Enabling youth engagement and empowerment featured image

Enabling youth engagement and empowerment

By Marco Obiso, Head, ITU Cybersecurity Division and Acting Chief, Digital Network Society Department

The world today is home to around 1.8 billion young people between the ages of 10 and 24, with close to 90 per cent of them living in developing countries. This is the largest generation of youth in history.

Youth voices, therefore, ought to be reflected and amplified in the world’s digital development dialogue. The time is now.

Last September, during the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, UN Secretary‑General António Guterres presented Our Common Agenda, aimed at accelerating actions to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by the UN and endorsed by countries worldwide for 2030.

A key focus of Our Common Agenda is on younger generations. To achieve the SDGs, we must keep listening to and working with diverse youth across the world.

The Generation Connect initiative, launched just over a year ago, engages global youth and encourages their participation as equal partners alongside the leaders of today’s digital change. Generation Connect forms the overarching initiative in the Youth Strategy of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN tech agency.

Young people need to be empowered with the digital skills and opportunities to advance their vision of a connected future. What prompted the launch of the initiative in November 2020 was the conviction that ITU could give young people a valuable platform and real opportunities to become empowered and engaged.

Making headway

At the initiative’s first anniversary celebration, Doreen Bogdan‑Martin, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau, recalled the upbeat feeling of the initiative launch even as the pandemic cast a pall over the world.

“One year ago,” she said, “we joined hands with a group of enthusiastic young people with limitless energy and launched the Generation Connect initiative to ensure young people have a seat at the table to shape the digital development agenda for present and future generations. Let’s make sure they’re empowered, engaged and participating in our mission to build an inclusive and sustainable digital future.”

Discussions and activities through Generation Connect now enable youth to participate in the advancement of the global digital development agenda for present and future generations.

As early adopters, young people are uniquely placed to harness the power of digital technologies, which can enhance education, reduce youth unemployment, and promote social and economic development.

Early adopters and active users

In 2020, an estimated 71 per cent of the world’s youth (aged between 15 and 24 years) were using the Internet, compared with 57 per cent in other age groups. On the global scale, young people are therefore more likely to connect than the rest of the population, despite the numerous barriers to connectivity across the world.

Still, we must remember that almost 760 million of the world’s youth aged 15–24 lack any Internet connection at home.

As we further youth engagement in ITU’s events, projects, and programmes regionally and globally, we must persist in our commitment to connecting the unconnected.

Vital support and engagement

The world was — and still is — facing critical challenges, including a global pandemic, economic contractions, and climate change. Young people are disproportionately affected.

At least 90 per cent of youth have experienced some degree of disruption in their education during the COVID‑19 pandemic.

Throughout its first year, the initiative has gained momentum thanks to the ongoing input of member countries and companies, the ITU Youth Task Force, the Generation Connect Visionaries Board and Regional Youth Groups, and, of course, all the young people who are engaging with this initiative.

We look forward to many more years of impactful and meaningful youth engagement at ITU. We must move forward with optimism, provide inspiring leadership, and continue to mobilize the energy, resources, and support to empower and engage youth in the digital development dialogue.

Image credit: Michael Blomqvist via Pexels

This article first appeared in ITU News Magazine No.6: Digital Youth

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