20th National Selection Conference of the European Youth Parliament Switzerland
“Building Peace in a globalised world”

Dear European Youth Parliament participants,
Ladies and gentlemen:

Thank you very much for having invited me to join you today at the 20th National Selection Conference of the European Youth Parliament in Switzerland. This conference unites concepts, ideas, institutions and identities that have been pushed apart in recent years – I am genuinely happy to contribute to the conference. It is refreshing and very encouraging to meet young, engaged people like you, who believe in constructive discussion, in collaboration and in shared responsiblity, and who stand up for what they believe in.

I understand that the discussions at this 20th anniversary edition of your conference are held under the theme “Building Peace in a globalised world”. This reminds me of a young student, Léa Narjoud, who spoke at the United Nations here in Geneva at an annual event called the Geneva Peace Talks in 2013. At the age of 14 years, she had already understood something that many who grew up in peaceful post-cold war Europe and have not experienced the destruction and misery of war, are not always aware of.
She said that “peace is never permanent. It must be nurtured every day.”

Your presence here today shows that you have realized the same, and that you decided to contribute to the debate and act accordingly. I urge you to take others along on this path, because the world needs change-makers with a positive vision. In today’s times of great challenges, it is all too easy to lose trust in authorities, to become alienated from the institutions that hold our societies together and to seek comfort among those who oppose the establishment but offer no feasible alternatives. The rise of populist movements across Europe and beyond shows that this is happening at an alarming speed. We see a polarization in society, where competing constructive arguments and discussions are replaced by the regurgitation of simplistic adversarial messages, often based on rumours and half-truths perpetuated through social media and other channels. This trend undermines some of the most fundamental principles of democracy such as tolerance of differing opinions and solution-oriented debates. It is high time to safeguard these principles through initiatives like the European Youth Forum.

You are part of the largest generation of youth in history. In 2015, there were 1.2 billion youth aged 15-24 years globally. That means that your age-group accounts for one out of every six people worldwide. As a group, you therefore have tremendous power to nurture democratic and peaceful societies.

But you have another crucial advantage compared to older generations – like mine: you have grown up with and know how to use technologies and tools that empower individuals in fundamentally new ways. Today, there are about 7.3 billion people in the world and there are also about 7.3 billion mobile phones. To put this in perspective: 2.4 billion people do not have adequate sanitation. Simply put, more people have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet. If used sensibly, modern communication tools can help to hold governments and institutions accountable. In fact, all of you in this room have the possibility to tweet right as I speak in case you disagree with me. You can find me on the handle @UNOG_DG. Of course, you can also tweet if you agree…

All of this means that organizations and institutions at all levels – the United Nations just like European institutions, national governments and local administrations – need to find ways to facilitate engagement through these new channels.

The UN has made some progress to include the voices of the youth in its work, especially through the 1995 World Programme of Action of Youth and the more recent Youth System Wide Action Plan [Youth-SWAP]. Working with and for young people is also one of the five priorities that our Secretary-General set for his second term in office, and in 2013, he appointed the first Envoy on Youth, Ahmad Alhendawi. This action taken within the Secretariat is in line with attention paid to youth participation by our Member States. At the end of last year, the Security Council adopted a landmark resolution, 2250, on youth with a focus on peace and security.

Perhaps some of you are thinking that all these plans, envoys and resolutions are nice but what has the UN done concretely? How has it affected young people? There are many examples, but let me give you one of an organization here in Geneva. An issue that I am sure is on the mind of many of you is youth unemployment. There are 71 million unemployed youth worldwide and 156 million young workers are living in poverty. The International Labour Organization, for example, is assisting countries in the European Union to implement youth guarantee schemes which aim to ensure that all people under 25 get a concrete job offer, traineeship or continued education within 4 months of leaving education or a previous job. Our colleagues from the European Commission cite Finland as an example where such a Youth Guarantee scheme has been implemented and already in 2011, 83.5% of young job seekers received a successful offer within 3 months of registering as unemployed. Helping to achieving similar results in other countries is a key goal for the ILO. To further accelerate action on youth employment, the Secretary-General just appointed former Chancellor Werner Faymann of Austria, as his Special Envoy on Youth Employment.

Take another UN organization, perhaps more widely known among young people. UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, invests in programmes that improve adolescents’ education. This has real effects: the literacy rate among youth aged 15 to 24 has increased globally from 83 per cent to 91 per cent between 1990 and 2015 for example.

Important progress has been made, but I started this speech with a reference to the growing disconnect between people’s expectations in organizations and governments and the performance of those institutions. An issue that is high on the international agenda these days – violent extremism and its links to terrorism – is a strong reminder that this disconnect, especially among young people, has very troublesome consequences. Clearly, we still have a lot to do, both in terms of substantive improvement of young people’s wellbeing, as well as in communicating more effectively to our constituencies and stakeholders what we, as institutions, can do and are doing for them, and what they can and should do themselves.

Last year, our leaders agreed on a set of frameworks that provide us with an opportunity to do just that. A new agreement on Disaster Risk Reduction, the so called Addis Ababa Action Agenda on financing for development, the Paris Climate Agreement and of course the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development together yield the most comprehensive set of shared goals that the international community has ever set for itself. This is our collective road-map for action.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development contains 17 goals on all the issues that you have on your programme for this conference and more. We have provided you with an information sheet that lists all 17 of them, with some additional information on how much progress we have made in the different areas, and what we have left to do. For these 17 goals, there are a total of 169 more specific targets against which we can measure progress. 65 of these targets make reference to young people. This is an agenda for you. It cuts across issues, across organizations and definitely across generations. Implementing this agenda will require all of us to work together in new ways including the private and public sectors, academia, civil society and many more. That is why I hope that you will take a moment to look at the goals and to spread the message to your friends. Everyone needs to know about them. And everyone needs to act!

One partner with a particularly important role in the implementation are parliaments. They will be critical for what the Secretary-General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union – an organization where Parliaments from around the world come together based here in Geneva – recently called the “domestication of multilateral agreements”. The 17 goals that the Member States of the United Nations have agreed on, need to be translated into national legislation, programmes and structures and explained to their populations. Parliaments are there to make sure that Governments follow through with the commitments they have made internationally. And they serve as a messenger towards their constituencies to ensure an inclusive development approach.

Unfortunately, young people remain under-represented in parliaments. The IPU’s 2016 Report on Youth Participation in National Parliaments indicates, that less than 2% of Members of Parliaments worldwide are under the age of 30. This has direct effects on policies at the national and at the global level. While the negotiations of the Sustainable Development Goals included an unprecedented consultation of individuals including through the Global Partnership on Youth in the Post-2015 Development Agenda, 2 out of 3 countries still do not consult young people when preparing poverty reduction strategies or national development plans. This is why conferences and projects like those organized by the European Youth Parliament are crucial as they form young activists like you who can step into national parliaments across Europe and beyond.

Whatever way you choose to be engaged in political discourse and social projects, you can make a real difference. The challenges that we are facing are very complex. All the topics on your agenda for this conference are interlinked: trade has an impact on climate change which in turn affects migration. Disarmament can stabilize societies thus promoting economic growth. Gender equality promotes progress across the board. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development addresses these connections and its implementation will require all of us to work together. It is an agenda for developed and developing countries alike. I encourage you to take it into consideration as you deliberate in the coming days, because we count on you for the implementation of these 17 goals. It is our shared responsibility, and I thank you for your enthusiasm and commitment to play an active part in our shared efforts for a more peaceful globalized world.

Thank you very much, and I am happy to take questions.