The first dialogue of “Youth Voices Policy Choices” was held from July 4th to July 6th in Warsaw. During those 3 days, Solidarity Water Europe and it’s partners put a great focus on youth advocacy for water and climate by opening the dialogue between young water leaders and policy makers.
Making European youth voices heard
Through different dialogue sessions dedicated to water and climate change issues, youth advocacy and youth participation in the decision-making processes, the participants succeeded to identify concrete challenges but also opportunities for youth to take action for water and climate acting as valuable change makers. These propositions and key messages were presented and discussed with the decision makers during the dialogue sessions. Using feedback to bring new ideas and move forward to develop a common shared vision between youth and decision makers.
The decision-makers involved in this first dialogue were represented by Liliana Rastocka (Slovak Ministry of Environment), Mitja Bricelj (State Secretary of Slovenian Ministry of Environment), Adam Kovacs (International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River), Venera Vlad (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development), Viktor Orozsi (EU Strategy for the Danube Region, Hungarian Ministry of foreign affairs), Lucka Kajfez Bogataj (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change member).
A strong presence at COP 24
The youth finalized their vision for the future using the feedback from policy-makers, presented it to their national decision-makers and brought the final results to the second dialogue during the COP 24. Discover their actions during the 24th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP24) held on 3-14 December 2018 in Katowice, Poland.
Youth Voices Policy Choices aims to empower and engage youth in the Central and Eastern Europe region who want to make a difference for water and climate and influence decision making. It brings together youth from 11 countries in Central and Eastern Europe. In perfect line with the structured dialogue promoted by the European Union with its Youth Strategy, the initiative aims at promoting the active participation of young people to the decision making processes, and to enable young Europeans to take action and make their voices heard at a global level.
“Youth voices policy choices: a dialogue for water and climate between young leaders and policy makers”. This initiative funded by the program ERASMUS+ was born from the collaboration between ISW-SWE, the Global Water Partnership Central and Eastern Europe (GWP CEE), and the Youth Water Community Central and Eastern Europe (YWC CEE).
About the Summer School
“Towards 2030 Agenda: A summer school for climate change, innovation and youth advocacy in water management” carried by the Global Water Partnership Central and Eastern Europe (GWP CEE) was held in the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (Poland) from July 1-7 2018. For complement information, take a look at this article by GWP CEE: https://www.gwp.org/en/GWP-CEE/WE-ACT/news/2018/summer-school-brings-youth-in-cee-a-step-closer-to-2030-agenda/ or their flicker account for 163 photos of the event.
Photo credit: GWPCEE
