Children and Youth Stakeholder Position at AFARPDRR
Children and Youth Stakeholder Position (Plenary Statement)
7th Session of Africa Regional Platform & the 6th High Level Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction – 09 – 13 October 2018, Tunisia
Two years ago, the African children and youth stakeholder group made passionate calls and commitments together with member states, and other stakeholders towards successful implementation of Africa’s Programme of Action for reducing disaster risks. Two years down the line, meaningful youth engagement has increased but we are still far from our goal; that is, to be seen and felt as equal and strong stakeholders in disaster risk reduction on the continent. Africa is significantly impacted by disasters especially by fragility, climate exacerbated hazards and socio-economic vulnerabilities. The good news is that, Africa has a youthful continent in relation to its population makeup.
This ‘youth’ resource has a great potential to provide dividend for economic and social transformation, that has far reaching positive impacts on disaster risk reduction and ultimately, sustainable development.
Across the continent, young people are taking local actions, to sustain and accelerate this upward trend. Young people as agents of change are self-organised and focused on playing more active roles.
It is against this background that we make the following calls and commitments:
We call for disaggregated data collection of children and youth in DRR assessments, this will inform DRR strategies to be more context specific and inclusive, consequently We commit to mapping children and youth actions on DRR, to showcase and support their work;
We call for an increase in DRR education content in formal and non-formal institutions, consequently We commit to increasing the scope of sharing our children and youth sensitive knowledge on DRR to facilitate youth focused and intergenerational training, knowledge transfer.
We call on the Africa Union to establish a robust, open, transparent, and inclusive Youth Advisory Board that shall work with member states to ensure accountability. This board should be adequately resourced to enhance active participation in all processes related to successful implementation of the Sendai Framework for DRR and the PoA. We therefore commit to playing an active role on the official mechanisms in all aspects of DRR planning and processes.
We call for strengthened partnerships with stakeholders including but not limited to: national Sendai focal points, the scientific and academic community, policy makers, civil society, private sectors and other relevant stakeholders. Hence we to commit to being strong and equal stakeholders in the implementation, monitoring, follow up and review of the Sendai Framework and the PoA.
We call on the African Union through the African Risk Capacity to make provision for climate risk insurance targeting the youth constituency, more so the rural youth, to protect their enterprises and agro-business initiatives against weather related disasters and losses. We commit to creating the awareness of such pro-youth insurance for member states to purchase on behalf of youth enterprises.