Asia Pacific Youth Position paper on Rio +20 and Asia Pacific Youth Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development

With pleasure I like to inform you that the Asia-Pacific Youth Forum on Climate Actions and Mountain Issues, 8-12 August, which was attended by  43 youth from 17 countries in the Asia Pacific region representing diverse geography, rich cultural background and variety of issues, concluded with the launch of two important documents prepared in the context of ongoing debates on ‘Climate Change Adaption’ and ‘Rio +20’ preparation. The ‘Asia Pacific Youth Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development’ and the ‘Asia Pacific Youth Position paper on Rio +20’ both were launched on 12 August in a special function organised to mark the International Youth Day (IYD), conclusion of the International Year of Youth (IYY 2010/2011) and ‘key message communication’ session of the Youth Forum.

Organised by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) through its Asia Pacific Mountain Network (APMN), the event was technically supported by more than a dozen global and Asia Pacific regional initiatives promoting climate and sustainability actions including  Rio+Twenties, Road to Rio +20, UN CSD Youth Caucus, 350.0rg, Activating Talent in Sustainability (ACTIS), Adaptation Knowledge Platform (AKP), Asia and the Pacific Adaptation Network (APAN), Eco-Singapore, Peace Child International, Schumacher College UK, Systainability Asia and UNEP TUNZA.

Youth Forum was planned as culmination of several ICIMOD activities dedicated to youth engagement in Rio +20 process, and another stepping stone towards improving youth participation in UNFCCC processes. The 5-days long intensive learning and reflection programme contained different sessions dedicated to thematic and technical capacity building of youth, leadership development, assessing their potentials, preparing them to take part in ongoing debates on UNFCCC process and Rio +20 as well as rigorous exercises to document in accepted formats Asia Pacific Youth’s perceptions on these issues. To support this event ICIMOD had organised a 21-days long ‘South and Central Asia regional virtual consultation on youth perspectives on Rio +20’ in May 2011 which was attended by 550 participants from 38 countries. The virtual consultation was instrumental in assessing progresses made since Rio 1992, identifying issues, setting priorities, exploring potentials and developing recommendations in the region with youth perspective. Building on inputs received during the virtual consultation and considering outputs of another Asia Pacific regional Youth meeting on Rio +20 – World Leadership Conference 2011, the Youth Forum reached to an agreement issuing the Declaration and the Position Paper that discuss in details on challenges faced, opportunities envisioned and policy orientations needed to achieve sustainable development and to addresses partly the climate chaos.

You can read complete details about the event and access resource shared during the event at http://www.icimod.org/?q=3279 . 

Hope you find these documents useful. We very much appreciate your support in sharing these documents with wider mass so we can make sure the recommendations ere are counted while drafting relevant important documents in coming days, mainly in preparation of the Rio+20 meeting and UNFCCC processes.

More information:

Tek Jung Mahat, tmahat@icimod.org
Initiative Leader/Event Manager
On behalf of the Organising Committee