Agenda-Setting
What a hectic coupla days.
It’s been mad, mad emailing and calling – all around the one darn policy document which seems to have just taken over my life for now.
General gist: We (World Youth Congress) are aiming to promote the recommendations of the document to attendee governments as they prepare their agendas for the upcoming World Summit at the 60th UN General Assembly (GA60) in New York next month. This forms part of our broader plans to lobby governments to, ultimately, incorporate youth into their national strategies for development. It's premised on the concept of Youth-Led Development – the underlying principle of the entire document.
How it’s relevant to Singapore youth (representation): The current youth delegation attending the GA60 come from 13 countries, none of which form any part of Asia – East, West, Central, South. Go "principles of equitable geogrphical distribution". I should note that Youth-Led Development is particularly relevant to Asia, considering Asia is home to almost 60% of the total youth population in the world.
This clearly presents a huge opportunity for Singapore to do something for Asian youth representation. And on the MDGs, too. Global topics don't get much hotter than this.
So it would be great – to understate – if one of two things happened:
i) Singapore sends to the GA a youth delegate, who gets opportunity to deliver a statement on YLD
ii) Singapore’s official delegate includes a para in speech on YLD
Certainly, the first is much more powerful than the second, but either one would still be rather instrumental in building legitimacy for the document, and its message – thereby more effectively advancing the recommendations of the document towards inclusion in countries’ national agendas.
So far, at the country level, it’s been up and down. The kick start from Edgar Koh’s helpfulness, unfortunately, has been met with rather uninspiring response from Prof Tommy Koh and His Excellency George Yeo. Foong Hin Cheong is away til next week. And Mr Tharman and Dr Balakrishnan bo hew me. Boo hoo.
Ironically, it’s been the people overseas who’ve been the most helpful – Peace Child International, Oxfam HK. I’m hoping to get some local NGO support also; from Samy at Think Centre, Irvin at Kopitiam, Braema Mathi at AWARE, and a few others.
Just read the last email I sent to [Special Advisor to George Yeo], and I was surprised by my own extremely pro-active [read: bordering on aggressive] tone of message –
..
The reason I'm so actively pursuing this with you is because of your positioning in the MFA, which is ultimately key to Singapore's representation to the UN.
If youth are to speak up, as Dr Vivian Balakrishnan has so fervently encouraged, what should we do to bring our voice to the international community, if not through our own ambassadors? I ask this question genuinely, because I am also seeking your advice on other ways to go about doing this, in the case that this is deemed not an appropriate method.
..
I’m a little nervous about opening my inbox tomorrow. But determined to keep
Ps. We've just formulated a full-on elaborate game plan to really promote the damn document in a bigass way. More on that later.
Technorati: United Nations, MDG, youth, development
ao longo de garota a 02:05
6 Comments:
i think i know why the local media isn't picking the WYC up. all to do with GST. the Great Smile, Thank you of our dear PM in his NDRS. that's enough to dominate the news. and who needs other people to put on pedastals when our PM has already highlighted so many.
another thought. i seriously don't think our government believes that young punks (not meaning you of course... but more generically) can really get anything done in terms of development. that is not to say that our government isn't interested in helping other nations achieve the MDGs, just that perhaps they don't think that the WYC and perhaps even the UN just aren't the best ways to achieve them.
and honestly speaking, i am tempted to agree. the UN is pretty toothless. the major problems of development often lies in bad governance. and it is a herculean task trying to rectify that problem and i don't think that the UN nor the WYC has the capacity to do anything about that, especially with the UN's policy of not interfering with the sovereignty of nations.
that is not to say that youths are powerless. they can bring about great change (e.g. collapse of autocratic regime of Ceausescu in Romania). but that would actually require enough young people in that country putting their lives on the line to bring about that change. and even then, you aren't gauranteed good enough governance that would lead to development. you would need to have a team of dedicated, idealistic yet capable people of the right morals to bring about real development. difficult. but might happen. it did to Singapore.
in any case, i guess my point is that perhaps the government of Singapore thinks that it can far better contribute to helping other nations develop through participation in other forums of discussions (i.e. IMF, World Bank, ASEAN, APEC Summit, etc) as opposed to UN, or papers written by youths.
but you can rest assured, if indeed your paper results in some substantial development in third world nations, and you will definitely be mentioned.
a question, why does it matter to you that the WYC gets mentioned in the local media anyways? so what if it does not? so what if it does? what consequences either ways?
26/8/05 03:05
oh... and i'm surprised that Mr T. didn't reply to you. he's usually very good at replying emails. perhaps now busy with rushing to create mountain ranges with many paths to the top (i.e. flesh out and implement the vision that PM spelt out regarding the education system).
26/8/05 03:06
rench: interesting media hypothesis. as for the UN, some may consider it toothless, though I (personally) find that insufficient justification not to engage with it. which is also not to say that the other platforms you listed should not be engaged.
as for media and me. it's not important that i get mentioned - it's important that my message does. and generating media for the policy document (not so much the WYC itself) is part of the broader effort to build prominence for its message - and ultimately - influence governments' policies.
thanks for the thoughtful comment.
27/8/05 18:24
rench, I'm wondering if Singapore sends youth delegations to other forums of discussions (i.e. IMF, World Bank, ASEAN, APEC Summit, etc) at all.
IMO, IMF et al are talkshops for governments, buisinessmen, and global capitalists - youths, NGOs, and other rabblerousers please stay outside the safe zone =D
27/8/05 18:59
akikonomu - you should check out oikono's blog. He's representing Singapore in the APEC Youth Summit.
oikono.blogspot.com
28/8/05 07:40
akikonomu: good point. and even where they do, as takchek has pointed out, the extent of influence youth are allowed to exert at all is another issue. of course, that's not to say we should ever stop being rabblerousers. ;)
takchek: welcome! thanks for pointing that out. do pop around again if you've got wind of other nuggets.
30/8/05 15:44
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