Notre déléguée ONU pour le développement durable, Diane Delava a prononcé un discours ce vendredi 13 juillet lors du HLPF (High Level Political Forum for Sustainable Development), afin de mettre en avant l’importance d’ une meilleure inclusion des jeunes en matière de développement durable.
Voici l’intégralité de son discours:
Honorable Chair,
Distinguished delegates,
Thank you for giving me the floor.
I am a UN Youth Delegate from Belgium. With my colleague, we are an example of partnerships between youth councils and our governments.It is our role to engage with and represent young Belgians on the topic of sustainable development.
Using online surveys and social media, we are able to conduct consultations and hear views from diverse communities of young people from across the country. However, it’s impossible to say that everyone is represented. There are barriers that continue to limit truly inclusive engagement of all stakeholders. Marginalized youth are not easily reached. And this is where we proactively took a step forward to leaving no one behind. We have set up partnerships with organizations to ensure that the whole youth population is included.
Taking this issue of youth involvement to an international level, here at the HLPF, only approximately 10 delegations officially have youth delegates. We encourage every country to include young people as part of their delegations to the HLPF, as sustainable development is the most pressing issue of our time.
Fresh ideas, openness to change, and a dose of boldness in our actions are needed if we want to achieve the SDGs. One way to do this is by including your youth within the VNRs as co-pen holders and co-presenters, similar to what Belgium did last year. We encourage you to work with your youth to collect and gather the data and information needed; and include them to help enhance your political systems.
Reach out to us, stop thinking of us as the future and start thinking of us as the present, too. Not one of us is as capable as all of us together.