In order to help you understand a little bit more about why we are at the World Youth Conference let me explain a little bit more about how the conference is set up and what the outcome of the conference will be.- Governments forum: From Wednesday (25th) to Friday (27th), 47 ministers of youth and education from around the world and 103 government delegations will meet to discuss a high-level declaration around the 11 themes of the conference (see below). The final declaration will be presented for countries to sign at the next UN General Assembly.
- NGO forum: To ensure youth participation in the process, 400 young people (two per country) have been selected to meet for two days to drafting recommendations for what should be included in the declaration. This meeting takes place on Monday (23rd) and Tuesday (24th). There are a number of IPPF youth representatives from across the Federation who are a part of this.
- Global Interactive Forum: This is open to the general public and includes 270 parallel sessions (round tables, youth dialogues, lectures and workshops) on the 11 themes of the conference as well as an exhibition hall and cultural activities.
What are the 11 themes of the conference? They are as follows:
1. Poverty
2. Education
3. Health
4. Employment
5. Gender equality
6. Technology and innovation
7. Culture
8. Access to justice and security
9. Participation
10. Sustainable development
11. International Migration
What stage is the Declaration at? A draft of the Government Declaration has already been prepared by the Mexican Government and has been reviewed by the UN. Even though it is still in a draft state, it has already been subject to a lot of lobbying and change. For example, in one of the latest rounds of changes, a key paragraph on young people’s right to access sexual and reproductive health services was recently removed. Text on sexuality education is still in the draft but is one area that is being strongly objected to. Therefore, the negotiations and advocacy work over the next few days are important!
What has happened so far: Each day of the Conference has a theme. Monday’s theme was “poverty and international migration”. However, given the poor state of organisation for the conference so far, no programme for these sessions currently exists (though one did finally go up online after lunch!). And for those involved in activities at the Global Interactive Forum, most of the morning was spent registering! However, the teething problems seem to be being ironed out!
Turning some heads: In order to create a bit more noise in the chaos that is the Global Interactive Forum and to raise the issue of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), we organised a short flash mob demonstration at lunchtime, spelling out the initials “CSE” and “ESI” (Spanish for CSE!) with our bodies whilst some statements about how important it is were read out in English and Spanish to the groups who gathered around us. Apart from it drawing the obvious crowd, a lot of people started asking questions about CSE which is no bad thing!!
Looking ahead: Today is the health day and IPPF have four sessions scheduled including:
- “Love life and HIV” screening: young people living with HIV sharing their experiences, dreams and desires for the future. This will be followed by three of those featured in the video talking about their own experiences and taking questions from the audience.
- Exclaim: Youth perspectives on sexual rights. This youth dialogue will bring together young people from various regions to discuss what sexual rights mean to young people and how to translate these rights into concrete actions.
- A training workshop on sexual rights, HIV and advocacy for young people by young people.
- Young People: autonomy and confidentiality in health services
This is the day that will focus most of the sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people. I’m looking forward to it!
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