among youth.

Well darn! – PCI has just presented a proposal to the European Commission to do just that: to create a Handbook on Youth-led Job Creation drawing on the examples of best practice from around the world. Thank you, Rio+20, for recognizing the importance of this initiative and getting the agreement on the need for it from 193 UN member state governments.

230. We recognize that the younger generations are the custodians of the future, as well as the need for better quality and access to education beyond the primary level. We therefore resolve to improve the capacity of our education systems to prepare people to pursue sustainable development, including through enhanced teacher training, the development of curricula around sustainability, the development of training programmes that prepare students for careers in fields related to sustainability, and more effective use of information and communication technologies to enhance learning outcomes. We call for enhanced cooperation among schools, communities and authorities in efforts to promote access to quality education at all levels.

This somewhat garbled language is all that’s left of the Universal Youth desire for language that commits governments to introducing Education for Sustainability at every level of the education system. Some of the best news out of Rio+20 – is that Brazil has just passed legislation to commit to teaching sustainability studies at every level of the school / college system AND to include mandatory exams on the subject. So – Brazil has embraced the language that PCI originally offered to the UN for “inclusion of sustainability studies in the assessed curriculum of all schools at all grade levels.” This is good as, with the Brazilian example and UNESCO’s support for it, we can now work hard on getting every other UN Member State Minister for Education to introduce it.

231. We encourage Member States to promote Sustainable Development awareness among youth, inter alia, by promoting programmes for non-formal education in accordance with the goals of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.

This is a cute little paragraph that neatly promotes PCI’s assertion that non-formal teaching about Sustainability is more effective than class-room cognitive teaching on the subject. It has an interesting history: in most of the Road to Rio+20 Youth Prepcoms, the need for non-formal education came up everywhere. So – when the youth arrived in Rio and found nothing about it in the text, they asked the Co-Chairs of the Drafting Group if they could introduce this new language. The Co-Chairs gave them an hour to persuade the government delegates – and a team of about ten youth went to work, persuading almost everyone – except the Algerian leader of the G-77 – who was concerned about any kind of education that took place outside the classroom. 

The Girl Guides and Scouts pointed out that some of the best learning happens for them outside the classroom – and finally, he threw up his hands in despair and agreed to the inclusion of the language.

So this is one example of how, against all the odds, the youth got one small change into the language of the Rio+20 outcome statement. It is one we can, and must, build upon to ensure that non-formal education about sustainability is given the profile it needs to ensure that youth groups every where take the time to learn about it – long after the much derided UNESCO Decade for ESD is well-forgotten.

A blog about what the Outcome statement left out about the Youth Concerns – would be a much longer document than this one about what was left in. Obviously, we were disappointed that nothing about Sexual preferences was included. Nothing about the Ombudsperson for Future Generations; nothing about peace or de-militarisation or nuclear disarmament – self-evidently the foundation of sustainable development. And no sense of urgency – no road map for key commitments on the elimination of harmful subsidies etc. If you want to see my roasting of the UN and Government performance at Rio+20, read my blog at: http://dwrio-2012blog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/rio-20-much-worse-than-copenhagen-un.html - or for a more measured, but equally hostile, reaction, read the ANPED Switch on Rio+20 at: http://www.anped.org/index.php?part=728

But what was included does give us agreements to work with – especially in the key areas of youth job creation, and education for sustainable development. Rather than wring our hands in despair about what was NOT there, we should capitalize upon what is included – and work with it to make good on our governments’ promises.