The ACT Alliance Assembly is going to start today in Uppsala, Sweden. In this context, 30 youth participants have gathered from different regions of the world. The main focus of the Youth Pre-Assembly Days is to empower and ensure the Youth Community of Practice has meaningful participation in the Assembly, and to develop good leadership among ACT Alliance members.
The steps taken by ACT for the meaningful involvement and participation of youth members across its sphere of work is a very welcome strategic step, being taken at the right time. The global community, as it has shifted from the Millennium Development Goals paradigm to the Sustainable Development Goals has recognized the significance and role of youth in to contribute in the overall social, economic and environmental well-being of nations and the communities.
We believe that youth need perceived support, be it from the organizational level through procedural justice, supervisory support, or motivation and recognition of their works by providing sufficient space, time and opportunity. Youth need information on organizational happenings, they deserve to be part of the communication loop and to be consulted as part of decision-making. Youth resemble the new face of the rapidly changing generation, hence they reflect and pave road maps for necessary adjustments and changes to be made in the strategic, policy and operational levels.
Today’s world is VUCA: volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Our global community is threatened by the alarming increase of ethnic and religious tensions and heightened insecurity in many communities. The scale and complexity of these phenomena are wide spread in tdeveloping nations.
These tensions are fueled by a sense of desperation and hopelessness, most particularly amongst the larger mass of young people. The result is increased unemployment, and competition over diminishing natural resources, poverty, frustrations and alienation.
The world has already observed and has been facing multipronged complexities and its consequences due to such problems, be it from war, terrorism, drugs, violence or corruption. Today’s youth are tomorrow’s future, the ecosystem within which they are nurtured and exposed reflects how they perceive and act upon their tomorrow.
There are brighter sides as well as the darker sides. All of which is the outcome of their past exposure, treatment and management. We think we should be optimistic and look at the brighter side of today’s global community, which is also increasing in opportunity for creating wealth and prosperous communities through the involvement of youth leaders through incentives, opportunities and leadership development.
The time has come to trace the qualities of youth, strengthen their leadership qualities and expose them in the VUCA world to engage and contribute for the development of the nations. Today’s youth has to be shaped and refined in a way so that they are competent, effective and can exercise control and decision making under conditions of uncertainty and complex scenarios.
The notion of building up organizational culture in mainstreaming inclusive, efficient and effective youth participation is thus significant and unavoidable. We believe that the role of ACT and its support in developing youth delegates from all over the world, and enabling youth participation is of paramount significance.
So we feel privileged, hopeful and look forward to more optimization and critical strategy steps taken by ACT in the coming days to strengthen youth in its sphere of work at the national and global level. In this regard, ACT Alliance has taken steps to address youth empowerment with paramount importance for mainstreaming organizational effectiveness and in development programing which is a positive step. In the changing complex and versatile global development scenario, active participation of youth is a matter of prime importance.
