Nepal National Youth Consultation on Rio+20 Zero Draft

Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20 has been working on Rio+ 20 since April 2011, in collaboration with South and Central Asia regional and international youth and in coordination with the UNCSD Major Group on Children and Youth (MGCY). We are dynamic, energetic young people, between 16-29 years of age and working on sustainable development. We are concerned about present environmental discomforts, our future and future of many generations to come and sustainability of mother earth.

They collaborate and work together with youth from all over the world to achieve goals because we are a strong voice when we function as one.

Why Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20?

General Background:

United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) a.k.a. ‘Rio+20 offers an unique opportunity to redefine environment and sustainability issues in the changed context and for many years to come. Scheduled from 20-22 June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the same city that hosted largest ever environmental conference United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), 3-14 June 1992 a.ka. Earth Summit, this conference is expected to review progresses made in environmental sector in last two decades, identify development gaps, note new challenges emerged over two decades and develop way forward for next few decades. Several governments, UN agencies and civil society groups are contributing in Rio+20 process, making it the most ambitious environmental event in the history. Often ignored or avoided, YOUTH as one of nine Major Groups are preparing to ensure sustainability of the planet by making meaningful contributions for the success of this event.

Nepalese Youth on the Road to Rio+20:

Nepalese youth have been contributing in this process as part of several global, regional, national and sub-national campaigns aimed at Rio+20. Whether it is virtual consultation or Youth Forum or national/international conferences, Nepalese youth have always made global community feel their presence through substantive contributions. To improve presence and systematize contributions a group of like minded people formed Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20 in April 2011, following to the huge success of Asia Pacific Youth Forum (Asia Pacific Youth Meeting on Rio+20) organised by a regional intergovernmental organisation, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, Nepal in August 2011 and in the light of preparation for the 2011 Tunza International Children and Youth Conference in Bandung, Indonesia. Evidently these events were most important ones as the Asia Pacific Youth Declaration on Climate Change and Sustainable Development, the Asia Pacific Youth Position paper Towards Rio+20 were developed at the Asia Pacific Youth Forum and the 2011 Tunza Conference concluded with Bandung Declaration, calling on governments at the Rio+20 meeting to “respond and not ignore the demands of children and youth.”

Building on these major events and some others preceding them, and aiming to strengthen Nepal’s position at Rio+20, with special attention given to youth and mountain development issues, Nepalese youth call for broader global partnership.

National Youth Consultation on Response to Rio+20 Zero Draft

Nepal Youth Task Force on Rio+20 organized a national youth consultation on Rio+20 Zero Draft at the ICIMOD headquarter on Friday, 24 February 2012. The youth consultation was organised as part of the Earth Debate in the Hindu Kush-Himalayas, ICIMOD-British Council initiative to debate on Earth Summit issues in the region. From the consultation, various youth voices have been collected regarding the missing links in the Zero Draft regarding Mountain and Role of Youth in Sustainable Development which are as follows:

Missing links in the Zero Draft regarding Mountain

1. Watershed management and sustainable mountain development should be urgently addressed because these have an impact on millions of people who depend on the mountains for their water.

2. As the development of infrastructure can degrade mountain environments and increase migration to urban areas, mountain development should aim to provide basic services and employment opportunities (green job) for local communities.

3. There should be an emphasis on providing opportunities for young people in mountain areas, because without these people the indigenous communities will rapidly die out.

4. Capacity building initiatives should address gender, caste and other social inclusion issues in order to build a sustainable future for mountain communities.

5. Responsible eco-tourism should be promoted and supported as one of the means of sustaining mountain communities and environments.

Youth for achieving sustainable mountain development

1. Youth should be responsible towards environment conservation implementing eco-ideas and eco-friendly techniques.

2. Young people are generally better educated about the threats to our environment than older generations, and are therefore likely to be effective agents of change.

3. Governments should engage directly with concerned youth groups on environmental issues, involving them in policy discussions and being responsible to them for policy implementation, because in the longer term it is the young who will live with the consequences of those policies.

4. The huge problem of labor migration and brain drain of youth needs to be addressed.

5. Selected young people should be trained in advocacy and communication skills so that they will be able to mobilize other people to take appropriate action to limit environmental degradation.

6. Governments should make use of the energy and commitment of concerned youth groups to spread messages about effective environmental management to the wider population.

7. Youth can play an effective role to share the outcomes of Rio+20 among the local people from the grass-root to national level.

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