GLOCAL FORUM PRESENTATION

UN HABITAT EXPERT GROUP MEETING ON STRATEGIES FOR CREATING URBAN YOUTH EMPLOYMENT : Solution for Urban Youth in Africa

I - Glocal Forum experience on youth and governance

1. Glocal Forum The Glocal Forum is a Non-Governmental Organization created in 2001 working for a new balance between global and local forces by emphasizing the central role of cities in the world. Our vision, glocalization, is an innovative strategy focusing on global issues by empowering local communities. It is a reform of globalization that encourages global powers to have a broader respect for local powers and cultural diversity. Led by its president, Ambassador Uri Savir, the Glocal Forum promotes peacebuilding and development activities through city-to-city relationships, youth empowerment and information communication technology.

The Glocal Forum believes that cities have a central role in international relations and that mayors are poised to become the new diplomats of our world. City leaders have the advantage of mobilizing the good will, energy and expertise of their civil societies to contribute to peaceful dialogue and cultural exchange.

The organization supports city-to-city networks by connecting them to the resources of the private and public sector. The Glocal Forum utilizes this global coalition of international organizations and private sector companies to harness resources and address local needs.

A primary goal of city-to-city cooperation is to build an environment in which divisions caused by conflict and hatred can be bridged with harmony and coexistence. The Glocal Forum uses the city- to-city model as a fresh approach to brokering peace in the Middle East. Through the organization, a shared vision for a more cooperative future was developed between the mayors of Nablus, Palestine and Rishon Le’ Zion, Israel. Working with the Glocal Forum, the mayors are working to incorporate joint projects that will breakdown barriers and build up their communities. The bridging of divides between groups in conflict is also being implemented through city-to-city projects with Delhi and ; Sarajevo, Belgrade and ; and and Asmara.

In the area of development, the city-to-city approach was used to create a resource-sharing relationship between and . Through this partnership, programs of cooperation have been established to meet the development needs of the post-conflict city in the areas of food security, technological training, and municipal capacity-building. Mayors from both cities work together to involve their communities in these programs.

2. GYP and Urban Agenda Glocal Forum, has initiated a Glocal Youth Parliament (GYP) as a global-local vehicle for youth empowerment. The GYP mobilizes youth from cities around the world to develop an Urban Agenda for 2020 and serve as a youth-led lobby in advocating this agenda locally and globally. Through this initiative, the Glocal Forum facilitates communication between young people and their mayors towards increasing their influence in decision-making processes relating to the pressing issues facing their communities and the world both now and in the future. Nowadays, a hundred youths from more than fifty cities from all the areas of the world. In the coming months, the membership will be expanded especially to conflict and post conflict areas in order to foster youth debate and facilitate grassroots peacebuilding initiatives on the ground. The Glocal Youth Parliament has been established with the following broad-based goals: • To build and support a global network of youth from cities around the world for setting tomorrow’s urban agenda and serving as a youth-led lobby in advocating this agenda locally and globally. • To forge lines of communication between youth and their Mayors, acting as a catalyst for the increased participation of young people in local government and consideration of their views among policy makers. • To empower youth in affecting positive social change in their local communities through personal skill enhancement, access to information and global network activity. • To create a ‘Vision 2020’ movement as a tool for mobilizing a critical mass of youth from around the world to articulate their desires and concerns for the future as a basis for policy analysis and advocacy.

The idea of GYP presents a unique opportunity for the youth to express their ambitions for the development of their city in the year 2020. This collective vision for the future which is presented to the mayors at the annual Conferences, is called the Urban Agenda for 2020. The first GYP delegates were selected from thousands of contestants in an international essay competition on the topic: “My City in 2020—and how it will relate to the world” conducted through the world’s leading free newspaper, Metro International. A total of forty-two winning essays were chosen from among those submitted, one male and one female from each participating city (ages 14-18). Winners were invited as delegates to the first convening of the Glocal Youth Parliament in Rome from May 10-13, 2002, taking place in conjunction with the Forum’s First Annual Glocalization Conference (May, 2002). GYP members have been chosen for a term of three years per member.

The Glocal Forum is expanding the VISION for 2020 concept, aiming to magnify its value and impact by reaching a critical mass of youth around the world. Towards this aim, the Forum will encourage large numbers of youth from different regions of the world to articulate their visions for the city in 2020 through the youth movement under the banner of Glocal Youth Assembly (GYA). The assembly accounts for hundreds of members from all over the world, who are supporting the Urban Agenda 2020.

The GYPs meet twice a year. In May, all the members of the Parliament come together for the Annual Glocal Youth Parliament Conference, which happens in concurrence with the meeting of the mayors. Then, the Think Tank members, representatives for every GYP working group meet during the year for the Biannual to summarize the progress and to plan future initiatives.

3. WAF An innovative approach: holistic, sustained, integrated, decentralized Today, one billion children under the age of 18 live in conflict afflicted countries. In the past decade alone, 2 million children have died as a consequence of conflict and war, a further 6 million have been injured or disabled, and 12 million have been made homeless. That is a total of 20 million children whose lives have been affected by conflict. Conflict breaks down the social fabric of afflicted societies, and, as a consequence, the basic needs of children are ignored. We Are the Future (WAF) is a worldwide effort designed to assist children in conflict and post-conflict areas by addressing these basic needs through programs in health, nutrition, and education (through ICT, sports and arts), and to enhance development and peacebuilding activities that will help heal the wounds of conflict. The core of the program is the creation of six child centers in municipalities of six pilot cities, where more than 100 youth (aged 16 to 20) will be trained to work with over 1,000 children in these areas. The cites are : Addis Ababa, Asmara, , , Kigali, Nablus, (Rishon Le’ Zion)

Municipal Capacity Building: City-to-City Cooperation Each We Are the Future city will be paired with one or more partner cities, forging economic, cultural and personal ties between the municipalities. Partner cities will adopt WAF as a sustainable program in the framework of decentralized municipal activity, and will provide consistent support to the WAF Child Center. For example, the partnership between Rome (whose Mayor Mr. Walter Veltroni is a leading player in decentralized cooperation) and Kigali (whose Mayor Théoneste Mutsindashyaka is Chair of the WAF Advisory Board) is a model that will be replicated by other cities and has already led to several programs involving the respective civil societies.

Youth Empowerment The cornerstone of this initiative is the youth-to-child training approach, ensuring long-term benefits and sustainability to partner cities. Youth will be trained in the different sectors of WAF Child Center activity. Local delegates of the Glocal Youth Parliament, a joint World Bank Institute and Glocal Forum initiative for youth empowerment, will serve as the key agents for the child development strategy of WAF.

Peacebuilding Peacebuilding is an integral part of WAF, contributing to a climate of mutual understanding and tolerance through joint activities and peace education. Thus, not only will cities be coupled according to WAF city and partner city status, they will also be linked on the basis of past or current conflicts. Peacebuilding models between and within WAF cities will be developed, beginning with Nablus and Rishon Le’Zion, where the two cities will cooperate on peacebuilding activities related to youth and children.

We Are the Future Program Areas:

Nutrition/Micro-Agriculture WAF will facilitate the establishment of medium-sized crop gardens run by local youth. Youth will receive training in urban agriculture, hygiene and nutrition. The training will be led by the municipal agriculture departments and local experts in collaboration with partner cities and various international organizations, in particular, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The youth, in turn, will help local children set up small crop gardens and teach them about the importance of nutrition and hygiene.

Health The We Are the Future Health Program will provide services, training and care to children through mobile health clinics and youth-led awareness campaigns that spread information on key health issues. The mobile clinics will provide basic diagnosis and treatment for children such as HIV tests, immunizations and vitamins, health education, and medication for common childhood illnesses, and more complex services using telemedicine technologies.

Education Educational programs will span three sectors: Information Communication Technology (ICT), sports, and the arts.

ICT WAF Child Centers will house ICT labs equipped with computers and multimedia tools and programs for youth and children. Subsidiary programs of the ICT labs will train youth to instruct children in various areas such as nutrition and health, as well as the basic use of computer equipment. In turn, the young trainers will be empowered to instruct children using and hardware tools provided through the local school system. Curriculum, training and support will be provided in cooperation with World Links and with other private sector companies. Collaboration in the education and training will also be done within country activities financed by the World Bank.

Sports The Greenfields Sports project will create sports infrastructures such as soccer fields, basketball and volleyball courts, and playgrounds for children, and will organize events and games with a particular emphasis on peacebuilding activities by gathering youth from different backgrounds and sides of conflict. The project will also facilitate the creation of sports classes aimed at training youth aged 16 to 20 to become managers of sports infrastructure, teachers of physical education, coaches and referees empowered to pass on their skills other children in the community.

Arts The WAF Arts Unit gives children the opportunity to develop their talents and express their own cultures through artistic tools in areas such as music, painting, and theater, thereby contributing to their social and emotional development. Art has proven to be a critical tool for economic and psychological development as well as social cohesion. Opportunities to attend artistic events will be made available through local WAF Child Centers. In cooperation with local and international partners, tools and training seminars will be developed to facilitate the artistic and cultural expression of the children. An emphasis will be placed on joint performances and workshops in the arts to facilitate peacebuilding between children and youth on opposing sides of current or prior conflict

4. GYP integration with WAF

We Are the Future is the mechanism which lets the global focus on the local. This program is created for the youth; moreover, youth plays an active role in the creation and implementation of WAF. Glocal Youth Parliamentarians from around the globe, are the headliners of the WAF youth movement.

The GYPs in WAF cities are involved together with the Municipalities and the World Bank in the set up of WAF centers, they recruit WAF Youth Corps, implement awareness-raising actions to promote WAF and coordinate with their peers around the world to support WAF. The role of GYPs in WAF cities, Kabul, Nablus, Freetown, Asmara, Addis Ababa, and Kigali is impossible to overestimate. They are the crucial links between WAF, municipality, World Bank and of course the Glocal Forum. The WAF Youth Corps will be trained by the experts selected by each sector –Nutrition, sport, art, health, ICT- and/or by distance education through the WAF telecenters. The youth will undergo a training program of several months, that will take under consideration school/job commitments of each, by creating a rotating system. Once the training of the Youth Corps is completed and the target children identified, the youth-to- children training activity can finally take place. Youth Corps will train identified children according the sector, both within the WAF centers (for instance, street children) and in existing structures, such as schools and other assets offered by the Municipality. The training program will last for several months. Upon graduating from their role, and giving way to the next generation of Youth Corp volunteers, the original Youth Corps will continue to meet once in a while to strengthen the coordinating process, which will be led by the GYP delegates.

GYPs from all cities will be involved in WAF in the following key concepts: global dialogue, fund- raising, global awareness, fund-raising, continuity, solidarity, caring support and encouragement. Their main aim throughout the year would be to bring global attention to the local issues of the WAF city, their team is working on. Their goal would be to tell the world “care!” GYPs are the driving force in recruitment of WAF Youth Corps. Together with the Municipality they set up the criteria for the youth, and carry out the recruitment.

GYPs are actively involved in the campaign to raise awareness about WAF. GYPs in WAF cities have been carrying out inter-school contests and press conferences in order to promote WAF. Furthermore they have participated in teleconferences with other Youth activists around the world, where they had a chance to present WAF.

II – Good practice and lessons learned

1. GYP concrete activities

a. Local activity The slogan of GYP is “act locally think globally”. Hence, throughout the years, members of GYP have committed to carrying out local projects. With the help of their municipalities, GYPs have been able to give back to their communities. Their activities involved anything from arts to ICT to helping underpriviledged children, to participating in the battle against HIV. Small local projects were fitted towards the needs of every particular community. For example in Asuncion, where thousands of people are killed annual in automobile accidents– Julio and Nelida organized a project to put up danger signs in mountainous areas. In Kigali Sangwa and Cynthia, organized a Youth Council – following in the steps of their GYP peers in , Dakar and Rishon Le’Zion, where Hadas is the chairwoman of the local youth council. In Addis Ababa, Makda has organized and participated in a variety of activities related to HIV/AIDs prevention. Our current GYP delegates are carrying out glocal activities in their cities. For example Jitka Vinduskovà, a delegate from Prague, is organizing a photo exhibition entitled “Xmas in Prague”. It will present a series of pictures showing how all the different minorities of the Czech Republic celebrate winter holidays. Bruno Aguirre has been helping with designing the GYP website, and Ditte Gregersen, GYP Delegate of Copenhagen, has been writing articles in both local and school news paper about her experience at the first GYP conference. Also, Rosalyn Yake and Mackay Taggart, both delegates of Toronto, have been in contact with their respective Metro office and have paved the way for a possible collaboration. Amina Omicevic is now taking part in an exchange in Connecticut, in the framework of the Rotary Club International Youth Exchange, and she has been developing a network to expand the concept of “Vision for 2020” and get the opinion of her peers through essays.

b. Global network GYPs are commited to sharing their local experiences with an international community. Furthermore, they are committed to spreading their work internationally. Extending their reach to the international youth audience involves creating youth councils abroad – like Talita from San Paolo, who after creating local and national Youth Councils have commited to creating such bodies all over South America, and has already created four. GYPs share their experiences in local project, through attending international conferences. Such as the Durban Conference attended by GYPs from Dakar, Kigali and Addis Ababa, or the Conference in Paris attended by Vanessa Colombier.

. International partnership Furthermore, in its global outreach GYP has created fruitful partnerships with international organizations. In February of this year an MOU was signed with UN Habitat, which focuses on inclusion of a GYP representation in the Interim Youth Committee in view of the establishment of the Youth Advisory Council to UN-Habitat, collaboration in events and activities aimed at advancing youth empowerment, including participation of GYP delegates, ongoing contribution to the elaboration of UN-Habitat policies in youth-related issues, recruitment of youth membership for the Glocal Youth Assembly at the local and global level, and spreading the “glocal message” with the purpose of including cities into the Glocal Forum network. In other areas, GYP has signed a memorandum and is now working with Development Gateway. GYP is serving as guide on the Youth for Development website, which is a great tool used by hundreds of thousands users around the globe.

2. WAF implementation

a. Local activity GYPs have committed to spreading the message of WAF in their cities. Sandy from Honk Kong made a speech in her school and have distributed the flyers about We Are the Future all around the city. In WAF cities, GYPs have been energetically recruiting WAF Corps, which is the body of youth who will lead the WAF centers. Also in WAF cities, the GYPs have been creating imaginative ways to promote the movement. An example would be the inter-school contest organized by Sangwa Rwabuhihi, which increases the knowledge of underpriveledged kids in Kigali, and promotes WAF at same time. In Warsaw, Rafal and Malgosia are organizing an auction which will help sponsor a bridge between a WAF center and a Polish school.

b. Global network GYP will WAF a global movement, because with enthusiasm and the limited tools they have in their possession nothing is impossible. Through internet, public speaking and writing for Metro Newspapers around the globe, GYPs are spreading the “You are not alone” message of We Are the Future.

c. Partnership with municipalities During the Conference in Rome, GYPs have collectively asked for the support of their municipalities. Pierre in Lyon is in the process of establishing a partnership between his school and an orphanage in Kabul. In order to ensure the success of this initiative he has went as far as meeting with the mayor, who also promised his support. In Washington, April York is the youth mayor of the city and is working closely with the municipality.