Four young leaders from the United Kingdom joined over 80 global young leaders to call for the Group of 20 (G20) leaders to meaningfully engage with youth priorities and facilitate greater youth involvement in policy-making, at the Youth 20 (Y20) Summit in Jakarta and Bandung from 17 - 24 July.
The G20 is an annual gathering of world leaders and Ministers from most of the planet’s largest economies, composed of 19 countries and the European Union. Each year, the Presidency rotates amongst members, and in 2022 the G20 Summit will take place in Bali, Indonesia from 15 -16 November under the Indonesian G20 Presidency.
The Y20 is the official youth engagement group of the G20, the annual gathering of world leaders and Ministers from most of the planet’s largest economies, composed of 19 countries and the European Union. Its purpose is to ensure that decisions and agreements reached by world leaders represent the views of young people from around the globe.
The four UK delegates, selected by the Future Leaders Network (FLN) after a competitive application process, undertook intense negotiations over several months to reach a list of demands for world leaders to consider at their forthcoming G20 Summit. These policy recommendations, formalised in the Y20 communiqué, were negotiated by the following delegates within four policy areas:
Mohammad Karim - Diversity and Inclusion
Micheala Chan – Sustainable and Liveable Planet
Shaun Odili – Youth Employment
Eleri Kirkpatrick-Lorente – Digital Transformation
The Y20 called for the Indonesian Prime Minister, Joko Widodo, and his world leader counterparts, to:
Enshrine the intergenerational right and responsibility to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment in national constitutions where not yet covered and in international law, while operationalizing the One Health approach as part of national and international public health protocols;
Coordinate a G20 Digital Wellbeing Charter to promote and protect the wellbeing of young people in an increasingly digitised world
Endorse the provision of internship stipends for all spheres of work and phase out unpaid internships in international organisations.
Ensure that soft skills training and leadership capacity building are formalised in all national curricula by 2025.
The UK delegation will now promote these policies domestically and internationally, working with fellow Y20 delegates to secure commitments to these policies in the upcoming G20 Summit in November.
Mohammad Karim, UK Head Delegate to the 2022 Y20, commented:
“Whilst we are longing to be done with the pandemic, the effects of the pandemic will certainly not be done with us. Impacting the formative years of our generation, the pandemic has exacerbated existing and created new challenges. The Y20 provided an unparalleled opportunity for young leaders to create policy that will remedy these issues.”
From 17th - 24th July in Bandung and Jakarta the UK Delegation negotiated and formulated a communique which will be presented to G20 Leaders. The policies ranged from calling for a sustainable planet to become a legally recognised intergenerational right to fortifying every educational curriculum with employability skills such as public speaking classes.
We urge all G20 leaders to act upon our proposals so that together we will bounce back better to achieve a more prosperous, respectful and secure world.”
