At the dawn of 2015, the world will witness the expiration of one of the most ambitious endeavors in the history of mankind: the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Both governments and people will need to evaluate and determine the newest post-2015 development agenda, and what role one of the largest growing forces in society—youth—will have in this future.
When the MDGs were formulated in 2000, they were heralded as one of the landmark achievements in international human rights development. The MDGs were forged in the crucible of the United Nation's Millennium Summit, the largest gathering of world leaders in history. The eight goals comprising the MDGs, all with the target date of 2015, were designed to help countries and leading civil society groups meet the needs of some of the most disenfranchised minorities of the world.
With an emphasis on human capital and human rights, the MDGs were crafted to increase the living standards of the most destitute of society. Billions of dollars were spent to alleviate debt and to accelerate the progress goals set by the MDGs. For 15 years, the world entered into a concerted effort to close the gap.
Unfortunately, there has been uneven success in realizing the goals set forth by the MDGs. The first and foremost goal, the halving of the percentage of people living under a $1 a day, has been achieved on an international scale. Yet the World Bank estimates that the cause for this achievement is due to the success of China and India, whose massive populations have tipped the scales disproportionately. There are still many nations, like Zimbabwe, Iraq, Congo DRC, and Ukraine, which have just barely managed reach one of the nine targets. The World Bank reports that the poorest 40 percent have yet achieve proper access to health services, sanitation, and nutrition.
The MDGs have been severely criticized—not just by conservative thinkers who oppose intervention by international organizations in local economies and legislation, but by the very groups that the MDGs targeted for help.
One particular group that has vocally critiqued the MDGs is the world’s youth. The source of the frustration comes from the complete failure to include the voices of the very participants that the MDGs aimed to assist. Youth should have been central to the formulation of the MDGs, but very few civil society groups that represent youth were present during the genesis of the goals. The end product is a development agenda that ignores the increasingly large role of youth in the political sphere and development, and reaffirms countless attempts to push youth out of civic participation. On the most basic level, the MDGs are lacking for youth: there is no youth-specific MDG report, MDG funding rarely is diverted to enabling youth employment or youth financing, and there are no guidelines for the universal creation of national youth policies.
The UN is in the process of developing the next set of international development goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, whose name belies its lofty and perhaps unrealistic set of goals, the SDGs are attempting to be “ambitious, pragmatic, and concrete.”
However, the most important step the UN is taking to vitalize this set of development goals is to include grass-root voices during the creation of the post-2015 development agenda. The UN has created an impressive system where major civil society organizations can participate in the Open Working Group of the General Assembly, allowing for unprecedented direct inclusion in the building of the SDGs. Also, NGOs and organizations can submit articles and position papers through an online forum to help the work of the different Steering Committees. With one of the major “thematic clusters” being “Youth, education and culture,” youth have been given a much larger platform than ever before to participate in these new international human rights benchmarks.
There are still questions that need to be answered in regards to youth and the SDGs, however. The SDGs cannot make the same mistake as the MDGs and attempt to use lofty top-down goals that ignore the multifaceted nature of many issues that plague the third world. Education for youth is one of the most important factors in alleviating poverty and improving quality of life. It's not enough to ensure access to education; the quality of education, including reliable facilities and well-trained teachers, is just as vital. The SDGs also need to help facilitate the building of democracy across the world by encouraging the engagement of youth in applied action through participatory democracy.
Youth make up 43 percent of the global population, and today's generation of young people is the largest in history. Despite its size and importance to development, youth has been historically isolated from high-level policy determination and has been delineated into narrow definitions. An important lens to reconsider is that youth are not a monolithic group. Youth is a term that covers a highly diverse population that is almost impossible to characterize. The complex issues of gender, disability, and sexuality are closely interwoven with youth issues, and the SDGs need to address this intersection of concerns.
In 2015, all of this will come to head. The SDGs will be launched with much fanfare and hope. But the actualization and potential of the SDGs will rely much on youth continuing to engage the post-MDG development agenda. Involving youth is the best method to capitalize on one of the most dynamic sectors of our global population. The UN has set down the right path, but much more has to be done to ensure that youth participation is more than just window dressing.
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The Role of Youth in the Post-2015 Development Agenda: Whose Goals are These?
February 16, 2015
At the dawn of 2015, the world will witness the expiration of one of the most ambitious endeavors in the history of mankind: the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Both governments and people will need to evaluate and determine the newest post-2015 development agenda, and what role one of the largest growing forces in society—youth—will have in this future.
When the MDGs were formulated in 2000, they were heralded as one of the landmark achievements in international human rights development. The MDGs were forged in the crucible of the United Nation's Millennium Summit, the largest gathering of world leaders in history. The eight goals comprising the MDGs, all with the target date of 2015, were designed to help countries and leading civil society groups meet the needs of some of the most disenfranchised minorities of the world.
With an emphasis on human capital and human rights, the MDGs were crafted to increase the living standards of the most destitute of society. Billions of dollars were spent to alleviate debt and to accelerate the progress goals set by the MDGs. For 15 years, the world entered into a concerted effort to close the gap.
Unfortunately, there has been uneven success in realizing the goals set forth by the MDGs. The first and foremost goal, the halving of the percentage of people living under a $1 a day, has been achieved on an international scale. Yet the World Bank estimates that the cause for this achievement is due to the success of China and India, whose massive populations have tipped the scales disproportionately. There are still many nations, like Zimbabwe, Iraq, Congo DRC, and Ukraine, which have just barely managed reach one of the nine targets. The World Bank reports that the poorest 40 percent have yet achieve proper access to health services, sanitation, and nutrition.
The MDGs have been severely criticized—not just by conservative thinkers who oppose intervention by international organizations in local economies and legislation, but by the very groups that the MDGs targeted for help.
One particular group that has vocally critiqued the MDGs is the world’s youth. The source of the frustration comes from the complete failure to include the voices of the very participants that the MDGs aimed to assist. Youth should have been central to the formulation of the MDGs, but very few civil society groups that represent youth were present during the genesis of the goals. The end product is a development agenda that ignores the increasingly large role of youth in the political sphere and development, and reaffirms countless attempts to push youth out of civic participation. On the most basic level, the MDGs are lacking for youth: there is no youth-specific MDG report, MDG funding rarely is diverted to enabling youth employment or youth financing, and there are no guidelines for the universal creation of national youth policies.
The UN is in the process of developing the next set of international development goals, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, whose name belies its lofty and perhaps unrealistic set of goals, the SDGs are attempting to be “ambitious, pragmatic, and concrete.”
However, the most important step the UN is taking to vitalize this set of development goals is to include grass-root voices during the creation of the post-2015 development agenda. The UN has created an impressive system where major civil society organizations can participate in the Open Working Group of the General Assembly, allowing for unprecedented direct inclusion in the building of the SDGs. Also, NGOs and organizations can submit articles and position papers through an online forum to help the work of the different Steering Committees. With one of the major “thematic clusters” being “Youth, education and culture,” youth have been given a much larger platform than ever before to participate in these new international human rights benchmarks.
There are still questions that need to be answered in regards to youth and the SDGs, however. The SDGs cannot make the same mistake as the MDGs and attempt to use lofty top-down goals that ignore the multifaceted nature of many issues that plague the third world. Education for youth is one of the most important factors in alleviating poverty and improving quality of life. It's not enough to ensure access to education; the quality of education, including reliable facilities and well-trained teachers, is just as vital. The SDGs also need to help facilitate the building of democracy across the world by encouraging the engagement of youth in applied action through participatory democracy.
Youth make up 43 percent of the global population, and today's generation of young people is the largest in history. Despite its size and importance to development, youth has been historically isolated from high-level policy determination and has been delineated into narrow definitions. An important lens to reconsider is that youth are not a monolithic group. Youth is a term that covers a highly diverse population that is almost impossible to characterize. The complex issues of gender, disability, and sexuality are closely interwoven with youth issues, and the SDGs need to address this intersection of concerns.
In 2015, all of this will come to head. The SDGs will be launched with much fanfare and hope. But the actualization and potential of the SDGs will rely much on youth continuing to engage the post-MDG development agenda. Involving youth is the best method to capitalize on one of the most dynamic sectors of our global population. The UN has set down the right path, but much more has to be done to ensure that youth participation is more than just window dressing.
