National Young Leaders' Conference on Sustainable Development, Philippines

Project name: National Young Leaders' Conference on Sustainable Development

Project location: Philippines

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NYLC.PH

Project description:

National Young Leaders’ Conference on Sustainable Development aims to make the Sustainable Development Goals campaign more localized and for youth leaders – especially those at the grassroots – to acquire the necessary knowledge and enhance the skills needed to participate in sustainable development initiatives.

For 2017 NYLC, held in General Santos City last May 20- 23, 2017, 200 local youth leaders from across the country underwent leadership training, advocacy- specific discussions, policy- formulation simulation, and community engagement wherein they were given the venue to tackle issues they and their respective communities face and intellectualize policies aimed at addressing these issues.

Divided into 4 clusters namely: People, Prosperity, Planet and Peace (after the essential elements of Sustainable Development Goals), the delegates underwent boot camps and discussions and were directed to draft policies to solve the issues encountered by the City of GenSan, as the model community, and its people, in relation to the SDG essential elements they are advocating for. Specifically, they were tasked to conceptualize 1 ordinance and 1 resolution per cluster during cluster intersessional meetings.

All policies were then deliberated upon during the final session of Young Leaders' Council, composed of elected cluster representatives, for necessary revisions and amendments and for final approval.

All approved policies were endorsed to the City Council of General Santos for further study and possible implementation.

The delegates also got the chance to engage with and participate in activities in the community and know about best practices of the local government unit of, and private organizations and institutions in, the model community -- practices that are in line with the principles set forth by the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

Goal and purpose of the project:

Local youth leaders from across the country underwent leadership training and policy formulation simulation wherein they were given the venue to tackle issues they and their respective communities face and intellectualize policies aimed at addressing these issues.

Specifically, NYLC aims to achieve the following objectives:

1. Improve local youth leaders’ understanding of Sustainable Development Goals;
2. Build the capacity of the delegates in conceptualizing policies gearing towards the realizations of the SDG’s;
3. Engage youth leaders in designing programs tailored- fit to the needs of their respective communities;
4. Encourage the delegates to bring the SDG campaign to the grassroots; and
5. Foster ties and cooperation in future sustainable development initiatives targeted at the youth.

By exposing the youth to realities at the local level, we will be able to develop their potentials to effectively act upon them. Further, we will be able to unite all sectors of the society through the youth and take a more aggressive and proactive stance towards achieving these 17 Global Goals in the next 13 years which is hoped to bring about the inclusive growth and development we have all been dreaming of.

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

In recent decades, the world has witnessed the youth’s unprecedented participation and engagement in responding to most pressing global issues. Leaders of today’s generation, from the local to the international scene, has long since realized the importance of youth’s opinion and their key role in crafting and conceptualizing comprehensive programs and policies aimed at addressing challenges like environmental degradation, and extreme poverty, socio- economic inequalities, limited political representation, and uneven educational and job opportunities people from around the globe has since been facing.

This premise has lead the United Nations to encouraging and pushing forward youth’s active involvement towards achieving its organization’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Adopted in 2015 – and with the aim of integrating the three dimensions of Sustainable Development: social, economic and environmental – the 2030 Agenda’s 17 goals and the 169 targets between them are interconnected. The youth’s significant role in engaging people at the grassroots and having served as active drivers of change in the communities they are in makes this potential very vital in communicating these goals to a wider society.

Two years after the inception of Sustainable Development Goals, young people and youth-led and youth- serving organizations in our country, the Philippines, responded positively to the challenge of translating these goals into local and national policies and ensuring their proper implementation, monitoring and evaluation, and holding public offices accountable. Being the only country in the world were the youth is represented in legislative bodies from the local to the national level, young people may utilize the opportunity given to them to help out and complement with decision- makers as one of the primary stakeholders in achieving the SDGs.

Use of prize money:

To widen our reach, we will be using the prize money to conduct Island- based Young Leaders’ Conferences (Luzon, NCR, Visayas, Mindanao) simultaneously in December 2017 as preludes to next year’s National Young Leaders Conference on Sustainable Development.

Specifically, here are the details of the conferences:

LUZON YOUNG LEADERS' CONFERENCE
(Partner LGU: City of San Fernando, La Union)
Focus on: People
SDG 01: No Poverty
SDG 02: Zero Hunger
SDG 03: Good Health and Well- Being
SDG 04: Quality Education
SDG 05: Gender Equality
SDG 06: Clean Water and Sanitation

NCR YOUNG LEADERS' CONFERENCE
(Partner LGU: TBD)
Focus on: Prosperity
SDG 07: Affordable and Clean Energy
SDG 08: Decent Work and Economic Growth
SDG 09: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities
SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

VISAYAS YOUNG LEADERS' CONFERENCE
(Partner LGU: Tacloban City)
Focus on: Planet
SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production
SDG 13: Climate Action
SDG 14: Life below Water
SDG 15: Life on Land

MINDANAO YOUNG LEADERS' CONFERENCE
(Partner LGU: Valencia City, Province of Bukidnon)
Focus on: Peace
SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

We are open for possible collaboration with interested organizations and local government units for the aforementioned conferences.

We vow to continually improve the program through feedback and evaluations we are getting from our stakeholders and delegates, which would make the NYLC more tailored- fit to the needs of the youth and youth leaders alike at the grassroots level.