Youth Fellows basing in Bangladesh participated in the first LCOY ever
The Local Conference of Youth (LCOY) is officially endorsed by YOUNGO, the official Youth Constituency of the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change (UNFCCC). This year, Bangladesh organized the first-ever LCOY in Bangladesh on 4 October 2022 at Liberation War Museum Auditorium, Agargaon, Dhaka through a day-long event.
LCOY Bangladesh was hosted by Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) and co-convened by the Asia Foundation, EMK Center, Bangladesh Youth Environmental Initiatives (BYEI) and ActionAid Bangladesh in partnership with Movers Programme, Youth for Change, EarthDay.org, Act4Food Act4Change, International Youth Change Maker - IYCM, Eco Network, Roots Bangladesh, Pcycle, Swayong, and Project WE. Representatives from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), development partners, I/NGOs, Civil Society, Academia, Research organizations also actively participated in the event.
"Youth are always powerful changemakers. They need to be engaged with policy makers at country level and beyond with a focus on the people, planet and prosperity. With this focus, necessary actions should be taken to reduce the adverse effect of climate change for a more climate-secured future. This will be a pathway event and a continuous process to reach the goals", said one speaker during LCOY 2022 Conference.
The LCOY Bangladesh 2022 focused on capacity building to raise awareness on climate while ensuring the direct participation of youth in climate advocacy and policy revision with an aim to make youth voices heard on a global platform to create a sustainable environment and improve the quality of life for billions of people. It brought together several stakeholders (individuals, climate activists, academia, policy makers, government stakeholders, civil society organizations, international organizations, private sectors, and key actors) across the nation to step up the collective efforts to support young environmental human rights activists and their transformative solutions to lead the way in the journey beyond recovery, towards 2030.
LCOY Bangladesh featured several sessions including the Keynote Session on “Unfolding Planetary Crisis: Why Youth-Led Climate Action is Urgent?”, Panel Discussion on “Youth Actions on Coping, Response and Recovery of Climate Impacts on Bangladesh”, Dialogue Session on “Youth for Climate Resilient Food Systems in Bangladesh”, Capacity Building Session and Youth Consultation, besides the inaugural and closing sessions.
Speakers from different sessions highlighted the action-based works across the country both by the youth and at the policy decision-making level, covering all communities affected by climate change, to ensure innovative and community-led solutions to the existing crisis and create a better future for the current and future generations.
"Youth’s power is always effective and today’s event as well as engagement of country’s top development organizations under one umbrella is one of the good examples of joint work that has been made possible because of youth’s effort", mentioned Mr. Mahmudul Hasan, Programme Officer and Youth Coordinator, UNDP Bangladesh.
Dr. Rudaba Khondker, Country Director, GAIN Bangladesh strongly emphasized on People, Planet and Prosperity and covered necessary actions.
"Try to change from where you are standing now. We need to be part of the process, not any complementary or supplementary one. 80 countries will be hosting LCOY this year. For the opportunities for youth, one thing should be kept in mind that in most cases what young people need is the platform to share knowledge, their learnings and interact. Youth and their innovations are the solution to climate change. Young people need to ensure their livelihood, institutional capacity, financial support and for these they need support. No action is small, every action is important, and the combination of such small action leads to a bigger and more effective one. This LCOY will hopefully get a series of recommendation and a concrete proposal from the youth participating today", shared by YOUNGO Global North and South Focal points.
"Youth activism has played and will continue to play an important role in climate change but their voices are often not heard enough. We need to acknowledge the contributions made by youth in addressing the global issues, and create more spaces for youth like we did in LCOY Bangladesh today", said Hyea Yoon Jung YECAP Coordinator, UNDP Bangkok Regional Hub during the closing session.
To conclude the LCOY, the youth, policy makers and representatives from the United Nations, development partners as well as stakeholders jointly put forward the following recommendations:
Collaborative approach, like today’s one, is a must because the resource is shrinking. We will have to go through a coalition approach. Today’s LCOY is an effective example of how partnership can take things forward effectively.
Recommendation from this conference can be included in the government level agenda for COP 27 so that it can be reflected at this year’s COP27 conference.
Youth should take every movement and activity seriously to reduce the effects of climate change and for this, they need to show their commitments. Also, they should consider the LCOY to capacitate themselves.
Youth’s active and regular involvement in policy making process is required.
In the next LCOY, all youth will be at the front with equal number of male and female participants. And at the same time, young MPs should be involved as well with this process.
The effect of climate change is harmful for everyone, hence we should have representation from all of the affected groups of people in on the platform like LCOY.
Knowledge should reach every corner of the country rather than being centralized only at urban level. Decentralization is very important to establish the balance between risk and resilience.
Both activism and business/entrepreneurship are very important as well as economic resilience. Youth entrepreneurs should have an enabled environment to run the business as well as to get involved in policy making process and its implementation.
We will continue asking for fundamental cooperation from Global North for capacity building in terms of resource mobilization, both national and international resources.
Intergenerational issues should be highlighted with an emphasis from policy to practice.
All of us, especially youth from the coastal community, need to think seriously about delta 2100 to find out its long-term effects.
Collaboration and coordination are two important areas that will be helpful to reduce the climate change effects. For this, using the platform of Public Private Partnership (PPP) can be a useful solution. This platform should be effectively used to encourage and enhance the youth entrepreneurship smoothly and effectively. This platform can empower and capacitate youth’s potential utilize it effectively. Because, we have only 18 years left before 2041 to utilize our youth to the fullest.
Youth will contribute to nature based low carbon initiative and work to promote green entrepreneurship for a more sustainable way of working.
We need to be active actor and take actions to ensure a diverse food system’s sustainability.
While working in communities at the local level, youth should know about key features of the respective areas such as agriculture. Youth should implement and promote different works, such as carbon emission, water use, application of fertilizers, equipment, post-harvest management, consumption (emphasizing on consuming plat-based food products), etc. We will gain benefits if we work accordingly to reach our climate action objectives.
If we actively process for a balanced ecology through different mechanism such as fertilizer application management, then it will be possible to change the current food production system which is causing 30% of carbon emission.
The scope of job opportunities for youth can be wide if we lead the transformation process and keep it on our side rather than passing it to others.
To learn more about LCOY Bangladesh, please visit: http://lcoybangladesh.org