UN Albania Resident Coordinator remarks at the Youth 2030 Conference, Tirana, 26 February 2024

Honorable Minister of State for Youth and Children, 

Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen, 

and most importantly young friends.

It is a great honor to be part of this event today and speaking alongside Bora in delivering opening remarks!  Especially as I am at the wrong end of the age spectrum we have in mind.  This was starkly brought home to me when my daughter proudly showing me her first pension contributions for her first job last week.  I congratulated her of course but was most taken by the retirement date – 2056.  What will the world look like then I couldn’t help thinking. 

I want to keep these remarks short and focus on three themes. 

One - 2030 is fast approaching and there is much to be done:  In 2015, member states of the United Nations, signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals – 17 goals to for people, prosperity and planet.  An ambitious Agenda 2030 to put the world on track. 

Young people are the “torchbearers” of the Sustainable Development Goals, they played a major role in the process to secure agreement on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. 

More than one third of SDG targets reference young people explicitly or implicitly, with a focus on empowerment, participation and/or well-being. There are 20 youth-specific targets spread over six key SDGs: Goal 2 (hunger), Goal 4 (education), Goal 5 (gender equality), Goal 8 (decent work), Goal 10 (inequality) and Goal 13 (climate change). Young people’s involvement is also key if the call for participation, inclusion, accountability and revitalized global engagement embedded in Goals 16 (peaceful, just and inclusive societies) and 17 (partnerships and implementation) is to be achieved.

Young people are key to identifying new solutions that will secure the breakthroughs that our world urgently needs.

But more importantly, young people as future custodians of the planet, stand to lose the most if societies become more insecure and unequal and if the triple planetary crisis – global warming, loss of biodiversity and pollution, continues unabated. 

In many ways young people have become a driving force for the societal change necessary to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals.  Women such as –Greta Thunberg pushing for climate action, (a school girl strike ignited a global protest) but also young people seeking racial justice, promoting gender equality and demanding dignity for all. 

There are countless examples of young people driving innovative change in a host of arenas, such as in business, technology and science.

The ambition of the Sustainable Development Goals, the targets they seek to drive, for people, for planet and for sustainable, green prosperity are the best way we can live up to our responsibilities for future generations. 

There is much at risk if we don’t manage to keep a sustainable development course.

Two – The call for “meaningful youth engagement” 

In preparation for the 2023 SDG Summit and the Summit of the Future in 2024, the UN Secretary-General one of  eleven policy policy brief on “Meaningful Youth Engagement in Policy and Decision-making Processes” is one of them based on learning from youth organization across the world. 

The brief notes that in terms of participation in public policy-making and decision-making, youth remain almost invisible. Nationally, where mechanisms such as youth parliaments or youth councils struggle to impact decisions being taken at the cabinet table or votes on domestic budget. The same is true in the multilateral sphere, where despite the emergence of a patchwork of individual contributions. There are opportunities -

• Youth can be crucial actors in strengthening peace and security. When engaged as partners for peace, they help to shift a widespread perception of mistrust of young people, to more accurately presenting youth as “positive and constructive social agents” who play an essential role in building sustainable peace.  The normative foundation for youth-led peacebuilding efforts was laid in Security Council resolution 2250 (2015).  
• Young people have also been at the forefront of efforts to promote and protect human rights, exercising their right to freedom of information, opinion, expression, association and assembly, both online and offline. They are frequently at the fore of efforts to achieve gender equality and realize the rights of women and girls. They have also been leading global efforts to ensure that decision-making spaces are inclusive for all, especially young women, adolescents, LGBTIQ+ youth, youth with disabilities, indigenous youth, and refugee and migrant youth. By advocating for their active inclusion in policy spaces, young people provide diverse perspectives that improve policy making. 

Actions that have been taken include:

• The decision by the General Assembly to establish and fund the first United Nations Youth Office in the Secretariat will further strengthen the ability of the United Nations system to engage young people in its work.
• SG Envoy for Youth with the explicit mandate to support meaningful youth engagement and to coordinate the United Nations system’s overall work for and with youth.  Dr Felipe Paullier – ASG for Youth Affairs,  has been in Phillipines, follow his social media to learn more.

But what is happening here? In Albania, similar challenges are faced as across the world:

• challenges in moving from education to the labor market. Education, skills not matched and youth unemployment, despite improvements, still high. 
• Young people look for opportunities elsewhere - Youth emigration is high -  a significant factor in the country’s population decline and doesn’t realise potential. 
• Keeping track is difficult with the availability of youth-specific disaggregated (15-29 as defined by the law) data remains a challenge for Albania.
• In terms of funding, limited specific budget on youth is a major gap as well as limited institutional human resources and capacities to work with and for youth. 
• Youth policy is a cross-sectorial policy area with various line ministries and bodies that deal with youth issues, which at times proves challenging in terms of building synergies, data collection and analysis and overall coordination. Mainstreaming of youth still needs to be developed across different policy areas.
• Limited capacities and financial resources at the local government level, limit the structured dialogue and cooperation with youth.
• Many congratulations to all those involved in late 2022, preparation and approval of the National Youth Strategy 2022- 2029 which guided the vision of the UN Youth Strategy 2030.  the technical expertise of UN agencies (UNDP, UNICEF and UNFPA) who supported the design of this strategic document and the action plan its implementation and the three consecutive open calls for Civil Society Youth Organizations by the National Youth Agency, providing more opportunities to CSO working with and for youth. 

Turning the focus to Albania, over the past years,

• UN in Albania has continued to successfully put the Youth2030 Strategy into action across its priority areas to support young people of Albania in these difficult times. 
• We established a UN Youth Task Force with youth focal points from all UN Agencies to improve the effectiveness of our work with youth and encourage synergies and coordination in our engagement with youth partners. 
• This structure works closely with the UN Youth Advisory Group, a group of 13 young people from all over Albania that actively engage in UN activities promoting youth engagement for climate change, activism, health, refugee rights, youth and agriculture, youth and migration etc. 
• UN Youth Delegate selection and participation in events alongside the Albanian delegation. 
• The UN in Albania, as you will hear from my colleagues -  is working with its partners to promote economic and social reforms and innovations that help bring services to those who need them most – unemployed youth, vulnerable women, Roma and Egyptian communities and persons with disabilities. On 'leaving no one behind', supporting policy reform in social protection UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, and UNWOMEN, on skills development and employment especially in VET with UNDP, on piloting the Youth Guarantee Scheme with UNICEF and UNDP, and ILO at the regional level, and in the context of regional UN – peacebuilding fund project to   “Strengthen the role of youth in promoting increased mutual understanding, constructive narrative, respect for diversity, and trust”, that focuses on partnering with youth to address divisive narratives and hate speech - increasingly threats to sustained peace in the region – to enhance social cohesion within but especially across the zones involved.

I want to close by assuring you of my strong commitment to support relevant institutions in addressing youth issues in the country. I also want to say loud and clear that without your voice in the room we risk not taking the sustainable development challenges we face seriously, you need and deserve a place at the table. This conference represents a new form of engagement to strengthen your voice and your role, essential if we are realise the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Thank you!