World Forum for Democracy – LAB 10: Structures for youth advocacy

Local youth councils, a first step towards better political representation for young people?

04.11.2014

While local youth councils can help young people to raise the issues affecting them and make their voices more clearly heard, it is crucial that these structures are not used as a pretext for keeping them out of mainstream major political debates - that was the view of the numerous young people participating in the "laboratory" (LAB) of the World Forum for Democracy devoted to structures representing young people on 4 November 2014.

For a year and a half now, German Development Cooperation (GIZ) had been supporting an initiative to establish youth representatives and councils in 11 municipalities located in the Palestinian Territories. The aim was first and foremost to enable young people to express themselves and also to urge these municipalities to carry out projects with the needs and expectations of young people in mind.  Presenting their project at the Forum, the promoters of "Youth Create Change" (YCC) were seeking to "break down the internal barriers" in Palestinian political life, which was dominated by two main parties run by 70- and 80-year-olds. They hoped to ultimately promote a more democratic tendency in the Territories.

Representing the Congress at this LAB, Tracey Simpson-Laing (United Kingdom, SOC) presented the activities of the Youth Council in her city, York, pointing out that young people could enter politics if they were given the means to do so but also calling on youth councils to more strongly involve people from underprivileged backgrounds and to open up to people with disabilities as well as homosexual, lesbian and transgender persons.

Not just about "young people's problems"

However, Samia Hatroubi, a Franco-Tunisian activist responsible for Europe at the "Foundation for Ethnic Understanding", pointed out that too many youth councils contented themselves with talking about "young people's problems" and had neither the opportunity nor sometimes the competence to tackle broader topics such as security, unemployment or the environment, which were all too often the preserve of "more senior" representatives.  She also noted that, although young people talked a great deal about politics on social networks, there were not enough of them registering on the electoral roll and voting, a point further confirmed by the very recent elections in Tunisia.

Broad debate followed these presentations, with participants often criticising the limitations of youth councils. Furthermore, one young Colombian, Leonardo, pointed out that some States were even reluctant to set them up, and even before considering the question of the purpose they served, the focus should be on the question of what to do if the authorities refused to institute them.  For Victoria, from Ukraine, there was also a risk of these councils becoming instruments of manipulation by governments. Alice Priori, presenting the YCC initiative at the LAB, thought that young people must be able to decide what they wanted to discuss, while many participants deplored the fact that they were confined "to a token consultative role".  "You must use youth councils to reflect on the notion of power and how to obtain it", was the advice of Samia Hatroubi who, like many of the participants, thought that youth councils were "inadequate but nevertheless necessary".

Participating is good, but voting is vital

In some countries, young people had managed to "take power", including through the offices of the traditional political parties.  As one participant pointed out, "in Austria, we have the youngest foreign affairs minister in Europe, surrounded by a very young team, and everyone thinks that he makes a very good job of it, even his opponents".  Tracey Simpson-Laing cited several cases of political leaders in her region having entered politics before the age of 30, and even at the age of 21 in one case, which proved that the traditional parties were also capable of opening up to the younger generation. "Young people can and must take initiatives, and often do so", concluded the participants, before reiterating the two strong messages coming out of the LAB: firstly, do not restrict youth councils to "young people's problems" and then, perhaps above all, young people must not content themselves with debate and discussion - they must go to vote, encourage others to vote and stand for election.