Christine Mangale from Kenya participated in the youth caucus of the Commission for Sustainable Development from May 5th-16th 2008 at the UN Headquarters in New York, the themes were: Agriculture, Rural development, Land, Drought, Desertification, and Africa.
Christine made an intervention on behalf of children and youth (scroll down this page to the afternoon interactive session).
Amongst the children and youth major group, these are some of the issues that came up on our priority list for sustainable development:-
- Investing in alternative and informal education that is physically accessible and contextually relevant so as to address the needs of rural communities
- Investment in capacity building and the improvement of young people’s access to resources and opportunities.
- Integration of ethical and social principles into national sustainable development strategies
- Recognition of the important role of small farmers and livestock keepers in sustainable agriculture and rural development
- Promoting changes in production and consumption patterns that are necessary to achieve sustainable resource use
- Institutionalizing the participation of diverse sectors and stakeholders in decision making
- The implementation of policies and programs which work towards the elimination of child labour, especially in agriculture.
As youth, leaders of today and tomorrow, we strongly felt that it is our involvement today which shapes our future and we strongly appreciates this golden opportunity to be given a chance to voice our concerns pertaining to sustainable development issues. However, we felt that more needed to be done especially in making funds available for African Youth Delegates to be able to attend and participate.
LWF Youth Blog 