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| SHSviews 17 |
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| UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Sector Magazine |
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| Dossier: Young People – Making Tomorrow’s World / Interview with Dick Wathika: “Racism hampers development” / Social Transformations: New phase for UNESCO’s MOST programme – June-September 2007 (English | Français | Русский) |
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 Emphasizing youth as a commitment to sustainable development
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!”
Such were the words of the English poet William Wordsworth, recalling in 1804 his enthusiastic response to the first tremors of the French Revolution.
For the young should have a future open like a vast page still to be written. The young will be the bearers of what is emerging today. They will claim ownership of, or suffer under, what today is being transformed. Yet by no means all live their present as the promise of a radiant future.
In developing countries, where 85 % of the world’s youth live, the horizon is often darkened by hunger, by war, and by lack of access to education, health and culture. Even in the more peaceful and prosperous countries, young people are anxious.
How can a better world be dreamed up when 43% of 15 to 24 year olds survive on less than 2 dollars a day? When they will be mature adults, in less than two decades, having grown up with bellies filled with anger – for want of other food –, who will be building peace through education, science and culture? Young people are, on the whole, excluded from political and economic power. Will their elders, whose ever longer retirement they will have had to fund, bequeath them but a catastrophically damaged environment?
Let no one see young people as troublemakers in an ageing world. There are two forms of paternalism that should be avoided: giving young people what they demand, and deciding for them what they need. Rather than worrying about a “war” between generations, it is time to emphasize the many forms of solidarity that cut across age and generation. Solidarity is evolving, undoubtedly. But why should it not deepen as it is transformed?
We need innovative approaches. We need to build tomorrow’s world with young people, by giving them a seat in the forums that will shape it.
So they dress differently? Speak differently? Don’t know the etiquette? Get impatient and demanding? And a good thing too! It is precisely because young people have something different to say that we should listen to them and work with them.
UNESCO’s commitment to this led to the creation in 1999 of the UNESCO Youth Forum. The Forum, which is unique in the United Nations system, is an integral part of the Organization’s General Conference. And UNESCO has emphasized that what is at stake is to build tomorrow’s world together by locating its work on youth in the Sector for Social and Human Sciences, and specifically at the heart of the programme on the management of social transformations.
In its work at the interface between social science and policy, the Sector for Social and Human Sciences (SHS) emphasizes that knowledge and action must necessarily be co-produced. In this respect, the 8th session of the MOST Intergovernmental Council, which will meet from 16 to 18 July, will provide a fresh impetus. And the lessons to be drawn from current activities apply very directly to youth issues.
Employment, health, education, culture, mobility, housing, family life, fundamental rights, violence, the environment: there is no issue of concern to young people that is not effectively an issue for all. And no development policy can be designed or implemented without young people. In the coming months, recognizing this and working in conjunction with Member States and youth organizations, SHS will be developing a strategy to support youth policy development.
Pierre Sané
Assistant Director-General
for Social and Human Sciences
This issue of SHSviews covers topical issues from June to September 2007:- Dossier: Young People – Making Tomorrow’s World
Since young people are not only the builders of tomorrow’s world but first and foremost actors in today’s world, UNESCO has for some time now made it a priority for young people to participate in choosing what will concern them in the future, because in less than twenty years, nine out of ten young people will be living in developing countries.
In the United Nations, the UNESCO Youth Forum is the only one of its kind. It began in 1999 and has since become an integral part of the Organization’s General Conference.
In the recent decision to bring youth activities closer to its Social and Human Sciences programme, UNESCO has moved on to a new stage. Through this approach, the Organization hopes it will not only help young people obtain the right tools for developing their potential, but also contribute to the development of public policies that will give more thought to the needs of the most marginalized groups of young people. See this dossier for further examples [PDF]
- Interview with Dick Wathika: “Racism hampers development”
From the urgent need to halt the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa, through empowerment of women, to fostering economic and social development in Africa, the Mayor of Nairobi, Kenya, reveals to SHS Views his observations on the struggle of the brand new African Coalition of Cities against Racism and Discrimination. More … [PDF]
- Social Transformations: New phase for UNESCO’s MOST programme
UNESCO’s Management of Social Transformations (MOST) programme is the only United Nations programme tasked with contributing to public policy development in order to face today’s changing world through research in the social sciences and as such, MOST might be said to be the crossing point between the two.
From 16 to 18 July next, the 8th session of the Intergovernmental Council, responsible for the programme’s implementation, should indeed mark a new stage in the reshaping of the MOST programme. As soon as the session opens, there will be a round table of Ministers for Social Development from several regions of the world. More … [PDF]
Also in SHS Views N° 17 [PDF]:
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