Youth Voices Policy Choices (YVPC) aims at empowering the new generation of water leaders, building trust and motivating them to become agents of change at different levels, starting at their own communities. By providing an open space for discussion, Youth Voices Policy Choices creates synergies between stakeholders, who debate and learn from one another. Emerging young leaders then have the opportunity to present their concerns, questions and proposals to the decision makers, and to receive constructive and necessary feedback to make their voices heard better at a local and international level.

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 first dialogue

The first dialogue took place in Warsaw (Pologue) from July 4 to 6, 2018. It was in the context of the GWP CEE summer school “Towards 2030 Agenda: A summer school for climate change, innovation and youth advocacy in water management” that gathered fourty-six MSc and PhD students from 18 countries (Armenia, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary, Italy, France, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Trinidad and Tobago).

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: a dialogue for water and climate between young leaders and policy-makers” is an initiative funded by the program ERASMUS+ of the European Union. It was born from our collaboration with the Global Water Partnership Central and Eastern Europe (GWP CEE) and the Youth Water Community Central and Eastern Europe (YWC CEE).

For more information, consult the GWP CEE article.

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