| The focus
- Why youth and UN-HABITAT?
By Anantha Krishnan
In a world where the number of young
people has become the largest in history
relative to the adult population, the
need to take urgent and ever more innovative
approaches to the problems facing them
is greater than ever.
At present, over 3 billion individuals
or just over 50 per cent of the world's
population are children or youth. In
terms of youth alone, there are 1.3
billion young people aged between 15
and 24.* According to the World Youth
Report 2003, almost 60 per cent of these
young people live in the developing
countries of Asia. Another 15 per cent
are in Africa, and approximately 10
per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean.
About 15 per cent live in developed
regions.
In today's rapidly urbanizing world,
the biggest danger many of them face
is exclusion and marginalisation. It
is estimated that there are 66 million
unemployed young people in the world.
Unemployment, crime, HIV/AIDS, neglect
by higher authorities and often abandonment
to their fate because of various forms
of discrimination, top the list of problems
towns and cities have to deal with.
They are also the
most serious problems facing young people
in this growing urban landscape.
This situation is especially acute
in Africa, which is experiencing the
world's largest rate of transition from
a rural way of life to urban living.
Africa's urban population is forecast
to double from 295 million in 2000 to
590 million in 2020, a growth rate consistent
with the most rapid urban growth rates
in the world. By 2020, one half of Africa's
population will be living in cities.
Through its regional offices
UN-HABITAT's youth programmes are
targeting young men and women and
focusing on issues of crime, violence,
juvenile delinquency, employment,
enablement, awareness raising, living
conditions, HIV/AIDS, drug abuse
and conflict prevention. The countries
covered include Vietnam, Cambodia
and Afghanistan.
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UN-HABITAT recognizes this situation.
And it regards young people as a major
force for a better world. Thus their
empowerment through effective and meaningful
participation in decision-making is
crucial. The idea of participation is
based on our conviction that young people
themselves are the best resource for
promoting their development. They should
be the architects and agents for change.
In this new millennium, they can help
us meet the challenges of the world's
burgeoning human settlements as outlined
in the Habitat Agenda.
Adopted by 171 countries at the 1996
City Summit in Istanbul, Turkey, the
Habitat Agenda is a political document
with over 100 commitments and 600 recommendations
that set out the approaches and strategies
towards the achievement of sustainable
development of the world's urban areas.
It recommends a participatory approach
to promote employment, training, and
crime prevention. It also stresses the
role of young people in the alleviation
of poverty and inequality.
UN-HABITAT has a history of working
with youth. Its interventions cover
not only the physical aspects of human
settlements, but also the upgrading
of slums. But it does so by also looking
at the social and economic upgrading
of slums in which aspects for young
people's social needs on inclusion,
employment, and better social services
can be addressed. It also examines the
causes and circumstances that place
young people at risk of falling into
crime, offending and victimization,
and how to best tackle them.
It has thus devised a youth policy
aimed at integrating youth issues and
concerns into UN-HABITAT's overall policy
decision-making process. Its prime objective
is to identify areas for youth participation
and to ensure the development of a strategy
for the active engagement of young people
in addressing issues related to sustainable
urbanization.
The idea behind our approach is to
complement initiatives undertaken by
non-governmental or community-based
organizations, UN agencies, and others.
Its role is to help nurture partnerships,
lobby governments, and offer avenues
for further collaboration.
Among its programmes, UN-HABITAT is
addressing the issue of urban crime
and violence in the context of developing
the values of citizenship among the
youth. Crime and violence involving
young people constitutes an increasingly
evident problem that reflects a society
in crisis. Research has indicated that
there is no general or universal agreement
on the rapidly escalating rate of youth
crime and violence because it is not
clearly understood.
Since the early 1990s, crime rates
have begun to stabilise in most industrialised
countries. However, offences committed
by those aged between 12 and 25 years,
and by minors of 12 to 18, have increased
significantly. Since the 1980s, developing
countries have witnessed the growing
phenomena of street children, youth
gangs, school dropouts, widespread social
exclusion, and civil wars involving
child soldiers. All these have served
to aggravate the situation of youth
crime. Youth crime has become increasingly
violent and the age of entrance into
delinquency has fallen to 12 years of
age world-wide. Young people also suffer
from a vacuum in values, and are excluded
from decision-making about the present
and future. This is manifested in attention-seeking
activities, often with recourse to violence,
destruction of public property, and
other crime.
The situation is exacerbated by the
fact that youth policies at the national
level often exclude young people of
the informal sectors, those who live
in the streets, and those who live in
stigmatised, or poverty-stricken neighbourhoods.
On the other hand, there is also a tendency
to criminalise youth as a whole. In
some countries, the first manifestations
of anti-social behaviour result in legislation
making it easier to put them behind
bars at an earlier age. It is therefore
a challenge for cities to mobilise their
resources in all areas and sectors of
society to address the plight of all
their younger citizens so that they
achieve social inclusion. Local governments
need to develop and strengthen aspects
of local youth policies on care, education,
unemployment, leisure activities, and
family support.
Through its Safer Cities Programme,
UN-HABITAT is engaging local authorities
and other city stakeholders in dealing
with youth delinquency. Todate, Nairobi,
Dar es Salaam, Yaounde and Port Moresby
are benefiting from this assistance.
The agency is developing programmes
with local authorities to include young
people, particularly those most at risk,
in civic processes at every level.
Examples of the Safer Cities Programme
assistance to cities include family
and community level support to help
local authorities find ways of involving
families in early crime prevention and
enhancing community support for young
offenders; through victim aid programmes
to help young victims of crime and their
local authorities with training programmes
on ways of detecting various forms of
distress and encouraging the victims
to speak out. It also uses the education
system by involving schools as channels
of transmitting civic values and bringing
young people into the decision-making
process.
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Source:
The Global Urban Observatory (GUO),
UN-HABITAT
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| Share
of youth within total regional
population:
In absolute numbers, the share
of youth among all age groups
is very high. However, over the
last three decades, the proportion
of the youth population as a part
of the total population has decreased
worldwide, except in Africa. Figures
show that the proportion of the
youth population worldwide has
decreased from 29% in 1970, to
27% in 2000, while in Africa it
has increased from 31% to 33%.
Africa has high fertility rates
and low life expectancy levels.
This means that while the number
of children being born is high,
the number of older adults is
relatively lower than other regions
of the third world. |
At the heart of the Safer Cities Programme
approach, is the change of attitude
that projects young people as "resources"
rather than as a "problem".
If the process of transforming young
offenders into good citizens is to be
achieved, it is necessary to make them
actors of their own future and that
of their community.[see article on p.12]
Through its regional offices UN-HABITAT's
youth programmes are targeting young
men and women and focusing on issues
of crime, violence, juvenile delinquency,
employment, enablement, awareness raising,
living conditions, HIV/AIDS, drug abuse
and conflict prevention. The countries
covered include Vietnam, Cambodia and
Afghanistan.
Capacity building for young people and
youth organizations has been identified
as a must to strengthen the capacity
of youth to participate in decision-making
and leadership. UN-HABITAT has developed
training and capacity building manuals
and tools that can be used by young
people. These cover a range of issues
including leadership, decision-making,
skill building, and training of local
authorities.
The efforts are many and varied. Youth
development is a crosscutting issue
which most UN and other agencies are
working with. The Youth Employment Network
launched jointly by the United Nations,
the World Bank and the International
Labour Organization is an example of
the collaboration that is required if
agencies are to pool resources and address
issues facing young people.
The Global Partnership Initiative on
Urban Youth Development in Africa being
designed by UN-HABITAT will be the test
case for a new international community
of agencies and organizations addressing
the impact of rapid urbanization and
social exclusion on vulnerable categories
of young people. It focuses on urban
youth at risk and urban youth employment.
How can UN-HABITAT help them achieve
a sustainable livelihood? How can UN-HABITAT
bring them into the decision-making
process so that policies best serve
their interests? How can UN-HABITAT
help families, communities, countries
and regions join hands to meet their
needs and emergencies? What are the
best practices that UN-HABITAT needs
to disseminate to young people around
the globe?
As the English philosopher and statesman,
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), said: "Young
people are fitter to invent than to
judge; fitter for execution than for
counsel; and more fit for new projects
than for settled business."
UN-HABITAT's experience with young
people around the world on the other
hand shows that they can invent, judge,
execute, counsel, that they are fit
for new projects and can conduct settled
business given the space, the right
policy framework and resources.
Young people are not just leaders of
tomorrow, they are the leaders of today
who show the way for the leaders of
yesterday.
Anantha Krishnan is the Chief of
UN-HABITAT's Partners and Youth Section.
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