At the European Development Days, several leading development and youth organisations came together to organise a session on Young Voices for Inclusive Governance. The panel included two young people, Luciano from Brazil and Jennifer from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who in this Voices & Views have shared their thoughts on why listening to the voice of today’s youth is important.
Jennifer Mwenyi is 16 years old and the President of the Child Parliament in Nsele in the province of Kinshasa, DRC. She came to the European Development Days (EDDs) “to ensure that the voice of the young people in the DRC is heard during this big event, because in the majority of cases where decisions are taken regarding youth we are not consulted / included.”
As the elected President of the Child Parliament in Nsele, Jennifer represents 400 members; 40 members for each of the 10 neighbourhoods comprised within the parliament. It’s not an easy job, she tells us. The Parliament meets for plenary sessions every Sunday dealing with cases of raped children and other difficult situations where they need to intervene. She reminds us that, as a child and student, she depends still on her parents and may need to ask permission in order to go and defend cases or to visit the police station. However, “when you enjoy something you do it with love and then it’s ok, it’s not difficult.”
In the following video Jennifer speaks about one of the examples of youth that the parliament was able to help. You can read about another example in her blog.
Jennifer went on to explain that at the local level, the Children’s Parliament has some influence and receives support. However, at the provincial and national level this is not the case. They receive more support from international organisations, such as World Vision and Caritas International, than from their own government. To bring youth participation to the provincial level will require structure, she said. “At the regional level we don’t yet have a structure in place for youth representation. If there was we would easily arrive at the provincial level.” This is something she would also like to see translated to the international level.
As well as speaking on the panel on youth governance, Jennifer was also one of the youth ambassadors for the EDDs. Like her fellow ambassadors Esther and Restanti, she too attended one of the high-level sessions on a subject close to her heart: peace and security. There she asked the question “What are the strategies put in place by the EU to guarantee sustainable peace and security of children and youth in post armed conflict countries, like the DRC.” However, Jennifer was not satisfied with the reply. “I wanted to know about preventative measures rather than intervention measures. What are they doing to prevent this happening?” She asked. This is something that she would like to see addressed as a priority in the post-2015 development agenda: “because it’s better to prevent than to heal.”
Luciano Frontelle is 23 years and is a Member of the Brazilian Youth Coalition for Post-2015. As well as governance, his main areas of interest are climate change and poverty. “Youth represents 87% of the population across developing countries, practically half of the world population,” he explained. “If we don’t include these people, I don’t know if the decisions that are being taken have as much relevance as they should have, nor if they will mean anything to the people who will end up suffering their consequences.”
Luciano went on to elaborate that decisions regarding our future are being taken now, therefore youth also needs to be consulted now as opposed to after the fact. However, he believes that governments are too timid and are not doing enough to include youth in the decision making process: “we have the capacity, we have the resources, we have the people for this. But we simply don’t have the courage.”
Luciano is also active in the climate change debate. In 2012 he took part in Rio+20 and currently he’s part of a movement of Latin American and Caribbean youth who are campaigning to be included in the 20th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which will take place in Peru later this year. In the following video he explains the problem of climate change communication in his home country, Brazil.
Looking to the future, Luciano has strong opinions on what needs to change. “I ask myself until when will we have debates looking at post this date, post that date?” Luciano feels that many of these large conferences, events and debates that are meant to decide future policy lack decision-making and clarity over nations’ political positions. “What are the EU’s commitments to the post-2015 debate?” asks Luciano. “What we have today are agreements but governments are not legally bound by what they decide. It’s voluntary.” Luciano would also like to see policy decisions translated into a language that speaks to the average person. Young or old, they need to understand what is happening and Luciano would like to see them included in the decision making process that will decide their future.
