Mohammad Mahdi Karim, Micheala Chan, Eleri Kirkpatrick-Lorente and Shaun Odili are the four U.K. youth who were chosen by the Future Leaders Network to represent the U.K.’s 11.1 million young people at the Youth 20 (Y20) this year.
The Y20 is one of eight engagement groups supported by the Indonesian 2022 Group of 20 (G20) Presidency. The purpose of each engagement group is to produce recommendations for world leaders to consider at their annual gathering. Each engagement group represents a different constituency, the Y20 is the official youth engagement group for young people.
From 17 to 24 July, the four U.K. youth delegates attended the Y20 Summit in Indonesia alongside youth delegates from across the world. It was here that they adopted the historic Y20 Communiqué, embracing their differences to reach consensus on the critical themes of Global Health, Sustainable and Livable Planet, Youth Employment, Digital Transformation, and Diversity and Inclusion.
Among the key messages of the communiqué are the importance of meaningful multilateralism and youth participation, particularly in light of the lack of consensus reached in recent G20 ministerial meetings, and recognising trust as the building block of good governance. With 35% of the UK population stating they trust the national government – lower than the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average (41%) – it is clear that urgent action must be taken by the new government to engage in more inclusive sustainable and meaningful governance at all levels of society.
On Friday 23 September, they delivered their recommendations directly to Downing Street, calling on the new Prime Minister Liz Truss to ensure a just and inclusive transition to a digitally transformed society and economy, by coordinating a G20 Digital Wellbeing Charter to promote and protect the wellbeing of young people in an increasingly digitised world.
Commenting, Mohammad Mahdi Karim, UK’s Head Delegate at the Y20 said:
“The views of young people have been consistently excluded from the decision making table. This is gravely unfortunate as young people have energy, enthusiasm and insight to remedy some of the country’s most pressing issues. It was fantastic to be able to present the Y20 Communiqué, a document full of policies designed by the youth for the youth, to the new Government, thereby ensuring that young people’s voices are amplified. We urge the Government to adopt some of the policies and to increase the opportunities for young people to influence and design future policy.”
The Y20 2022 is hosted by the Indonesian Youth Diplomacy and the Summit took place in Indonesia on 17-24 July 2022.
The UK delegates are selected and supported by the Future Leaders Network. Young people aged 18 – 30 in the U.K. can apply to represent the country in open applications, which launch every year in November/December.
