Between 5th and 15th of July this year, the United Nations held its annual High-level Political Forum (HLPF) on Sustainable Development. ACT’s regional youth representative for Africa Jeronime Obwar from Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) -Kenya attended virtually by sharing her thoughts during a side event organized by the Alliance of NGOs and CSOs for South-South Cooperation (ANCSSC) and ACT Alliance parallel event.
The side event, was hosted on Friday 8th by Deloitte at their office in Rockefeller Centre in New York and virtually via Zoom, with the theme; “Building back better from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) while advancing the full implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development ”.
“The first 25 weeks of the onset of COVID-19 set us back 25 years in terms of progress made in terms of gender equality and empowerment of marginalized communities” she said
Ms. Jeronime amplified the key role of youth inclusion in decision making processes, leadership as well as implementation of the2030 agenda. With the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic , she pointed out that Youth represent a critical solution in addressing these issues brought about by the pandemic
Ms. Jeronime noted the need to enhance partnerships and collaborations as key focus on SDG17, giving youth opportunities to share their learnings, experiences, expertise and them giving space to implement innovative ideas them.
“When youth are empowered, we are ready to change the world” she said
The virtual event showcased best practices and lessons learned on South-South cooperation to accelerate progress for sustainable development in the context of building a sustainable, inclusive, and resilient recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic as well as addressing on-going issues of vaccine hesitancy, challenges of delivery, fair allocation, and supply of vaccines to fragile and vulnerable settings through multi-stakeholder cooperation with CSOs in the Global South.
On this years’ international youth day, ACT Alliance continues to promote inclusion of youth in governance, programme planning as well as implementation.
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