Sunday 9 June 2013

Kenyan Youth Position Paper on Post-2015 Agenda



Kenyan Youth Position Paper on Post-2015 Agenda















BACKGROUDN  INFORMATION
The Kenyan Youth Position Paper on Post-2015 Agenda was developed during the Kenyan Youth Post2015 Synthesis Workshop in Nairobi, between 30th and 31st May, 2013 at YMCA –Kenya, organized by Organization of Africa Youth-Kenya.  The workshop had participants from 40 youth led and youth serving organizations.  The focus of the workshop was to create more awareness and enable broader youth participation in the Post-2015 Agenda, and release a Kenya Youth Position Paper on Post-2015 Agenda to feed into the National Report
The documents that were synthesized during the youth workshop included:
·        African Youth Declaration on Post-2015 Agenda
·        Recommendations from the Kenya consultation conducted by VSO and Restless Development
·        Outcome of the Monrovia Youth Roundtable
·        Communiqué of the Youth Session in Bali Meeting
·        Kenyan report of the online Africa Youth Survey on Post-2015- Specific Kenyan voices.
·        Millennium development goals : status report  for Kenya 2011 (by ministry of planning and Vision 2030)
·        Ageing in the Twenty-First Century: A Celebration and A Challenge (a report by UNFPA and HelpAge)



PREAMBLE
Youth comprise 75% of Kenya’s adult population and living in today’s complex and challenging times.  This group has diverse features such as urban and rural youth, youth with disabilities, youth from pastoralist communities, and youth in formal and informal employment, among others 

The majority of Kenyan youth continues to face challenges including but not limited to:  exclusion in development processes at national level; lack of skills or quality education; poverty and limited access to economic opportunities. At the same time, the National Youth Council has only been gazetted and not fully operationalized and branches established as per the devolved government as stipulated in the NYC Act. 

The processes towards a post 2015 agenda presents the opportunity for young people to achieve optimal functioning and it should be inclusive, integrating young people’s own account of their aspirations and values.
The new goals, targets and indicators should resonate with what is of most value to young people and should in fact be a natural follow-up on the current Vision 2030.

 The successes or failures of national implementing the post-2015 framework will be driven by young people as the main beneficiaries of the achievement of the goals.
This position paper presents the outcomes of the Kenya Youth Post-2015 Agenda Synthesis Workshop of 30th-31st May 2013 in Nairobi, bringing together young people representing youth organizations working in different parts of the country. These youth recommendations are to feed into the National Report by the government through the Ministry of Planning.

The underlying recommendation is that the outcomes of the framework be domesticated and made part of the national policy. The MDGs were taken as ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with the enforceability based on political will. 

OUR RECOMMENDATIONS

Governance and Participation
Empower the young people through training and capacity building to use social audits & community score cards for social accountability at the national and county level.

Create mentorship programmes for Youth Leaders in governance to promote integrity and ethical values. Promote intergeneration dialogue for the young to gain experiences and learn from the old people.
Support youth participation and representation in decision making processes including government structure, meetings, and in developing and implementing policies and programs and endeavor to partner with the youth as a prerequisite for sustainable development.  The government and citizens must put fight against corruption as a matter of priority and promote transparency, accountability and integrity 

Strengthen the youth organizations and leadership to lobby and advocate for good leadership and governance. Further strengthen the Kenya National Youth Council as a vehicle for youth empowerment with a clear strategic plan and adequate resources for implementation.
Information sharing with young people at the national and local level through ICT and meaningful civic education to promote meaningful participation in development processes.

Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship
Tap and harness young talents and innovations through organized and facilitated trainings, fairs and festivals. Encourage the youth through sharing of best practices and success stories.
Review the education system to make a shift from theory to practice by empowering the youth with technical skills and make it accessible and affordable to the poor. Education and policy awareness be made a point of focus.
Encourage the youth to shift from normal (formal) employment to green businesses and agricultural ventures. Civic education and incentives that make agriculture more attractive to youths should be adopted and promoted in rural areas and institutions of learning and research by the government. The government should also restructure cooperatives to make them more value oriented and enhance their ability to support youth agriculture through providing mentorship and resource based support to the youth. 

Revitalization and upgrading of the Youth Empowerment Centers to act as venues for youth socio-economic empowerment and marketing of government services to the youth.  The centers should  offer a one stop shop for youth activities and be managed in a seamless manner by the governments in collaboration with the Kenya National Youth Council officials and youth organizations.
Governments should provide transparent financial support to young people by enacting youth friendly policies that allow them to easily access credit and grants to establish businesses and self-employment initiatives.

Population Dynamics, Water and Health
Harness the opportunity of the Youth bulge for rapid economic growth and poverty reduction by implementing sound policies at each stage of the demographic transition. Promote development and investment at the county level to reduce rural-urban youth migration.

To promote specific policy floors for youth with disability, protect youth from vulnerabilities especially after disasters and establish health systems that are friendly to youth with special health needs
Design and implement policies that target STIs, HIV and AIDs related issues among the youth 

Ensure universal access to clean safe water for all people in rural and urban areas, and promote the sanitation of every household in the urban areas, especially slum dwellers, by ensuring that more piped and clean water is reaching all people, and creating an efficient drainage system, garbage collection and waste management in cities.

Enhance water harvesting and storage techniques in areas where rainfall takes place in various periods over the years.

Increase access to information and education on health issues for young people especially reproductive health care and reproductive health services for young women in both urban and rural. Medical insurance fund should be extended and affordable to young people for easier access to quality health delivery.

Climate Change and Environment
Develop a clear action plan on youth engagement in adaptation to climate change and environmental conservation. The youth to work hand in hand with the relevant government authorities to adopt and conserve specific local environmental resources including wildlife. 

Diversification of leadership and execution of implementable policies regarding climate change and environment

Coordinate research on climate change, translation of research information into languages that youth can understand and dissemination of the same to youth led organizations.

Government should avail drought resistant seeds to young farmers, issue fertilizers at subsidized costs, and encourage climate smart agriculture to ensure sustainable food production in Kenya.

Mainstream climate change and environmental issues in different ministries and establishing and facilitate climate justice systems within the courts.

The Post-2015 development agenda and Sustainable Development Goals: African CSOs Forum



We are glad to have taken part in African CSOs forum on Post 2015/SDGs and MDGs.

The event was orgnaised by UNEP and Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung on 6 and 7 June 2013 at Nairobi Safari Club in Nairobi.

The theme was  “The Post-2015 development agenda and Sustainable Development Goals: What roadmap beyond the Millennium Development Goals and Rio+20?” 

The aim of the  meeting was to  influence ongoing consultation on the SDGs and related to this process, the post-2015 development agenda.

The participants went through the High level panel report and the African Common position on Post 2015, criqueeing the two documents.

The main pounts made were;
THE HLP REPORT: Most targets and measure focus on quantities just as MDG targets, we need to have quality and quantity measures. 
We could use the framework of  human rights and its universality in designing the goals, development should be rights based.
Africa Common Position ; it lacks major issues raised during consultations such as;

Peace and security –will it include good governance
Social protection –(many Africans go to West to seek social protection)
Decent employment (though we have human development)-Arab revolution was about unemployment
Democracy and good governance

CSOs Concern : the unclear Process between June and September 2013

There will be no consultations as inter-governmental bodies take over
How will the CSOs take part?
How will CSOs defend some of the good recommendations, that may be ‘removed’ by inter-governmental processes
Eg The first meeting of AU after Rio had no CSO
African governments will have technical experts to synthesis CSO recommendations, this is high level decision making process, but participation of CSOs is not clear
This would a vague process since there is no provision for CSOs engagement or opportunity to defend some issues such as reproductive rights

Faces of Peace takes part in Kenyan Youth Post-2015 Synthesis Workshop


Faces of Peace took part in Kenyan Youth Post-2015 Synthesis  held on 30th-31st May 2013, at YMCA, Nairobi.




The documents that were synthesized during the youth workshop included:
  • African Youth Declaration on Post-2015 Agenda
  • Recommendations from the Kenya consultation conducted by VSO and Restless Development
  • Outcome of the Monrovia Youth Roundtable
  • Communiqué of the Youth Session in Bali Meeting
  • Report of the online Africa Youth Survey on Post-2015- Specific Kenyan voices.
  • Millennium development goals : status report  for Kenya 2011 (by ministry of planning and Vision 2030)’
  • Ageing in the Twenty-First Century: A Celebration and A Challenge (a report by UNFPA and HelpAge)

The conveners in consultations with other youth serving organizations selected various documents that formed the basis of the discussions, including the Kenyan 2011 MDG status report by the Ministry of Planning and Vision 2030. The Organization of African Youth-Kenya has also been running sms and social media based platforms that also offered raw data on youth views on Post 2015Agenda. Some of the feedbacks were obtained through Face Book and Twitter. 

During the workshop, the participants worked in panels/groups and securitized the documents to identify a trend of common emerging issues that are relevant to the Kenyan youth. Twitter Handle #kenyawewant was used to interact with other Kenyans and pass key messages
After the intense synthesis, the identified key issues were discussed and a draft document availed. The draft document was then subjected to analysis, debate and adjustments.  The outcome document was then validated as the Kenyan Youth position on Post 2015. 

The Kenyan Youth position on 2015 document will be fed into other formal process so as to enhance its value. These are:

  • Kenya National CSOs forum
  • Kenyan National Consultation on Post 2015

 





Monday 27 May 2013

Kenyan Youth Post-2015 Synthesis Workshop 30th-31st May 2013, Nairobi




Background information
OAYouth-Kenya and IYC-Kenya have partnered with Africa Monitor, Text for Change and other partners to implement a project to enable Kenyan youth participation in the post-2015 Agenda through the use of the new media, particularly crowd-sourcing, mobile technology and radio campaigning. We have established a mobile based e-platform to mobilize perspectives from a minimum of 15,000 youths in Kenya on the post-2015 agenda and make available regular information feeds about current debates related to the post-2015 global dialogue.  Young people can participate by sending an sms with the word POST2015 to 21222. The project was launched on 13th April 2013 in the University of Nairobi.
Several documents have been released detailing the aspirations of young people in regards to the Post-2015 Agenda. Notable ones include the African Youth Declaration on Post-2015 Agenda by OAYouth-Kenya and the report by VSO Jitolee from their youth consultation. Further the Government through the Ministry of Planning are conducting the national consultations with an aim of releasing a national report in June 2013. The CSOs are also consultation in order to feed their input to the government process.
In consultations with UN Agencies, CSOs, youth serving organizations and the Ministry of Planning and vision 2030, the need has emerged to have a Kenyan specific youth position that would address pertinent and key issues that affect young people and pull all the papers that have been drafted with different youth organizations with an aim to consolidate a one position paper that will feed to the National consultation taking place in June 3013. It is on this basis that the Organization of African Youth-Kenya, in partnership with various organizations, seeks to have Kenyan Youth Post-2015 Synthesis Workshop to engage and consult hence come up with the position paper.
Objectives of the Workshop
·         To assemble youth with experience in sustainable development and technical skills to synthesize the various documents on Post 2015 and based on their experiences.
·         To develop a consensus document that targets specific youth issues that will culminate into Kenyan Youth position on Post-2015 Agenda.
·         To strengthen partnership within Kenyan youth and youth serving organizations in the country to implement MDGs based projects.

Methodology
The Kenyan Youth Post2015 Synthesis Workshop will run for two days in Nairobi, between 30th and 31st May, 2013.  The workshop will have 70 participants. The breakdown of the participants is a follows:
  • Kenyan youths
  • Workshop conveners
  • Workshop partners
Workshop Matrix
The conveners in consultations with other youth serving organizations have selected various documents that will form the basis of the discussions, including the Kenyan 2011 MDG status report by the Ministry of Planning and Vision 2030. The documents will be sent to the analysts prior to the workshop. The Organization of African Youth-Kenya has also been running sms and social media based platforms that will also offer raw data on youth views on Post 2015Agenda
During the workshop, the particulates will work in panels/groups and securitize the documents to identify a trend of common emerging issues that are relevant to the Kenyan youth.
After the intense synthesis, the identified key issues will be discussed and a draft document availed. The draft document will then be subjected to analysis, debate and adjustments.  The outcome document will then be validated as the Kenyan youth position on Post 2015.
Expected outcome:
  • Create more awareness and enable broader youth participation in the Post-2015 Agenda.
  • Release a Kenya Youth Position Paper on Post-2015 Agenda to feed into the National Report.
Feeding into other process
Kenyan Youth position on 2015 document will be fed into other formal process so as to enhance its value. These are:
  • Kenya National CSOs forum (20 slots already reserved for young people)
  • Kenyan National Consultation on Post 2015 to be hosted by the government (10 slots for young people reserved.)

Partnership
The Organization of African Youth-Kenya seeks to have as many partners as possible to ensure that the process is legitimate, valuable and broad based. While we had thought of having the process of consultations across the country, resource constraints have impeded such engagements.
However, we aspire to make the engagement an open process that is inclusive. Partners can therefore take part in the process through various kinds of support.
The worth of partnership is based on the informational and data value that we will obtain. The information can be used for youth advocacy, policy influence and developments, projects developments and resource mobilization. The partner’s engagement in the process would also help to raise the grassroots voices of the youth they serve within their networks.