National Youth Summit (NYS08)

29th November – 1st December 2008

‘Uniting the Youth for Ensuring Meaningful Participation in the Development of Pakistan’

1 - Background

Pakistan currently boasts a huge demographic dividend and untapped human resource; it has the largest group of youth (ages 10 – 24) with nearly 54.2 million individuals. These projections of youth population statistics, call for enhanced policy and programmatic measures to address young people’s vulnerabilities and empowering them to be agents of change for development and eventually breaking the cycle of poverty in Pakistan. Pakistan’s youth represents vast untapped potential, which, if properly harnessed, could be the key to guiding this nation to a brighter future, as opposed to the current situation. Government of Pakistan is in the process of designing policies and programs for harnessing the “Demographic Dividend”. This is an appropriate time to bridge the gap between policy makers and youth to ensure an enabling policy environment for the youth in Pakistan.

2 - Introduction

Young people of Pakistan have potential and aspirations to participate fully in development process. They are the agents for social change, economic development and technological innovation. On the other side, Young people of Pakistan are the most vulnerable group to experience social, economic and even political issues. Therefore there is a dire need to address young people’s needs through a rights-based, gender-responsive and empowering approach.

Youth involvement into policy making and development programming is essential for harnessing their potential. Pakistan, currently have different youth networks and organizations working in their domains/area of interest to improve socio-economic conditions of the poor. However there is need to enhance their capabilities and foster harmony amongst these groups for a well coordinated and effective outcomes. A common platform is vital to have synergy for advocating for the rights of young people, and their meaningful participation in the policy making process of the federal, provincial and local governments.

align="justify"WPF will organise a National Youth Summit 2008 with support from UNFPA in November 2008 in Islamabad. 

3 - Goal

Develop National platform to advocate for youth participation in policy making process/forums at National, Provincial and District levels.

3.1 - Expected Results/Outocmes

• Youth networks and organizations are strengthened to effectively contribute to national development  
• National level platform of the Youth (14-25 years of age) initiated for ensuring meaningful youth participation.

3.2 Outputs

• Strategy to create harmony amongst the different youth networks and organization in Pakistan keeping cultural diversity into context
• Recommendations for ensuring Youth participation in the policy making of Pakistan
• Capacity building workshops managing volunteers, advocacy, resource mobilization, Rights based approaches to youth development and leadership skills - 150 young people are expected to participate Support of 5 young parliamentarians to the cause of this event 
• Wide media coverage to highlight youth issues and potential.
  

4 - Process

4.1 Pre-summit activities

4.1.1 Formation of organizing committee, an organization committee will be formed to support WPF in organizing the event. Members of different youth organizations from Islamabad/Rawalpindi will be part of the organizing committee. Gender balance in the formation of the organizing committee will be ensured, all the members of the ‘NYS 2008 Organizing Committee’ will be in the age bracket of (14-25 years) members of the organizing committee will hold at least three (3) consultative meetings before the event. First meeting will be held in before October 15. The purpose of the organizing committee is to design and organize National Youth Summit. The organizing committee will be convened by WPF and form sub-committees for various purposes.  

4.1.2 Selection of the delegates, organizing committee will finalize the selection of the participants. Registration form will be developed and Youth organizations will be invited to nominate their representatives inline with selection criteria indicated in the registration form. Final selection will be made by organizing committee by first week of November. To encourage meaningful participation based on equity principle 60% of the participants will be women. The participants will be in the age bracket of (14-25) years.

Selection Criteria – delegates
Delegates must fulfil the following selection criteria

• Age between 14 – 25 years
• Office bearer of Youth Network/Organization for last one year
• Commitment to work with network/organization for at least two years
• Good verbal and communication skills

Nomination Criteria – Organizations
Organizations nominating delegates must fulfil the following selection criteria:

• Geographical representation and solely a Youth network/Organization
• Nominee must be in the age bracket of 14 – 25 years
• Relevant experience of working on youth issues or with youth
• 5 nominations per organizations with 60% female representation i.e. 2 Males and 3 Females nominations
• Ensuring timely submission of the registration form along with the detailed profile of the nominee
• Willing to allow nominee to participate in post-event/follow-up activities as well

4.1.3 Delegates:
The summit will bring together 150 youth leaders from across Pakistan with balance representation of gender, regions and provinces to make the summit representative. High Achievers from urban and rural areas will be invited as young role models to share their experience. Workshop speakers/facilitators will also be youth below the age of 29 years.

Existing youth networks and organizations will be invited to participate in the NYS as following:

• 18 Youth Advisory Panel (YAP) members
• 25 Youth Advocacy Network (YAN) members
• 20 members from Youth Assemblies
• 10 members from Pildat – Youth Parliament
• 10 Young media organizations  
• 20 -10 each from Boy Scouts, Girl Guide
• 15 - 5 each from FPAP, Rozan, Sachet etc.
• 10 students from different universities
• 8 - 4 each from PAVHNA Qilla Saifullah and Muzaffarabad
• 4 from MSS Kohat
• 8 youth from YFCs in other UNFPA program districts (Thatta, Mansehra, Kotli, Nushki).
• 10 students – Toppers in A levels, O - levels and Inter and Matric

4.1.4 Speakers/Facilitators, to make the event more lively, young and motivated speakers will be invited to facilitate the sessions, organizing committee will make sure that all the speakers must be below 30 years of age.

4.1.5 Young parliamentarians, under the age of 35 will also be invited as delegates/guests to garner their support.

4.1.7 Briefing on Youth policy:
Prior to the Policy Dialogue series, briefing sessions will be organized during the summit. The sessions will help participants understand the current salient features in various policies and its relevance to youth. This will facilitate an informed policy dialogue, adequate lobbying and help formulate effective recommendation for their inclusion in the policy making processes.

4.1.8 Media, A media plan will be developed by the Media Committee. Young journalist will be invited to join this committee. Two Media briefings will be held in October and prior to the Event in November. A post event press conference will be held by youth delegates included into ‘National Youth Task Force’ formed during the summit with representation by participating NGOs and Networks.

4.2 Venue and Date
NYS08 will take place in Islamabad (any local hotel) from 29th November – 1st December 2008.

4.3 Programme of the Summit
The programme will include:

Opening and closing sessions – Plenary
Plenary 1: Demographic Dividend: Harnessing Youth Potential in Pakistan, Day one will start with the plenary on the Demographic Dividend with a theme of Harnessing Youth Potential in Pakistan. The introductory speech in the plenary will be made by UNFPA and WPF representatives, along with representatives of other organizations. The opening plenary will set the tone for the summit
Plenary 2: Democracy, Peace and Harmony, second day will start with the plenary keeping the current law and order situation in Pakistan, effecting the Youth. The speakers of the plenary will discuss how youth can play an effective role in bringing harmony and peace in the current situation of Pakistan. 
Concluding Session, last day will start with a closing plenary and recommendations and future strategy will be shared with the stakeholders. Organizing committee will invite Prime Minister and Ministers of the concerned ministries to attend the concluding plenary.

Capacity Building Sessions
During all three NYS08 days, capacity building sessions aims at enhancing knowledge and skills of youth delegates to effectively manage their youth organizations and programmes. Topics proposed for these sessions are: Rights Based Approaches to development of Youth, Volunteer Management, Advocacy and Leadership, and Resource Mobilization. All session will be of two hour duration and will be conducted by youth facilitators through interactive methods.

First day will include capacity building sessions to make the young participants aware about the strategies to formulate recommendations of the forum. The session will run concurrently and each session will accommodate 40 participants and will be conducted twice to benefit maximum number of youth participants. 

Policy dialogues
Policy makers and representative from the concerned ministries will be invited to share their point of view and discuss the strategy for youth involvement into the policy making process of Pakistan. The session will be interactive sessions, where a designated group of young people will interact with policy makers to draft a common strategy for youth participation and development. Different TV channels producing programmes on youth issues will be invited to cover the sessions.  At the end of the session suggestions and future strategy will be shared with the participants

Exhibition
It will be a great opportunity for young participants of the event to explore what is going around in Pakistan and how different organizations are addressing youth issues. Organizations both national and international working on youth issues will be invited to set-up their stalls at the site and distribute publications and present their work in an interactive way. To make the exhibition attractive, participants of the summit will also be encouraged to display their work at the exhibition site and share their thoughts on youth involvement in the policy making with the other participants. There will be floor for poster presentations as well. 

Cultural Evening 
Subject to availability of funds on day one will have Dinner and Ghazal Night, (Hosted by UNFPA) all the parliamentarians, government officials and young people will have dinner and enjoy Ghazal night together, this will be an effort to bridge gap between young people and the policy makers and they will be able to interact with each other in an informal way

On day two a Cultural Night (Hosted by WPF, P)will be organized, it will be an opportunity for young people to bring forward issues of their respective region/culture in an interactive way and convey their concerns to the stakeholders, different organizations and parliamentarians will also be invited on the occasion of cultural night 

Informal networking and learning sessions will take place during lunch breaks or between workshops, these sessions will involve all participants divided into teams from the onset of the summit and who will be meeting in a set event for 45 minutes every morning (breakfast) over the three days of the conference to get to know each other and learn from each other’s experience on a one to one basis.

A 90 minutes open house session will take place exclusively for summit delegates including youth leadership leading various youth networks, organizations and programmes will be panelists to discuss major issues related to conference themes and suggest remedies.

The format would be that of televised debates. Local young TV journalists will be requested to moderate the sessions. The participants would be asked questions and then given a chance to offer their opinions. Panelists will also be given a chance to critique their fellow panelist’s opinions, critiquing and debating each other in order to showcase all sides of the issues. The idea of this debate will be to share various perspectives to ensure meaningful youth participation in policy making process and developing a ‘National Youth Task Force.

Session with young parliamentarians, building on the recommendations of the first day, participants will work in groups with young parliamentarians to lobby them to advocate for the rights of young people in ensuring meaningful participation into the process.

Introducing Role Model,High Achievers and young motivational speakers will be invited to share their point of view on their achievements and lessons learned. It will help young people to learn from these role models to realize their potential and encourage them to go back to their home towns in high spirits.

Theatre group performance, recommendations of the summit will be presented in an interactive way, a theatre performance from a young theatre group of the event highlighting issues and way forward will be performed at the end of day 3.