Jakarta, 20 February 2013 — Young people need to be seen as collaborative development partners in the future, UNFPA Youth Advocate Angga Dwi Martha said during the National Consultation on the Post-2015 Development Agenda in Jakarta on 20 February.
Martha proposed "youth driven", youth-conducted and adult-supported type of activities; and "equity", activities in which youth and adult are collaborating, as forms of youth partnership and participation.
"Youth have taken action, youth have spoken, and we demand collaboration and participation in the Post-2015 process," Martha said. In his speech, Martha also challenged the participants of the consultation to include and work with young people. "Thirty-three percent of young people today mean 100 percent of Indonesian population in the future," he reminded the audience.
Recommendations from these meetings, which include actors from government, civil society, international organizations, and the private sector, will ultimately feed into the UN’s future development agenda. Targets for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), developed in the mid-1990s and formally adopted by the UN in 2000, are set to expire in 2015.
The National Consultation on the Post-2015 Development Agenda was convened by the Government of Indonesia as a part of the process for preparing recommendations to the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons (HLPEP) on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The series of meetings opened at the State Palace on Wednesday, 20 February and continued at the Le Meridien Hotel in Jakarta through the following day.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, speaking at the consultation’s opening ceremony, called on Indonesians not to write off their country’s hopes of achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
Yudhoyono stressed that it is impossible to speak on behalf of the nation at the upcoming meeting of the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons, of which he is a member, without understanding the adopted policies and strategies, and listening to those with a stake in the nation’s future development.
The High Level Panel of Eminent Persons will meet in Bali from 25-27 March, one of several such meetings the group is holding around the world. The panel is soliciting input for their recommendations on the Post-2015 Development Agenda. The group, which also counts among its members Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and British Prime Minister David Cameron, will produce a set of recommendations targeted toward the UN Secretary-General’s report to the General Assembly on the Post-205 Development Agenda.
"Today’s forum becomes a part of it all," Yudhoyono said.
During the consultation, young people identified six priority issues not addressed by the MDGs that they declared "The Future Youth Want." The six-point vision aims for education as a human right, decent employment, energy accessibility and efficiency, adolescent sexual and reproductive health services and education, government transparency and accountability, and attention to groups of youth at risk.
Tags: Post-2015, Young People
