Roundtable Discussion

Youth at the Heart of the 2030 Agenda: The Case for Space
30 November - 2 December 2016
Final Meeting Report

The roundtable on the theme Youth at the Heart of the 2030 Agenda: The Case for Space was
organized by UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, FORUM-ASIA, Restless Development, ESCAP and many other
partners in Bangkok, Thailand, between 30 November and 2 December 2016.

I. Background
Today, young people are more connected, more creative, more informed than any previous
generation. Young people are responding to the challenges of the day with innovative approaches,
contributing fresh ideas, and driving human development for themselves, their communities and
their societies. At the same time, we are witnessing a worrying global trend of increasingly restricted
civic spaces, particularly in the Asia and the Pacific region. Often denied a seat at the decision-making
table, young people have taken to the streets and the social media networks to create their own
spaces for meaningful participation. Given the changing shapes of participation and the renewed
focus on engaging young people in the post-2015 agenda, there is an urgency for governments and
development stakeholders to identify and provide the ecosystem needed to best support young
people and unleash their potential to play an effective role as partners in their countries
development.

In Asia and the Pacific, young people represent untapped potential, and only by including them in
decisions affecting their lives, and empowering them to take action, can we ensure that youth will
also grab the opportunity, and take the responsibility, to create the future they want. As Caitlin
Wiesen, Chief of Regional Policy and Programme Support for Asia and the Pacific at UNDP's Bangkok
Regional Hub, stressed in her welcoming remarks: All of us here have one thing in common; we care
about our human rights, and the space within which we can exercise them.

II. Event overview

The #Case4Space event brought together more than 250 young leaders, activists, researchers,
journalists and development practitioners to engage in vibrant discussions using a foresight
approach. The agenda included both plenary sessions focusing on these core challenges and
considerations for action, as well as breakout sessions to explore practical solutions and provide
on-site capacity-building activities geared towards young people. Speakers included young
researchers, activists, civil society and foundations, the private sector, and representatives from UN
and multilateral organizations. The timely nature of this roundtable was evidenced by the various
sectors represented, and actors that organized and contributed actively to discussions.
Youth at the Heart of the 2030 Agenda: The Case for Space (30 November - 2 December 2016)

Youth participation and outreach

Prior to the event, the organizers lead by UNDP held a Call for Stories campaign directed at young
people in the region, with the view of inviting motivated young applicants to the conference.
Disseminated widely on social media, the Call for Stories was very successful and returned over 160
video and blog submissions covering all the event themes. Young researchers also participated in the
call by sending academic papers and 4 of them were invited to the event to share their findings. In
addition, 12 young journalists from across the region were invited to cover the event in a Youth
Newsroom, alongside UN communication specialists led by UNESCO, and share their own experiences
as young journalists facing increasingly challenging environments. More than 80 young participants
were also selected to represent a variety of constituencies, themes and sub-regions coming from over
30 countries in the region.

One of the event co-conveners, the youth-led development agency Restless Development, facilitated
the development of the Youth Statement and Call to Action (see page 6 below). A "Youth Statement
Task Force composed of youth representatives started working on it weeks before the event via
email and Skype conference calls, and met numerous times during the event itself (specific time slots
were allocated for this purpose) making it a powerful tool for participation and voice.

Additionally, with an emphasis on providing adequate voice to all youth participants, a series of
interactive and participatory methods (e.g. fishbowl, world cafe, interactive marketplace, flash
Tech-talks) were used during the event. Adequate physical space (e.g. tables for publications and
other material, a dozens panels for the Living Library, parking lot and timeline exercises) for
young people to express themselves was also provided and actively used.

A (social) media campaign using the hashtags #WeAre2030 and #Case4Space was carried out on
Facebook and Twitter, reaching an estimated three million social media users between 28 November
and 5 December 2016. Live interviews, short videos and news articles were published by the youth
journalists on the #Case4Space website and the Newsroom Facebook page. The co-conveners from
the UN and civil society released also a joint press release on the third day of the event, which was
shared with more 3,000 organizations (media outlets, NGOs, UN agencies and development
organizations). A series of informal platforms on Facebook, Whatsapp and other medium were
created as a follow-up to the event by youth participants and continue to be actively used to discuss
#Case4Space issues and the follow-up activities to the event.

Key event themes

The main topics addressed at this event included the following:
How are young people and youth-led organizations in the region helping to manage the shift
from the Millennium Development Goals to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)?
What emerging trends, including in legal and regulatory frameworks, are affecting young
people in Asia and the Pacific?
What are the systems, mechanisms and instruments needed to ensure an environment where
youth volunteerism can flourish?
What data can young people collect, analyze and use for accountability and to secure changes
to local policies?
How are online hate speech, online sexual harassment, cyber-bullying and other forms digital
threats affecting civic space for young people?
How can civic space - both offline and online - be safer and more inclusive for young people
and marginalized groups?

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How can new and innovative tools and interventions (from grassroots movements to
mass-online campaigns, creative partnerships, etc.) be scaled up?
What are the latest trends in new technologies to open up civic space for youth engagement?
How can innovative methods, such as a foresight approach, be used to imagine alternative
and preferred futures for civic space?
How can development partners better address the needs of youth and coordinate their
efforts and strategies to support civic space in the future?

III. Key messages emerging from the event

In order to tackle these questions, the #Case4Space event was organized into five segments, each
focusing on various dynamics of the core challenges and opportunities facing young people across the
region. Segments 1 and 2 provided participants with an overview of the current trends in civic space
and youth civic engagement in Asia and the Pacific. Segment 3 explored how to protect civic spaces
for youth, with a focus on safety and the inclusion of marginalized individuals and groups. In
Segments 4 and 5, discussions tackled innovative ways to expand and open civic spaces. Overall, the
focus was placed on new actors, tools, and processes that can better harness youth power to
cultivate spaces at local, national and regional levels.

Segment 1: Setting the scene

The opening segment welcomed participants and provided them with the necessary context to
effectively engage in the substantive policy discussions throughout the event. UN and civil society
experts introduced participants to the concepts of civic space and their importance in maintaining
peaceful and democratic societies. Offering an overview of participants roles and responsibilities,
and the various ways to interact, this segment also importantly focused on how to work
collaboratively and build partnerships among participants during the three-day event.

Key insights include:

Civic space is shrinking and 3.2 billion people in Asia and the Pacific are living in restricted
civic spaces. Over 90 laws constraining civic space have been adopted globally between 2012
and 2015, and over half are found in this region.
Currently most development programming is directed at youth, rather than being designed
with them as active contributors. When young people are included, we receive their honest
and pertinent response to the issues that affect them the most, as well as effective and fast
response to humanitarian crises. Ignoring youth, on the other hand, means losing out on
creative ideas and incredible potential for change.
Participation is a two-way street. Young people need to come forward, they need to push,
demand and claim civic spaces and make them their own.

Segment 2: State of youth and civic spaces

Building on the previous segment, discussion moved towards regional trends of increasingly
restricted civic spaces, and how young people are contributing to navigate these challenges in the
context of the implementation of the SDGs. In this discussion, young participants stressed that
engaging with the SDGs comes at a risk and that all young people need to be aware of them. Using
local and national-level case studies from across Asia and the Pacific, this segment analyzed the
threats and opportunities related to civic space and young people with a focus on youth volunteerism
and civic space in urban areas.

Key insights include:

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Youth at the Heart of the 2030 Agenda: The Case for Space (30 November - 2 December 2016)

When given the opportunity, young people do participate meaningfully and mobilize in large
numbers. Yet for young people, there are risks in actively engaging in their communities:
online activism, for example, comes with its share of issues such as surveillance, threats and
limitations.
Shrinking public spaces in urban areas - such as streets, squares or libraries - hinders the
ability for young people to mobilize around issues that are important to them. For women
and girls, and young key affected populations, such as people living with disabilities, this
trend is further adding to their insecurity and exclusion from civic and public life. Youth
volunteerism has the great potential to create awareness of the importance of civic spaces
for young people.
Policy-makers and relevant stakeholders must work together to build gender transformative
programmes that address sexual harassment against women and girls and LGBTI in public
spaces as part of the continuum of violence against marginalized groups.
There is a need to keep improving information and communications technologies (ICTs) and
its tools while also addressing the challenges mentioned. This includes the use of data such as
the Youth Development Index to assess youth contribution to society, provide trainings
where it is lacking, and provide better monitoring and accountability to policies regarding
youth participation.

Segment 3: Ensuring inclusive and safe civic spaces for youth

This segment looked at the challenges faced by marginalized and excluded youth in engaging in public
and civic spaces with an emphasis on how specific individuals and groups (e.g. indigenous peoples,
LGBTI, persons with disabilities) can be meaningfully engaged. Critical stakeholders, relations, values,
actions, and structures needed to improve good practices and tips regarding safety and online
freedoms with a strong focus on the Internet, social media and ICTs were discussed. In general,
participants reflected that the Internet is not a safe and free space anymore for people to express
and contribute their opinions. At the same time, it was stressed that the endless opportunities for
engagement that the Internet can provide can overcome these challenges.

Key insights include:

Sustainable development only occurs through inclusion of young marginalized people into
decision-making processes in all levels of society. Inclusion is about moving from learning to
leading, and from being marginalized to becoming agents of positive change.
Issues of marginalization are often dangerous to discuss, especially in the cultural and
political states of Asia and the Pacific. Thus, there is a need to heighten safety, security, and
protection of advocates, activists and human rights defenders.
Bilateral donors, UN Agencies, governments and private stakeholders should reflect on their
actions and how it impacts the inclusion or exclusion of marginalized groups. This would
require systematic reflection, community-driven funding, patience, and the intention to
change institutional bureaucracies and old-fashioned policies that hinder the
empowerment of communities and youth.
Freedom of expression has to be protected by appropriate policies to be guaranteed online,
and if one wants to advocate for freedom of information on the Internet, one needs a good
understanding of the technicalities of Internet access.
Online space can help opening the door to new generations of human rights defenders. For
young people, it can be difficult to get into human rights defence work, and ICTs can facilitate
that by offering new opportunities.

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Segment 4: Opening new and innovative avenues for youth

This segment covered new and innovative interventions and tools (from grassroots movements to
mass-online campaigns) shaping societies in the region. Identifying the trends and emerging issues
shaping how civic space might be understood and used. During the breakout sessions, participants
shared their thoughts on how emerging technologies and IT solutions could be used to bridge divides
and open up civic spaces for youth to engage. In these discussions, participants also shared ideas
about who should be the future agents of change in civic space. They highlighted the imperative for
key actors whether it is civil society groups, the United Nations, youth-based organizations,
journalists or human rights defenders, or even youth themselves to continue to find innovative
ways to create their own spaces, and to stay relevant and up-to-date in an increasingly
interconnected and complex world.

Key insights include:

An innovative space to create change is the nexus between government, private companies,
and local communities. Multi-stakeholder initiatives for instance are great platforms for the
collaborative governance of youth issues, where diverse stakeholders can include youth
voices and work in partnership to improve the management of public resources and delivery
of services.
Using internet-based tools, such as YouTube, can bridge social divides by creating avenues for
engagement and political activism. The key to transformative change is informing young
people not only about digital threats, but also the great opportunities of the Internet as a
civic space.
From grassroots movements to mass-online campaigns, activism can take a multiplicity of
shapes to bring young people, ideas and action together. This is particularly pertinent when it
comes to actively engaging young people and volunteers, with their creativity and
transformative energy, in the implementation of the SDGs.

Segment 5: Next steps, recommendations and closing

In the closing stages of the event, participants adopted a foresight approach to support the process of
developing more robust and agile strategies and plans of action to expand civic spaces for young
people in Asia and the Pacific. Using the post-2015 agenda as a milestone, participants shared their
insights into issues that they believe will have significant (positive or negative) impact on the
implementation of the SDGs by 2030. Additionally, development partners, including those from
donor and multilateral agencies, came together to identify the steps needed to best support young
people and unleash their potential to play an effective role as partners in their countries
development.

Key insights include:

Forward-looking strategies and tactics, including the methods and tools of strategic foresight,
can be an empowering tool for enhancing existing strategy, policy, and planning development
processes.
The development sector - including multilateral and bilateral donors - is set to fund
institutions and organizations with rigid mechanisms for audits, monitoring and evaluation. In
order to empower youth, it must adopt more fluid structures and practices, and aim to

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Youth at the Heart of the 2030 Agenda: The Case for Space (30 November - 2 December 2016)

identify channels to support unregistered youth organizations and youth-led movements.

Along with strengthening the capacities of young people, the development sector needs to (i)
put young people in charge of youth programmes; and (ii) enhance the capacities of adults
who work with youth and design policies and programmes that affect their lives.
Further developing tools, indicators, methodologies and practical research, including the
identification of successful practices, that would allow to build and maintain a solid
knowledge and evidence-base for effective and inclusive youth policies will contribute to
make youth a serious issue.

Youth Statement and Call to Action

In the closing ceremony, the Youth Statement and Call to Action was presented as one of the main
outputs of the event. Rather than simply reading the document, the statement was delivered by a
group of youth representatives in a dynamic and engaging manner, allowing the audience to interact.

Some of the key elements emphasized in the document include:

Young peoples (rights to) participation and voice, freedom of association and assembly,
access to information, online and offline safe spaces and protections are emphasized.
Designing and implementing processes and fostering partnerships that enable inclusive and
participatory involvement of young people in policies affecting them is crucial.
Young people are key actors in promoting and achieving the SDGs, and demand to be equal
partners and leaders of their countries development.

IV. Whats next?

The #Case4Space event represents the beginning of a longer process to build more agile and
participatory strategies for enhancing youth empowerment and the implementation of the SDGs in
Asia and the Pacific. Continuing to support youth in the region will require a continued commitment
to finding innovative solutions and implementing forward-looking strategies to navigate the
challenges ahead while exploiting opportunities on the horizon. Strategic foresight provides an
empowering approach for bringing together groups of diverse stakeholders and using the future to
initiate change in the present.

Next steps
1. Collect and share innovative case studies, research findings and capacity-building tools across
Asia and the Pacific to enable young people to engage meaningfully with the SDGs.
2. Identify and implement tools and approaches, such as strategic foresight and new and
emerging technologies, that can facilitate greater local ownership and youth empowerment.
3. Support the platforms and networks, both formal and informal, that emerged during the
event by providing training, capacity development, and support where needed.
4. Foster collaboration and partnerships between young people and a wide range of
stakeholders involved in or supporting innovations for youth participation in Asia and the
Pacific.
5. Convene and facilitate regional, national and local events to support network-building,
knowledge-sharing and peer exchange.

V. Resources
All resources related to the event are available on the #Case4Space website, including:
Presentations and background material shared by speakers during the event.
A list of capacity-building tools related to civic space, as well as selected organizations and

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institutions providing regular online trainings, courses, webinars and workshops.

A list of resources on civic space issues, including international and regional commitments
and standards, country-specific and civil society resources.
The series of articles produced by the Youth Newsroom team.

If you have any questions, please email: case4spacebkk@gmail.com.