October 2015

Feature Article


Spotlight

Building Bridges presents outcomes in New York

Building Bridges presents outcomes in New York

After 20 countries, 1,500 liters of water, and six months of cycling, UN Youth Delegates Jilt van Schayik and Teun Meulepas arrived in Cape Town. Last month they were invited to present the outcomes of the project during the United Nations General Assembly and the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit. They launched a booklet “Human Voices Behind the Global Goals” and presented the outcomes to rooms filled with high-level actors and received an UN award for their contributions. Check out their Facebook page for more infomation! More


UN Entities Highlighted News

ILO: Youth employment crisis easing but far from over

ILO: Youth employment crisis easing but far from over

The global youth unemployment rate has stabilized at 13 per cent following a period of rapid increase between 2007 and 2010 but it is still well above the pre-crisis level of 11.7 per cent, according to the ILO’s Global Employment Trends for Youth 2015 report. The report highlights a drop in the number of unemployed youth to 73.3 million in 2014. That is 3.3 million less than the crisis peak of 76.6 million in 2009. In this video, the ILO presents the highlights of the report. More

 

 

 

OSGEY: 193 Youth Representatives join Malala Yousafzai at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit!

OSGEY: 193 Youth Representatives join Malala Yousafzai at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit!

193 Youth Representatives from around the world participated in the historic moment of the adoption of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Organized by the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth (OSGEY) and the Office of the Special Advisor of the Secretary-General on Post-2015 Development Planning, the 193 young people joined world leaders and Nobel Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai for “A once-in-a-life-time opportunity,” according to Ahmad Alhendawi, the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. More

ICMYO holds Annual Meeting alongside the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York

ICMYO holds Annual Meeting alongside the UN Sustainable Development Summit in New York

The International Coordination Meeting of Youth Organizations (ICMYO), the network of the world’s largest youth-led and youth-serving organizations, held its Annual Meeting alongside the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York. The member organization representatives who participated in the meeting discussed ICMYO’s role in the many youth-related processes taking place at the United Nations, as well as the implementation of the SDGs, in which youth organizations will play a critical role.

 

PLURAL+ 2015: Save the Date!

PLURAL+ 2015: Save the Date!

PLURAL+ 2015 has selected its three international jury winners from the Philippines, Belgium and Canada. Over 20 partner organizations have also selected the winning videos. The festival and awards ceremony, to be held on 3 December 2015 at The Paley Center for Media in New York, will feature a day of workshops, panel discussions, an awards ceremony and reception honouring all winners of PLURAL+ 2015. More information can be found here.

UNDP: #Generation2030: Youth as Torchbearers for the SDGs

UNDP: #Generation2030: Youth as Torchbearers for the SDGs

During the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in September, UNDP co-hosted a youth-led High Level Event on the Role of Youth in the Implementation and Monitoring of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator, joined young people, high-level member state representatives, civil society organisations and the UN Youth Envoy in an interactive discussion on the role of youth in shaping the SDGs and a call to action on youth leadership and participation in their translation, implementation and monitoring. More

 

UNDP Bangladesh: Building Confidence Amongst Youth in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

UNDP Bangladesh: Building Confidence Amongst Youth in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

In Bangladesh’s Chittagong Hill Tracts, a culturally diverse region marked by years of conflict, frequently between ethnic groups, UNDP has introduced the “Martial Arts Camp and Sports for Peace Program”. In partnership with the European Union, Sweden, Denmark, Japan and the United States, and as part of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Facility, the workshops provide an opportunity for young people to interact with diverse groups within the community, promoting a greater understanding of different ethnicities and cultural practices. More

UNDP Philippines: Stand Up, Speak Out! Forum on Creating a Disaster Resilient and Empowered Youth

UNDP Philippines: Stand Up, Speak Out! Forum on Creating a Disaster Resilient and Empowered Youth

Representatives of different national and local youth organizations and school-based associations expressed their desire to have a voice in the fight against climate change and to contribute in disaster risk reduction in a manifesto signed during a UNDP-sponsored forum on creating a disaster resilient and empowered youth held on 7 September 2015. The objective of the initiative is to raise awareness among school and out-of-school youths on disaster preparedness and how to become resilient during times of disaster. More

 

UNEP: Massive Open Online Course on Marine Litter- 26 October 2015

UNEP: Massive Open Online Course on Marine Litter- 26 October 2015

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in cooperation with the Open University of the Netherlands, launched a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Marine Litter. The MOOC has been created in order to stimulate leadership and offers opportunities for actionable and change-oriented learning related to marine litter within the framework of the Global Partnership on Marine Litter. The course will start on 26 October and is open for registration. Students can choose to enrol in the leadership track for a two-week course and then continue to an eight-week expert track. If you wish to enrol, please click here. For further inquiries, please send email to gpa@unep.org.

UNEP: Rally Supports Pope’s Call for Moral Action on Climate Justice

UNEP: Rally Supports Pope’s Call for Moral Action on Climate Justice

Thousands gathered outside the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. to watch Pope Francis address a joint meeting of Congress. The “Moral Action on Climate Justice Rally” featured an all-star lineup of musicians, religious leaders and climate activists. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) took to the stage and echoed the Pope’s call to care for the planet, and highlighted the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit and the United Nations Climate Change Conferences as pivotal moments for leaders to address the most pressing issue of our time. More

UNICEF and Partners Agree on a Set of Indicators to Monitor Adolescent Development and Well-being

UNICEF and Partners Agree on a Set of Indicators to Monitor Adolescent Development and Well-being

UNICEF is facilitating the development of a results framework and a proposed set of indicators that will provide a common platform to identify, measure and track the progress of adolescent development and well-being across a variety of sectors and domains including health, education, protection, livelihoods and participation. These indicators will form the basis of a tool that will incorporate core policy and programme elements, and will build on and strengthen existing adolescent initiatives, and support advocacy and action at global, regional and national levels. More

 

 

 

UNV: 2015 National Volunteer Awards Kick Off in Viet Nam

UNV: 2015 National Volunteer Awards Kick Off in Viet Nam

United Nations Volunteers (UNV) and the Central Youth Union are bringing the National Volunteer Awards (NVA) in line with the global debate by devising special awards to highlight volunteer activities in the areas of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is an annual initiative that started in 2011, organized by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union in collaboration with the UNV program in Viet Nam. The NVA 2015 applications will be open from 1-31 October 2015. Internet voting will be available from 11-20 November 2015 and the award ceremony is planned on 5 December 2015, International Volunteer Day. For more information, please visit NVA official website. More

ECLAC: Sub-regional workshop on youth policies

ECLAC: Sub-regional workshop on youth policies

On 1-2 September 2015, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) organized a training workshop in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic for representatives from national youth entities in the Central American region. The Vice President of the Dominican Republic, Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, gave the inaugural address at the workshop. The aim of the workshop was to strengthen the capacity of countries in the region to revert processes of violence and social exclusion that affects youth through increased access to information and policy recommendations focused on improving institutional response to promote youth social inclusion. More

 

 

 

MTV and UNICEF launch Shuga Season 4

MTV and UNICEF launch Shuga Season 4

MTV Staying Alive Foundation has partnered with UNICEF and others to take Shuga into its fourth season, a 360 degree mass media campaign that addresses the challenges and excitement of young love and relationships. Created in 2009, Shuga was based in Nairobi for the first two seasons and starred Kenyan actress, Lupita Nyong’o. The third series of Shuga (2013) moved the action to Nigeria, engaging authentic Nigerian voices to paint a new picture of the continent on the global stage. More


Youth in Action

UNOY Peacebuilders: Youth Action Agenda to prevent violent extremism and promote peace calls on stakeholders to partner with youth

UNOY Peacebuilders: Youth Action Agenda to Prevent Violent Extremism and Promote Peace calls on stakeholders to partner with youth

On 28 September 2015, the U.S. State Department co-hosted the Global Youth Summit Against Violent Extremism in partnership with the Counter Extremism Project, and Search for Common Ground. More than 100 young people from 44 countries involved in preventing and countering violent extremism were joined by over 300 policy-makers, business leaders and youth specialists. The outcome document was entirely written by young people under the coordination of the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY Peacebuilders) and supported by Search for Common Ground. The Youth Action Agenda highlights what youth are doing in the field and how other stakeholders can support their efforts. The Youth Action Agenda was presented at the Leaders’ Summit by a young woman from Somalia.

Publications

ILO: Global Employment Trends for Youth 2015: Scaling up investments in decent jobs for youth

ILO: Global Employment Trends for Youth 2015: Scaling up investments in decent jobs for youth

The Global Employment Trends for Youth 2015 provides an update on key youth labour market indicators and trends, focusing both on the continuing labour market instability and on structural issues in youth labour markets. The report offers valuable lessons learned on “what works” for youth employment and on emerging practices in policy responses. Ideally, these will shape future investments in youth employment, as countries continue to prioritize youth in their national policy agendas.

ILO: What do you know about First Job programmes and policies in Latin America?

ILO: What do you know about First Job programmes and policies in Latin America?

Youth in Latin America and the Caribbean face especially difficult labour conditions, which are reflected in their high rates of unemployment and informal employment. This ILO report analyzes recent experiences with first job policies and programmes in Latin America and the Caribbean with a view to contributing to the development of improved public policies in the region. It explores first job initiatives which include internship contracts, training programmes, hiring subsidies and special employment arrangements for youth.

 

 

 


Disclaimer

Reference herein to any organization, view, or event is intended for explicit description only and does not constitute or imply endorsement or recommendation by the United Nations, or anyone else.

© 2013 Copyright, DSPD Focal Point on Youth