LAYER D: YOUTH POLICY DEVELOPMENT

GRADING: GOOD

Youth as a group is highly heterogeneous, characterised by diverse experiences and life situations, sometimes conflicting needs and requests. For this reason, youth’s ability to develop and formulate their policy demands as a group is crucial. S+50 demanded of youth not only to negotiate policy demands among themselves, but also to engage in policy deliberation to create understanding and a common ground. This is a challenging task in a global setting and with the abovementioned diversity.

The process of the consultations and the policy paper development per se has not been assessed in this evaluation. Instead, the analysis attempts to assess whether/how these processes contribute to the youth inclusion in S+50.

This chapter examines the tools and processes of the youth policy development process in S+50. In sum, mostly positive aspects have come to the fore in the evaluation regarding the consultations and the global policy development. The consultations played an important structural role in the process, successful collaborative methods for policy development were developed and the outcome, a youth policy paper, met high standards according to interviewees.26 The youth policy paper served as an effective advocacy tool and made it all the way to the conclusions of the meeting, where it was endorsed in recommendation 9, as well as influenced recommendation 3. The final recommendations/conclusions can be seen in Appendix 2

At the same time the late start of the YTF and the process was identified as a hindering factor both when it came to outreach and advocacy.

Below follows a detailed account of the findings in the evaluation regarding the two components that have been identified as fundamental prerequisites for youth policy development by youth;

D.a Policy development by youth

D.b. Youth consultations

D.a Policy development by youth

Below, the youth policy development process will be analysed and discussed. Enabling factors as well as areas of improvement will also be presented.

D.a S+50 findings

The youth policy was developed through a series of four global virtual consultations, followed by an open virtual process where a global youth policy paper was drafted collaboratively on an online platform. A capacity building component was part of the policy drafting process, so

26 The youth policy paper can be found at: https://transformingeducationsummit.sdg4education2030.org/system/ files/2022-08/S%2B50%20Global%20Youth%20Policy%20Paper.pdf as to facilitate and empower youth. Interviewees generally provide a common perception of a successful policy deliberation process.

The policy paper was used throughout the S+50 process as an advocacy tool, streamlining the youth voice inside of the process. All institutional partners interviewed in the evaluation confirmed that the youth policy paper, as well as the youth policy interventions, were of high quality throughout the process.

A youth participant describes the moment when they understood that the youth policy paper was to be endorsed in the S+50 meeting conclusions as “a moment of goosebumps”. Indeed, this was an unprecedented achievement at a UN level process, as mentioned by several interviewees.

In addition to the limited time to the policy development process, the issue of inclusion is another obvious challenge in a global policy drafting process. This is further discussed in subchapter B.b; Inclusion and equality.

D.a Enabling factors

The following enabling factors have been identified as supporting the success of the global policy drafting process of youth:

I. Policy making by universal participation

The policy drafting took place online, using a collaborative platform, where any young participant involved in the process could contribute, make changes etc. The global consultation process, that took place before the actual drafting process, was open for any organisation or individual to contribute.

It can be discussed if the process was really inclusive. However, even with a limited number of people/organisations involved in the process, the youth policy paper had an important symbolic value of universal inclusion of youth in the S+50 process. The open policy drafting process showed that the inclusion of youth in the S +50 process was an attempt to represent the opinion of global youth, rather than of a few young persons in leading positions.

II. Facilitation by the YTF work stream

To draft a global policy paper is an enormous task. The facilitation has to be transparent and neutral, the output coherent and concise. The fact that the process was facilitated through a specific work stream inside the YTF, has been highlighted as an important enabling factor in the evaluation. The policy itself is also a tangible result of a successful facilitation. The one negative aspect indicated by a few of the interviewees is the “red flagging” (see below).

D.a Recommendations

While the overall assessment in the evaluations undertaken in S+50 provides an indeed positive account of the policy development by youth, some hurdles were identified where improvements can still be made:

I. Enable an earlier start in the policy drafting process

The benefits that would come with having a youth policy document in place at the beginning of the policy process have been highlighted by youth and policy makers alike in the evaluation.

Having the policy document at hand ahead of time would have enabled youth to start advocacy earlier and, hence, to have a stronger impact at, for example, the preparatory meetings according to interviewees. A universal consultation and policy drafting process must be given sufficient time, not least when mainly implemented by unpaid volunteers.

Youth must be provided with the conditions to start their policy making process earlier. For the policy paper to be ready, for instance six months prior to the international meeting, the YTF would need to be established approximately 12 months before the meeting. In turn, for this to be possible, the funding needs to be confirmed at a much earlier stage.

II. Reconsider how a red flagging system should work

The only critique that has been pronounced in the evaluation regarding the collaborative policy deliberation and drafting is the use of red flagging. This is a kind of veto where an individual can block contents in the policy paper by raising a “red flag”.

The right to veto provides individuals with the opportunity to obstruct suggestions that they do not agree with. However, the red flag also gives a small group, even one individual, the possibility to obstruct a policy content that the great majority agrees on. While it is a good ambition to have a consensus on a youth policy paper, there is also a risk that the content gets watered down, and that special interests dominate the agenda by obstructing certain contents.

Red flagging should be evaluated, and youth should seek to replace it with a better procedure. If the red flagging is kept, a deadline needs to be set, so as to ensure that content is not removed in the very last minute. There must be enough time for the youth to review, rethink and modify the content.27 Another suggestion is that a red flag needs the support of a certain number of persons in order to be considered as a legitimate ground for obstructing content.

D.b Youth consultations

A meaningful youth inclusion process should preferably include the opinions of youth also outside of the “inner circles” of participants in a process. Nevertheless, for most of global youth, an international policy process is an inaccessible exercise, also when it includes an ambitious youth inclusion strategy.

One way to accommodate for a better inclusion, is to base the youth policy input on consultations with broader groups of youth. The purpose of such consultations is to include youth, but just as much to identify diverse needs and solutions. A successful consultation will result in policy that can legitimately represent global youth.

Below, the role of the youth consultation process in S+50 will be analysed and discussed.

D.b S+50 findings

A series of four global consultations were conducted, involving hundreds of youths. The consultations were open and could be attended by anyone wanting to participate. Also, interviewees account for regional and national consultations conducted by YTF members. For example, in Kenya four virtual capacity building sessions and consultations took place ahead of S+50 and the Nordic/Baltic youth conducted regional consultations. Interviewees explain

27 An interviewee explains how content that had been elaborated on for weeks by a large number of youth, was removed by red flagging only days before the policy drafting closed how different regions also had consultations at the S+50 premeeting in Nairobi.28

Strategies that served to reach youth at local and national level rested mainly on initiatives of individual youth/youth networks backed up by a few consultants. The outreach and the methods used in the consultations are beyond the scope of this evaluation. However, after having conducted interviews, and analysed survey answers, the evaluator can conclude that the consultations did not have a large numerical outreach and lacked adequate resources/structures to reach all the way to the local level globally. “There needs to be a more physical and multilingual outreach in order to reach youth inclusively”, one interviewee explains.

D.b Enabling factors

The following enabling factors have been identified as successfully contributing to the consultation strategy:

I. Youth led consultations

The consultations are an integrated part of the youth policy development, hence they should be conducted by youth themselves, just as was done in S+50. Youth interviewees state that the regional consultations undertaken by UNEP cannot replace these youth consultations.

II. Capacity building

Youth will never be fully included, if not provided with the conditions to participate in a well informed and empowered manner. Hence, the capacity building strategy was an important enabling factor in the consultation strategy as part of the youth policy development.

D.b Recommendations

Below follows some recommendations on how outreach of the consultation could be increased:

Consultations is an effective outreach tool, and there is a potential to reinforce this component. At several places in this report suggestions are provided, on how to strengthen the outreach of the consultations and the process as such. Proposals on improvements include:

• An earlier and stronger social media presence

• Regional outreach teams

• Multilingual consultations

• Text messaging tools to mitigate the effect of lacking internet access

• Make use of multilingual aggregating tools/methods, for instance online polls

• While some funding was made available for consultants and consultation activities in S+50, there is a need to increase this funding further.29

• Regional and national institutions could be encouraged to fund regional and national youth consultations in order to make sure their youth have a voice in the process.

28 It is impossible for the evaluator to assess the outreach achieved by these different methods and strategies due to the limited data and information.

29 A good practice can be found in the EU Youth Dialogue, an EU-level policy making process based on national consultations. The national level consultations of youth are provided with funding over the Erasmus + program, both for project management and for activities in order to increase outreach.