ADVOCATES FOR YOUTH

What Does Youth Participation in HIV/AIDS Strategy Mean? Collaboration.

By Brian Ackerman, June 24, 2008
Posted on RH Reality Check

Around 32 young people from 20 different countries met in New York on Sunday, June 8, at the Progressive Youth Caucus, gathering to discuss our strategy for advocacy at the 2008 UN High-Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS. One question was on my mind throughout the day's sessions: What does meaningful youth participation mean? And if we can define it, how can we translate it into terms that are useful for policy makers?

During our conversation, Caucus members outlined our concerns with current youth participation in public policy decision making. A quandary arose. How do we lobby for meaningful participation when language has already been written into official documents such as the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV and AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration? Moreover, language emphasizing the need for meaningful youth participation was included in the 2001 and 2006 Declarations, meaning that our concerns stemmed not so much from poor language but from poor implementation. Some of us could even cite instances from our countries in which young people had been given a "voice" in HIV/AIDS policy making, but a voice that fell on deaf ears.

I noted a theme underlying this conversation for those of us wanting to participate in the political processes that govern our lives: as young people, we seek political space and recognition without becoming token representatives of the three billion members of the world's population that are under the age of 25.

At 21 years old, I am a young person. I am fortunate to be working at an organization that values youth involvement in its decision-making and representation but, three weeks out of college, I feel younger than ever around my more experienced colleagues in the international policy field. This is perhaps one of the greatest challenges youth face. Sometimes the feeling is similar to just arriving in another country -- I may have studied the language, the culture, the people, but until I have experience, it is difficult to communicate and feel comfortable.

During the caucus we resolved to advocate for the following points:

• Ensure access to comprehensive sexuality education
• Address HIV in the context of other sexual and reproductive health needs
• Take positive steps to promote and protect young people's rights
• Make health services more accessible to young people
• Disaggregate data by age
• Invest in youth leadership

These points may not seem strikingly revolutionary or surprising as a contribution from a group of progressive young people and their organizations, but they reflect a commitment from youth to work in partnership with policy makers and governments, to design realistic pathways to achieve the ever-distant universal access targets. The notion of youth-adult partnership in achievement of the universal access targets underpinned many discussions I had with other young attendees at the conference. If we expect our countries to achieve universal access targets by 2010, we expect ourselves and our peers to be active participants in galvanizing social action to successfully realize the targets.

Central to this underlying theme at the progressive youth caucus is the final point in the aforementioned list: "Invest in youth leadership." True youth participation can be facilitated through mentor relationships between experienced leaders in policy and civil society with young people.

The drafting of the Civil Society Declaration, the document which attempted to distill the key messages of member organizations of Civil Society in attendance at the UN meeting, is a good example of experienced members of the policy community reaching out to young people to ensure their inclusion at the highest levels of messaging and decision making.

The organizers of the meeting arranged to write the declaration sent out a broad invitation to youth attendees at the conference to ensure their participation in the messaging discussion. During the meeting, young people were leaders in each of the working groups assigned to draft various pieces of the declaration.

As a result of our inclusion and full participation at that meeting, the official Civil Society Declaration mentioned:

• young people as a vulnerable population in need of programs specific to their needs
• the unique vulnerability of young women (this was highlighted in a clause noting the feminization of the epidemic)
• a re-affirmation of the need for the disaggregation of epidemiological data by age and gender.

I highlight these pieces of language not to harp on "wins" for the youth community but to show that, through meaningful collaboration between adults and young people, substantial results can be achieved in drafting policy and messaging that truly reflects the needs of young people. The Civil Society Declaration and the Declaration of the Progressive Youth Caucus were both delivered to the General Assembly President at the end of the High Level Meeting.

In terms of effecting policy change and urging implementation, the 2008 High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS was a challenging experience. Many of us in Civil Society were unsure about our role and our capacity to influence the outcomes of the meeting. Fortunately, however, a very forward-thinking concentration of young people and adults in Civil Society were able to collaborate to produce strong and clear messages for our country delegations to take into account.

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