“We need young people to prepare us for the future”

Ms Reize, as a UN youth delegate, what do you expect from the United Nations Summit of the Future?
We need to be ambitious in terms of the issues we tackle and achieve better cooperation at global level, otherwise we won’t be able to overcome the current crises. The Summit of the Future aims to do this by reforming the existing structures, so I have high expectations. But you have to be realistic: a two-day conference on its own is not enough. It’ll be crucial to carry forward the momentum from the meeting so as to gradually initiate changes that are truly substantial. 

You represent the perspective of German youth at the UN. Will this point of view be sufficiently taken into account at the summit?
Well at least there’s a separate chapter for it, so that’s definitely a positive sign. Nonetheless, the perspective of young people is a cross-cutting issue that should actually come into play across all the thematic focus areas at the conference. We urgently need to improve the general conditions for participation. What has tended to happen at the UN up until now is that you get a few days to comment on complicated documents written in English. That’s not particularly geared towards young people. 

Why is youth participation so important?
Young people contribute fresh perspectives, innovative ideas and a strong will to initiate change. In political processes, it’s essential that young people are not just talked about but are actually involved themselves. If we want this to happen, however, we need to reflect the full diversity of young people, too. It’s not enough to hear the views of a privileged class with an academic background from the urban centres of the so-called Global North.  

What do you take away from your conversations with the younger generation?
On the one hand I see a great deal of motivation to work towards change, but at the same time there’s a sense of a lack of opportunities to do so – whether it’s because the existing structures are too unfamiliar, too complicated or simply not in place. This is exactly what we need to work on as a matter of urgency.