A recent UN report on the state of the world's youth reveals that the current generation of young people faces even more complex challenges than the previous generation, writes Fébé Potgieter.
The United Nations Secretary General recently released the World Youth Report 20051, which will be discussed by the UN General Assembly during two plenary sessions in October 2005. South Africa was among the few countries2 who submitted their national reviews before the completion of the report in December 2004.
The WYR 2005 gives an overview of the implementation of the World Programme of Action for Youth 2000 and Beyond, which was adopted by the UN in 1995 and makes an assessment of the situation of the world's young people in 2005. It reports on the five 'new concerns' - globalisation, information and communication technologies, HIV and AIDS, youth and conflict, and intergenerational relationships - which were identified in 1995 as issues which are likely to make an impact on young men and women.
The report, given its scope, provides a general sweep of issues affecting the world's youth. However, there are important issues raised by the reports, which South Africans should consider and debate as we travel into the second decade of freedom.
THE FIRST INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF THE YOUTH, 1985
Two resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly designated 1985 as International Youth Year, under the theme 'Participation, Development, Peace'. The resolutions motivated for this designation based on the recognition of the "need to harness the energies, enthusiasm and creative abilities of youth to the tasks of nation-building, the struggle for self determination and national independence, and against foreign domination and occupation, for the economic, social and cultural advancement of peoples, the implementation of the new international economic order, the preservation of world peace and the promotion of international cooperation and understanding." (UN, 1980) Balardini (2000), writing about the history of youth policy in Latin America, argues that the 1985 International Year of the Youth (IYY) gave a 'powerful push' to the development of youth policies and a foundation for different national youth organisations.
Similarly, during the height of repression in the 1980s in South Africa it provided a legal platform to the youth and student movement to unite around their issues as a sector, when many other legal forms of expression were being closed down. It provided an umbrella for coordinated efforts in the struggle to make apartheid unworkable and it helped to situate the youth struggles in South Africa in an internationalist context. The IYY activities, and the unity in action it inspired, provided cover and gave new impetus to the process of forming a national youth organisation -culminating in the launch of the South African Youth Congress (SAYCO) in 1987.
Dan Montsitsi, student leader from the 1976 generation, and then national IYY coordinator thus explained the meaning of the theme: "With 'Participation' they (the UN) mean that youth generally do not participate in the decision-making of their countries and governments don't deem it necessary to consult youth about issues that affect their lives. With 'Development' the UN said different countries are not doing enough to improve or develop the youth. They mention in particular the high rate of unemployment. By 'Peace', well they say that with the building of the neutron and atom bombs, this is actually not a sign of peace, but of war and until such time that the destruction of human life and poverty is done away with, there will be no peace."4
The goals of the declaration of the IYY globally were to raise public awareness of youth issues, profile young people as social actors and a political target group and recognise the mutual benefits this would have for the development of young people and society as a whole. (Balardini, 2000:p44)
The IYY represented a distinct break away from seeing young people as a 'problem', with youth policies focussing on problem issues - delinquency, substance abuse, teenage pregnancy - to a more integrated and developmental approach where society takes responsibility for providing an enabling environment for young men and women to meet their full potential.
THE 1995 WORLD PROGRAMME OF ACTION FOR YOUTH AND SOUTH AFRICA'S NATIONAL YOUTH POLICY
The World Programme of Action for 2000 and Beyond was adopted in 1995, ten years after the first International Year of the Youth. It followed and was influenced by a host of other UN Conferences such as the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights in 1993, the Cairo Conference on Population and Development in 1994 and the Beijing Women's Conference in 1995.
The World Programme of Action for Youth (WPAY) recognised that since the first IYY, the world "has experienced fundamental political, economic and socio-cultural changes, with young people (representing) agents, beneficiaries and victims of such changes".
Using the UN definition of youth, namely people in the 15 to 24 years age range, it identified ten priority areas for national action and international support aimed at improving the situation and well-being of the world's young men and women.
The ten priority areas are education, employment, hunger and poverty, health, environment, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, leisure time activities, girls and young women; and the full and effective participation of youth in the life of society and in decision-making.
The WPAY encouraged all member states to develop or update their national youth policies and to ensure that they involve young people in the process. It set in motion a process through the UN system to provide support for the formulation and monitoring of such national youth policies. The Millennium Development Goals, adopted five years later, incorporated a number of these target priorities aimed at children and youth.
South Africa's National Youth Policy, which was adopted by cabinet in 1997, drew extensively on the approaches and priorities outlined in the World Programme of Action for Youth. Furthermore, it drew on the Commonwealth Youth Charter, which commits member countries to create societies where young men and women are empowered to develop their creativity, skills and potential as productive and dynamic members of their societies. Key principles for youth development in the Commonwealth Youth Charter are gender inclusive development, empowerment, sustainability, human rights and integration.
The process towards the formulation of South Africa's National Youth Policy reflects important elements of the 'Ten steps to national youth policy formulation', a guiding document by the UN to assist member countries with their national youth policies.
The South African process, spearheaded by the Office of the Deputy President and later the National Youth Commission was consultative and participative, involving over a period of nearly four years5 large numbers of stakeholders and youth organisations in particular. These processes also agreed on a South Africa specific definition of youth, using the 14-35 years age range. It was based on extensive research on the situation of young people at the time and drew on the experience of other national youth policies on the continent, as well as in the world.
The National Youth Commission (NYC) constituted the lead agency proposed in the guidelines, responsible for coordination of different government departments on youth matters and for ensuring that there is effective mainstreaming of youth policy in national development planning. The NYC in June 1998 adopted a National Youth Action Plan, aimed at giving implementation effect to the National Youth Policy, identifying resources required to implement the policy and setting goals and indicators to measure progress.
The National Youth Policy was adopted by Cabinet in 1997. However, the guidelines also call for 'formal enactment by the national legislative body' as an indication of the political will to initiate and pursue such a policy. The South African National Youth Policy (and subsequent policies on youth), unlike policies aimed at other priority target groups6, has never been adopted by parliament as part of the policy and enabling framework of the country.
THE SITUATION OF YOUTH IN 2005
The Secretary General's World Report on Youth 2005 notes that eighteen percent of the world's population are in the age group 15-24 years, and that more than three quarters of them live in the developing world. It further notes that the "young generation that witnessed the adoption of the World Programme of Action in 1995 has now completely been replaced by a new generation of young men and women".
In its review of the World Programme of Action for Youth (1995), the report summarised the ten priorities identified in the WPAY into three clusters:
Youth in the global economy: education and employment
According to WYR 2005 South Asia, followed by sub-Saharan Africa, have the largest number of young people living below the poverty line and these regions are home to the largest concentration of undernourished young people. The report notes that although young people are increasingly being identified as a target group in many national poverty reduction strategies, more should be done to mainstream youth into these strategies. The report also identifies the need for more research on poverty among youth, focussing on the specific characteristics of youth poverty as well as for age disaggregation in all national data.
Over the last ten years, important improvements with regards education have occurred worldwide - the number of children in primary school has increased steadily and gross enrolment in secondary schools globally have increased from 56% to 78%. "The current generation of young people," states the report, "is the best educated ever."
However, despite this progress, 113 million primary-age school children were not in school in 2000; the making of the next generation of illiterate youth. The report identifies poverty, gender inequality and access to education in rural areas as among the major barriers to schooling.
The importance of universal access to education is taken further in the Millennium Development Goals, to:
In addition to ensuring universal access to education, the report calls for major emphasis on enhancing the quality of education, life orientation skills, access to ICT and preparing young people more adequately for participating in the labour market.
Youth unemployment, though a major issue in 1995, has become even more dire in the decade since. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), "compared to adults, young people today are more than three times as likely to be unemployed... (and) being without work means being without a chance to work themselves out of poverty". The report notes a four percent decrease in the labour market participation rate of young people between 1993 and 2003, which it ascribes to the increase in participation in school, longer time spent in education, generally high unemployed rates, and because many young people dropped out of the labour force as they lost hope of finding work.
Given this trend, there has been increased international commitment to address youth employment, most notably the formation of the Youth Employment Network (YEN), a joint collaboration of the UN, the ILO and the World Bank, and the inclusion of Goal Eight in the Millennium Development Goals which urges national governments to "develop and implement strategies that give young people everywhere a real chance to find decent and productive work".
At a strategic level, an expert panel convened by the Secretary General as part of the YEN process identified four strategic policy priorities to meet the MDG target, namely employability, entrepreneurship, equal opportunities and employment creation.
Youth in civil society: environment, leisure and participation
Since the International Year of the Youth in 1985, the issue of the participation of young people as social and political actors has been on the national and global agendas. The report identifies three developments over the last decade which changed the way in which young men and women's socialisation and participation take place:
The report notes the concern and activism of young people throughout the world in environmental and sustainability issues. It refers to youth mobilisation around the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) and the example of the 'Clean up the World' annual volunteer campaign, which involves more than 40 million people worldwide, the majority of them young people.
Leisure and discretionary time make a vital contribution in promoting social inclusion, access to opportunities and overall development. On the other hand, threats to youth well-being - risky sexual behaviour, delinquency, substance abuse - are often linked to leisure.
The report notes that the cuts or limited government subsidies for leisure activities, sports and culture has endangered valuable extra-curricular activities in and out of schools, contributing to "greater numbers of latch-key children, who either return to empty homes or roam the streets".
Progress has been made in improving the involvement of young people in decision making, especially in matters which affect them. However, the report argues that effective youth participation "requires changes in how societies perceive young people".
Society's perceptions and discrimination against young people (and old people) in the main is based on age and on generalised societal assumptions about their abilities and experiences given their stage of development. Thus society regards and treats youth simply as 'immature adults', instead of as 'human beings in a particular life phase' (Klaus, 2000). The report thus calls for a move away from "ad hoc activity based approaches, to inclusion of young people in core aspects of social structures, institutions and processes".
The phenomenon of disengagement from traditional modes of especially political participation among the world's youth is noted with concern - "to many young people, the world of politics is too distant from their daily realities of school, leisure and finding work". The report however warns against concluding that because of low voter turnout and low membership in political parties, young people are not interested in the political future of their societies. It profiles the importance of student organisations, issue-based networks and organisations, and the role played by national youth councils in ensuring the continued mobilisation of young people.
Specific attention is also given to the involvement of millions of young men and women in volunteer work. Their participation in voluntary activity tends to be issue-specific and service-orientated, with reluctance to join formal organisations. Voluntary service, according to Gillette (2003: p.62), can contribute to social cohesion by empowering excluded sectors of society, by providing participants with a sense of self-worth and "with a commitment to change which enable participants to initiate ventures after the service experience".
The report makes an interesting (and rather cynical) observation on the reasons for the participation of some youth in formal organisations. "Membership," it notes, "is increasingly viewed as a way to forward a young person's career or other prospects rather than an opportunity to advance youth-driven ideas and policies: many members (thus) have a pragmatic rather than an ideological interest..."
Youth at risk: health, delinquency and discrimination against girls and young women
The majority of the world's young people with support from family, school, community and peers eventually find a meaningful place in society as young adults, having managed the transition from protected childhood to independent adulthood. However, the report notes that the stage of youth for every generation is also a stage of transitional risk behaviour -delinquency, sexual experimentation, experimentation with harmful substances and various forms of peer pressure.
As young people are a generally healthy segment of the population, their health needs have been overlooked. The HIV and AIDS pandemic has radically changed this, affecting young people more than any other segment of the world's population.
Early pregnancy in most part of the globe has declined, with young people reaching puberty at earlier stages and marrying later. However, teenage parenthood remains a major concern, because of the health risk for both mother and child, and the impact on girls' education and prospects.
The report raises concerns about the high levels of tobacco smoking among youth, with tobacco use being one of the chief preventable causes of death in the world. Although fewer women than men smoke, there are growing numbers of young women taking up cigarettes, indicating the need for specific policies and programmes for "girls to counteract marketing strategies that target young women by associating (smoking) with independence, glamour and romance".
Alcohol abuse and other harmful drugs are also singled out, with the growth of synthetic drugs since 1995 becoming an issue. The report argues that taxation may be an effective means to reduce youth alcohol consumption, since young drinkers tend to have more limited budgets.
The report notes the progress made in the development of adolescent health by governments, but calls on specific training for health workers to better communicate with young people and provide youth friendly services.
"Statistically young people constitute the most criminally active segment of the population, although eventually most will desist from criminal and deviant activity. In most cases the offenders are males acting in groups." The report also draws attention to the fact that young people are also disproportionately the victims of crime and violence.
The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Administration of Juvenile Justice (the Beijing rules) seek to ensure that diversionary alternatives other than prison are available to young offenders, with an emphasis on rehabilitation and reintegration.
"Gender discrimination and stereotyping continues to limit the full development and access to services of girls and young women". The report notes discrimination in such areas as access to education, time for leisure, labour market participation as well as violence against girls and women.
NEW INPUTS FOR GLOBAL YOUTH POLICY
The report notes in its concluding paragraph that over the last decade "while some progress has been achieved in a number of priority areas, the current generation of young people is facing even more complex challenges than the previous generation".
A key factor is the reality that although increasingly youth is being included as a priority target group in national economic and development planning, this is not the same as mainstreaming youth issues.
Mainstreaming, according to Walby (2004: p.1), "as a practice...is intended as a way of improving the efficiency of mainline policy, by making visible the...nature of assumptions, processes and outcomes." It is the "systematic integration of (consistent) equality into all systems and structures, policies, programmes, processes and projects, into ways of seeing and doing, into cultures and their organisations." (Rees 2002: p.2)
The Secretary General's report indicates that not only have we not as yet adequately dealt with the 'nature of assumptions' which underpins societal attitudes to young people, but also failed to effectively and systematically integrate issues of young people. This is reflected in the consistent refrain in all the priority areas for the 'strong need to scale up' initiatives and investments in young people. Programmes to address issues of young people are still add-ons, pilots or on such a small scale that they hardly make a dent to ensure the well-being and provide opportunities for the overwhelming majority of the world's young men and women.
The report reiterates the need for integrated and holistic youth policies, political commitment, and the need for continuous evaluation of national youth policies. It notes the need for better measurements on the impact of national policies on young people, and suggests a youth development index, that could be used by government and the international community to measure progress to improve the situation of young people by 2015.
Fébé Potgieter is a former Secretary General of the ANC Youth League and a member of the Umrabulo Editorial Collective.
NOTES
REFERENCES
Balardini SA (2000). "Youth policy in Latin America: From past to present." In Rollin (ed) Youth between political participation, exclusion and instrumentalism (Eschborn:GTZ). http://www.gtz.de
Gillette A (2003). "Taking people out of boxes and categories: voluntary service and social cohesion." In Perold, Stroud and Sherraden (eds), Service in the 21st Century, 1st edition. (Johannesburg: Global Service Institute and Volunteer Service Enquiry Southern Africa) www.service-enquiry.org.za
Klaus M. (2000). "The relevance of rights to the promotion of youth". In Rollin (ed) Youth between political participation, exclusion and instrumentalism (Eschborn:GTZ). http://www.gtz.de
ILO (2004). Global employment trends for youth. (Geneva: International Labour Office). Also available on www.ilo.org/trends.
Mokoena, S - Deepening Democracy: Youth participation in the Commonwealth -(draft document) prepared for the Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting, May 1999
National Youth Commission (1997). National Youth Policy
National Youth Commission (1998). National Youth Action Plan
Rees T (2002). "Gender mainstreaming: misappropriated and misunderstood?" http://sociology.su.se/cgs/ReesPaper.doc. 30 July 2002
All United Nations documents on www.un.org/youth UN General Assembly (1980). International Youth Year: Participation, Development Peace A/Res/36/28, 13 November 1981, 57th Plenary Session
UN General Assembly and Economic and Social Council (2004). World Youth Report 2005. Report of the Secretary General. Distributed on 6 December 2004. A/60/61 and E/2005/7
UN Social and Development. ""Ten steps to national youth policy formulation' downloaded from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/nationalpolicy.htm
Walby S (2004). "Gender mainstreaming: productive tensions in theory and practice." Contribution to the ESRC Gender Machinery Seminars, Leeds University.
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