WORKING WITH AND FOR YOUTH

Digital round table series on Fostering more inclusive societies: youth engagement in policies, processes and programmes

13 Oct 2021
20 Oct 2021
27 Oct 2021
17 Nov 2021

Deadline for registration: Noon (CET), Tuesday before each roundtable

Participate

Join the conversation if:

✓ You work on Youth Peace and Security issues, whether in a governmental, multilateral or a civil society organization in the OSCE region

✓ You represent a national institution working with and for youth in the OSCE region

✓ You are a young stakeholder interested in advancing youth engagement in policies, processes and programmes in the OSCE region

Four roundtables One praxis paper

Engage

  • Peer-learning: share your successes and challenges in promoting youth inclusion in policies, processes and programmes. We want to hear about the tools, resources and mechanisms that you use and how share ideas about they could be brought forward.

  • Peer-support: stay connected with the community of practitioners and young stakeholders around the topic of operationalization of youth participation and inclusion.
  • A series of four digital roundtables to provide a space for peer-learning and community building among practitioners and stakeholders within and beyond the OSCE on operationalising youth participation and inclusion.

    DETAILED PROGRAMME

    13:00 - 16:30 CET
    Inclusion of youth voices in policy-making and strategic processes

    Inclusion of youth voices in policy-making and strategic processes

    Moderator: Milena Stosic, Youth Focal Point of the OSCE Mission to Serbia

    Guiding questions:

    1. What difference do young people make by participating in shaping policies and legislation as well as international commitments?  

    2. Young people participating in youth initiatives are treated as the representatives of all youth. Should young people be decision-makers and/or formally mandated themselves to efficiently represent other youth?

    3. What is the primary incentive to involve young people in non-youth policies?

     

    Context

    Research has shown that meaningful youth engagement is a participatory process in which young people’s ideas, expertise, experiences, and perspectives are integrated throughout programmatic, policy, and institutional decision-making structures. Inclusion of youth voices in policy making is not limited only to public policy documents which target young women and men directly, such as national youth strategies and similar. Additionally, youth interest can be observed throughout all public policies and in relation to international commitments. This roundtable will focus on examples of such practices and overall know-how on mainstreaming approaches to enhance greater youth equality and civic activism.

     

    Parallel sessions 

    1. Agenda 2030 & youth, peace and security: Can we walk the talk?

    Young people have been acknowledged as positive agents of change in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In order to fulfill that role and expectation, there is still a way to go in enabling and strengthening youth participation in decision-making around sustainable development. How some countries enable it through Voluntary National Reviews, as critical part of the accountability architecture for the SDGs, and is there a suitable recepie to follow?

    Youth, peace and security agenda, that directly contributes to SDG 16 primarily, represents a concrete step toward recognizing youth as part of solution, instead of part of problem. It seems to be a framework wholeheartedly embraced by youth peacebuilders, national governments, and regional organizations. What are their different roles in advancing its operationalisation on a country level worldwide, that is yet to happen?

     

    2. Advancing human rights through international mechanisms: What about youth?

    While the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) covers children aged 0-17, there is no legally binding instrument at European or global level specifically addressing the rights of young people aged 18 and above. While it seems there is a consensus about young people experiencing difficulties in the exercise of their rights by virtue of being young, is there on the need for an international instrument on the human rights of youth?

    Youth civil society has been inviting also for establishment of a special procedure on the human rights of young people, such as an Independent Expert or Special Rapporteur and called upon states to mainstream youth rights in existing human rights mechanisms including the Universal Periodic Review and the work of the Treaty Bodies. At the same time, on a national level, very few young people report discrimination or harassment to national equality bodies. How to better use these existing mechanisms and which are preconditions for it, with additional urge coming from the fact that youth have been disproportionately impacted by the Covid-19 crisis in a context of persisting inequalities?

     

    3. Inclusive policy making options: Is co-creation possible?

     Although youth participation is a valuable and desirable process, legal and political frameworks may impede young people from engaging in all steps at all levels, assuming there is an attempt to enable it. While there is already vast evidence and advice on standards for youth participation in policy-making, in practice there seem to be obstacles to adhering to those standards. How to responsibly and democratically, but without slipping into identity politics, enable youth-considerations horizontally in policymaking?

    Moreover, though making of youth policies becomes more inclusive and trend of consulting youth is growing, same target group remains mostly sidelined in making of other policies. Should different stakeholders aim to include youth when discussing and making decisions and shaping measures about for example pensions, environment, or counter-terrorism?

    13:00 - 16:30 CET
    Youth perspectives in the programming of organizations working with and for youth in the OSCE region

    Youth perspectives in the programming of organizations working with and for youth in the OSCE region

    Moderator: Augusta Featherston, Youth Focal Point of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights

    Guiding questions:

    1. What support and training for staff of organizations is needed for developing effective youth-inclusive programmes? How to address potential barriers?

    2. What are the benefits for involved young people? How to ensure that their rights are upheld throughout the process?

    3. How can youth ownership of the successes and impact of the organization’s programs be ensured?

    Context

    A number of international, regional and civil society organizations have dedicated programs to the work with and for youth, and several of them went a step further toward deepening efforts to enable youth participation throughout their overall programming. This roundtable will look into existing practices that build capacity for meaningful youth participation and youth considerations on an operational level, as well as the impact they have and how they are perceived by youth.

    Parallel sessions

    1. When and how WITH youth: on the intesection of expectations and realities

    This parallel session will explore both the capacities of young people to participate meaningfully and the capacities of organizations and institutions to enable meaningful participation of young people. Some guiding questions are: What does it mean to work WITH youth? Can we unpack difference between working with youth and “youth (serving) work”? What competencies are needed when working WITH youth? How do international organizations and institutions ensure their own capacities to practice what they preach in terms of working both with- and for- young people?

    2. Youth considerations and programming: between unified and customised approach

    Youth voices are most commonly included on the programming level, especially when it comes to youth-related initiatives. Various organizations employ different methods and approaches to inclusion, yet there is little UNDERSTANDING of whether these methods actually work, that is, do young people have impact on the organization’s programs, policies, and procedures, or do they simply have access? Would a common approach across the practitioner community make sense with respect to developing internal youth mainstreaming strategies?   

    3. Tokenism in youth involvement: the devil we know

    Tokenism of youth is a major concern for their involvement in genuine inclusive policy and programming This conversation will explore how practitioners can CREATE mechanisms which are actually participatory and inclusive of diverse groups of young people, and avoids creating yet another process the simply ticks the box. How do we move away from symbolic mechanisms towards those that actually deliver for young people?

    13:00 - 16:30 CET
    Enabling a youth-inclusive environment

    Enabling a youth-inclusive environment

    Moderator: Anastasia Fusco, Adviser on Youth and Security, OSCE Secretariat

    View the full agenda and speaker list here.

     

    Guiding questions:

    1. Youth organizations are important structures to represent young people’s interests. How to promote spaces for such organizations to safely and openly interact with international and national decision-makers?

    2. How to support community governing bodies and/or institutions to systematically engage youth, including those belonging to marginalized groups?

    3. Co-management systems are increasingly seen as the most advanced youth engagement practices. What are the benefits and pitfalls of this model for ensuring greater youth participation? How do we measure the impact on society of measures promoting youth participation?

     

    Context

    An enabling environment for youth engagement in the life of the society includes support and commitment to youth engagement, policies in place, and related outcomes. However, often the impact of different initiatives is not measured appropriately and good practices are not identified and/or shared more broadly.

    13:00 - 16:30 CET
    Connecting and moving forward

    Connecting and moving forward

    Moderator: Carole Frampton-de Tscharner, Organisational Development Lead at PeaceNexus

    Guiding questions:

    1. What have we learned in the previous three roundtables? What shared challenges and effective strategies have we identified?

    2. What findings can be further unpacked, nuanced and supported by practical examples?

    3. How can we continue to learn from and support each other as practitioners?

    Context

    With a deeper understanding of the existing youth engagement practices, their benefits and challenges they face, the final roundtable will present the main findings from the previous three meetings and offer an opportunity to jointly validate the identified good practices, lessons learned, and existing challenges that have been identified. The conclusions will feed the praxis paper and set some common grounds for possible future collaboration among participants. The full agenda is available on this link.

    SPEAKERS AND CONTRIBUTORS

    Saji Prelis
    Saji PrelisDirector for the Children & Youth Programs at Search for Common Groundmy
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    Saji has over 20 years’ experience working with youth movements in conflict and transition environments in over 35 countries. He co-led advocacy for the UN Security Council Resolutions 2250, 2419, and 2535. He was the founding director of the Peacebuilding & Development Institute at American University in Washington, DC. He co-developed training curricula exploring the nexus of peacebuilding with development from a human centered perspective. Saji received the Luxembourg Peace Prize for his Outstanding Achievements in Peace Support and obtained his Master’s Degree in International Peace & Conflict Resolution from American University in Washington, DC.
    Prof Dr Tomaž Deželan
    Prof Dr Tomaž DeželanProfessor of Political Science at the University of Ljubljana
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    Tomaž Deželan is Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana and Assistant Secretary-General of the University of Ljubljana. He coordinated more than 17 basic and applicative research projects related to youth and citizenship education. His current projects include research on citizenship education of youth, capacity of youth organizations, and the effects of the Erasmus + programme on youth (RAY), prevention of radicalization of youth, transition of youth to the world of work, entrepreneurship of young people, substantive political representation of young people, shrinking youth civic spaces and political participation of youth. Prof. Deželan acted as consultant of various international organizations active in the field of youth (OSCE, International IDEA, CoE, EC, EACEA) as well as governments and local authorities. He authored or co-authored more than 30 peer reviewed scientific journal articles, 25 chapters in edited volumes, 15 scientific monographs, edited several edited volumes and journal special issues (ISI ranked) and several policy papers for international governmental organizations (OSCE, International IDEA, CoE).
    Dr Howard Williamson
    Dr Howard WilliamsonProfessor of European Youth Policy
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    Dr Williamson is Professor of European Youth Policy at the University of South Wales. Previously he worked at the Universities of Oxford, Cardiff and Copenhagen and has held visiting positions at universities and research institutes in Hong Kong, Malta, Croatia, China, France, Australia, and Iran. He has lectured and published widely on young people, youth policy and youth work. He is a qualified youth worker and ran a youth centre for 25 years in parallel with his academic research. He has advised many levels of governance on youth policy issues, from the Welsh and UK governments, the European Commission, the Council of Europe and the UN. He coordinated the Council of Europe’s international reviews of national youth policy.
    Rita Izsák-Ndiaye
    Rita Izsák-NdiayePersonal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office on Children and Security
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    Rita has 20 years of experience working with human rights and youth issues in international organizations, having held positions at the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, at the OSCE, and the International Labour Organization. She is currently Expert Member and Rapporteur of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD). In 2020, Izsák-Ndiaye served as Senior Human Rights Consultant at the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. From 2011 to 2017, she held the position of UN Special Rapporteur on minority issues.
    Stacey Schamber
    Stacey SchamberSenior Program Officer at the International Civil Society Action Network
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    Stacey provides technical assistance on the Better Peace Initiative, the Women’s Alliance for Security Leadership, and issues of protection and psychosocial support. She is a licensed Clinical Social Worker, with a specialty in trauma, and worked in healthcare and mental healthcare in the US. She has trained Social Workers in Ethiopia, Lebanon, and India. Stacey was as a consultant on gender-based violence and manager of a protection monitoring project in Lebanon, during the Syrian refugee crisis. For 1 year she worked with Meta-Culture, a conflict management organization based in Bangalore, India. She has consulted with Mediators Beyond Borders International on their women in mediation program. Stacey's international conflict resolution experience and training enables her to foster collaborative relationships to identify root causes of conflict and to build local capacity for community development.
    Lise Coermann Nygaard
    Lise Coermann NygaardEU Youth Delegate for the Danish Youth Council
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    Lise is a 23-years old student, who has been fighting for youth inclusion on EU-level together with all the other EU Youth Delegates, where they demand real inclusion and ensure steps to achieve it. She worked with the political efficacy (and lack of it) of vocational students and youth inclusion in the work with the Sustainable Development goals. Lise works on the climate agenda on a basis of surveys that shows this is the most important topic for Danish youth. Currently, her council is making an effort to put this on the agenda of the coming local elections in Denmark.
    Lana Pasic
    Lana PasicYouth Research and Policy Officer at Eu-CoE youth partnership
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    Lana is a Youth Research and Policy Officer at the Partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth. She is coordinating the Pool of European Youth Researchers (PEYR) within the youth partnership, and works on topics of youth political participation, democratic citizenship education, social inclusion and digitalisation. She has consulted on youth issues with various NGOs, international, and institutions, including Council of Europe, UNICEF, UNDP, Oxfam, Save the Children, European Youth Forum & SALTO SEE.
    Eliška Jelínková
    Eliška JelínkováCo-director at United Network of Young Peacebuilders
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    Eliška Jelínková is a Co-Director at the United Network of Young Peacebuilders and a co-chair of the Global Coalition on YPS. She is a young feminist peacebuilder with an expertise on YPS and keen interest in WPS agenda. Her main focus is on advocating for the meaningful inclusion of young people in peacebuilding and on promoting intersectional and decolonial approaches within the YPS field.
    Pavlina Pavlova
    Pavlina PavlovaConsultant, Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues, ODIHR
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    Pavlina is a Consultant at the OSCE/ODIHR’s Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues, where she has been supporting CPRSI activities in ODIHR’s extra-budgetary project “Advancing the Human Dimension of Security in Ukraine”. The objective of the project is to enhance effective mechanisms of multi-stakeholder dialogue, with civil society as a competent and trusted actor, to address key human dimension issues in Ukraine in line with OSCE commitments and international standards. Pavlina's work has focused on capacity-building projects on human rights monitoring and the Human Rights Monitoring and Safety and Security training courses for Roma human rights defenders.
    Marcin Bubicz
    Marcin BubiczCouncillor of the City of Lublin
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    Marcin is involved in issues of international cooperation and fostering good foreign relations within the European Union, specifically with neighbouring countries and Lublin’s partner cities. Since 2018, he is the youngest Councillor of the City of Lublin, where he Chairs the Committee of the Complaints and Petitions. Formerly he was the President of the Youth City Council of Lublin, Secretary of the Youth Parliament of Poland and the President of the Committee of Integration and Immigration of the European Union during EUROSCOLA Youth European Parliament sitting in Strasburg. He was the EU Careers Ambassador (European Personnel Selection Office) and he worked as a Secretary to the Polish Minister of State Treasury and a Member of the European Parliament.
    Kirsty Rancier
    Kirsty RancierYouth Focal Point, UNODC
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    Kirsty is one of UNODC's youth focal point and has over five years of experience engaging youth in educational contexts. As a UN Volunteer, she works to mainstream youth activities throughout UNODC. Kirsty holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy and Public Administration from Concordia University as well as a Bachelor of Management from the University of British Columbia.
    Katrina Leclerc
    Katrina LeclercSteering Committee, Canadian Coalition for Youth, Peace & Security.
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    Katrina is the Co-Founder and Government Advocacy Chair of the Canadian Coalition for Youth, Peace & Security (CCYPS). She serves as the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) policy specialist at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders, coordinating their Young Women Leaders for Peace (YWL) program in Eastern Africa since 2016. This program was cited as a peacebuilding best practice by the UN Secretary-General in his report to the Security Council on YPS. As Parliamentary Affairs Advisor to a Senator in Canada, Katrina launched the Senator's nationwide youth advisory which supported policies focused on meaningful youth engagement within the Parliament and in federal legislation.
    Jacopo Leone
    Jacopo LeoneSpecial Adviser to the Director, Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
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    10. Jacopo Leone: With more than 10 years of experience promoting democratic standards and human rights, supporting national institutions and political reforms in more than 50 countries, Jacopo maintains an extensive knowledge of democratic principles, and their practical translation into international standards and different legislative frameworks at the national level. Currently, as Special Adviser to ODIHR Director, he provides a political understanding of developments in the OSCE region and policy advice on the basis of ODIHR's mandate, international commitments, and geopolitical trends. Over his career, he has assisted in political reform processes in the area of fundamental freedoms, public integrity, and inclusive political participation.
    Arnav Bhardwaj
    Arnav BhardwajCommunications Specialist
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    Arnav has worked as a communications professional for over 6 years, working with several International Non-profit organizations around the globe and in and direct & indirect relation with several offices of the United Nations, having also conducted several high level panels at global conferences like Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development 2021 (by UNESCAP), UN Food Systems Summit 2021, etc. He has worked under the Co-Youth Lab Initiative of UNDP and the Citi Foundation as a Soft Skill Trainer. He runs an educational NGO called Edin Foundation, teaching soft skills to students. He serves as the Advisor on Global Communications for the Center for Regional Research & Sustainability Studies.
    Angela Gales
    Angela GalesOECD Youthwise member
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    Angela is a first year undergraduate student in Economics and Politics at Sciences Po Paris. Originally from Italy and Luxembourg, she grew up between Turin and Paris and speaks four languages fluently -Italian, German, French, English. Angela's particular interests reside in the study of economic and social inequalities and in the economics of food redistribution. She focuses on childhood malnutrition and its connection to future lower adulthood incomes.
    Alba Brojka
    Alba BrojkaFormer OSCE Special Representative on Youth and Security
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    Alba is a political scientist and she is currently assisting the European Endowment for Democracy (EED), a democracy promotion organization, in the capacity of a regional expert for the Western Balkans. She has served as the Special Representative on Youth and Security of the Slovak and Albanian Chairmanship of the OSCE (2019-2020). She has been engaged in different civil society organizations in Albania working in the field of EU integration of the Western Balkans and human rights. Alba has raised the capacities and supported the consolidation of the UN Association Albania, while serving as its Director of Projects and later as its Secretary General.
    Erike Tanghøj
    Erike TanghøjSenior specialist Youth, Peace and Security, Folke Bernadotte Academy
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    Erike is the senior youth, peace and security specialist at Folke Bernadotte Academy, which is the Swedish government agency for peace, security and development. She has long-standing experience of working with youth participation in peacebuilding in conflict-affected countries. Erike has held expert positions related to youth in both the public and non-profit sector, and she was an adviser to the UN on youth political participation.
    Farah Karimi
    Farah KarimiSpecial Representative on Youth Engagement at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
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    Farah is the Special Representative on Youth Engagement at the OSCE, and a member of the Dutch Senate for Green Left. She is the head of the Dutch parliamentary delegation to the OSCE PA. She works as an independent professional in the field of leadership and ethics, and she is a non-executive director at the NHL Stenden University for Applied Sciences. Farah is the chair of Writers Unlimited, an international literary festival in The Hague.
    Ambassador Jan Braathu
    Ambassador Jan BraathuHead of the OSCE Mission to Serbia
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    Jan Braathu, a Norwegian career diplomat, assumed his duties as Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia on 1 January 2021. He has extensive knowledge of the Western Balkans region, having served as Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo from 2016 to 2020 and Norway’s Ambassador to Kosovo, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Previously, he served as Deputy Director General and Head of the Division for Western Balkan Affairs from 2000 to 2006, where he was responsible for Norway's Western Balkan policies.
    Layne Robinson
    Layne RobinsonHead of Social Policy Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat
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    Layne is the Head of Social Policy Development at the Commonwealth Secretariat based in London, UK. He leads a team at the Commonwealth responsible for supporting the 54 countries with public policy in areas of youth development, health, education and sports. He has particular interest in measuring outcomes/progress on social development; in the Commonwealth-led first global Youth Development Index that measures progress in youth development across over 180 countries.
    Maria Stage
    Maria StageProgramme Analyst, UNDP
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    Maria is an analyst with the UNDP supporting the Youth Global Programme on Sustainable Development and Peace relating to youth, peace and security. Before joining UNDP, she worked on peacebuilding, sustainable development, and youth engagement as initiator of a civil society network, chair of a foreign policy think tank, and international programme manager at a youth council. She worked at the Centre for Resolution of International Conflicts, University of Copenhagen and has published on global governance and peacebuilding
    Mila Lukic
    Mila LukicCouncil of Europe Advisory Council on Youth
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    Mila is a youth activist from Serbia who has been involved in youth work and youth organisations since 2013. She was the President of the Board of the National Youth Council of Serbia (KOMS) and is serving as a youth representative at the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe. She has been a youth delegate to events of the European Commission, the United Nations and the European Youth Forum. She is living in Belgrade and working as the Project Officer in NALED.
    Mirela Rajkovic
    Mirela RajkovicExecutive Director at SEEYN
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    Mirela has 12 years of professional experience in management, fundraising and community development. Currently she is Executive Director of the SEEYN, home of 22 member organizations from 12 countries of SEE region, based in Sarajevo. She co-designed methodology for the innovative solutions in peace and reconciliation. She was a mentor of 3 startups in the Network’s accelerator, mentor and jury on Business Challenge Competition for students and led the advocacy effort for enabling environment for startups in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
    Sarah Byrne
    Sarah ByrneYouth Advisor in the Bureau of Europe and Eurasia at USAID
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    Sarah is the Youth Advisor in the Bureau of Europe and Eurasia at USAID. She supports the advancement of meaningful participation and engagement of youth. Previously, she served as the Youth HIV Technical Advisor for the Office of HIV/AIDS at USAID, a Gender Specialist at EnCompass, LLC, a Senior Program Officer at IMA World Health, and a Manager at Chemonics International. Sarah has advanced youth engagement through a Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach, as trained facilitator in this approach and a core contributor to the update of USAID Youth Policy. She provided strategic technical support in Moldova, Albania, Tajikistan, Kenya, Lesotho, and Eswatini.
    Treasa Cadogan
    Treasa Cadogan Irish National Youth Council
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    Treasa is a member of the Irish National Youth Council and serves as the European Regional Focal Point for the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth in support of the UN Food Systems Summit (UNFSS) and as Co-chair of the Youth Mobilisations and Campaign Outreach working group for the UNFSS Youth Liaison Group. She was awarded the Climate Ambassador Outstanding Achievement award 2020 from the Irish Government.
    Zana Idrizi
    Zana IdriziUnited Nations Development Programme, Europe and Central Asia
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    Zana is the youth regional focal point working on youth engagement and youth-led peacebuilding with the UNDP in Europe and Central Asia. Through her work supporting country offices and regional projects, she advocates for youth-inclusive policies and programmes and youth-led civic engagement, online and offline. Prior to joining UNDP, she co-founded Girls Coding Kosova, an organization that empowers young women in the field of technology.
    Mirela Rajkovic
    Mirela RajkovicExecutive Director at SEEYN
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    Mirela has 12 years of professional experience in management, fundraising and community development. Currently she is Executive Director of the SEEYN, home of 22 member organizations from 12 countries of SEE region, based in Sarajevo. She co-designed methodology for the innovative solutions in peace and reconciliation. She was a mentor of 3 startups in the Network’s accelerator, mentor and jury on Business Challenge Competition for students and led the advocacy effort for enabling environment for startups in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
    Jana Minochkina
    Jana MinochkinaUNMIK Youth Adviser and Coordinator of the Youth, Peace and Security programme
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    Jana is the UNMIK Youth Adviser and Coordinator of the Youth, Peace and Security programme, focusing on capacity-building of young Kosovo peacebuilders and cross-community cooperation. Jana is the founder of the annual UN Youth Assembly in Kosovo, and a mentor of the “United Youth Task Force” multi-ethnic network of young Kosovo peacebuilders. Before joining the UN family in Kosovo in October 2015, she worked as a trainer on conflict transformation, human rights and peace education and social entrepreneurship with the Council of Europe and OSCE, and was involved in a number of youth advocacy initiatives, such as the “No Hate Speech Movement”, “UNOY – United Network of Young Peacebuilders” and “United for Intercultural Action”.
    Carlos de Sousa Santos
    Carlos de Sousa SantosBracara Augusta Foundation
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    Carlos manages International Projects at the Bracara Augusta Foundation in Braga, where he managed the coordination of the gnration Youth Program between 2011 and 2019. He was the pedagogical coordinator of Braga 2012 European Youth Capital and a project coordinator with the International Youth Organization for Ibero-America, within the scope of the implementation of Braga 2016 Ibero-American Youth Capital. He is a Social Innovation External Expert at OIJ - International Youth Organization for Ibero-America and cooperates regularly with the Instituto Universitário de Investigación Ortega e Gasset in Madrid. He currently assumes the technical coordination of the "Human Power HUB" - Braga Social Innovation Centre, financed by Portugal Social Innovation in the framework of Portugal 2020, and is involved in several European networks and Social Innovation Hackathon’s and mentoring processes.
    Gjorgi Tasev
    Gjorgi TasevYouth Advisor to the PM of North Macedonia
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    Gjorgi currently works as an advisor for youth and youth policies to the Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, Zoran Zaev. Gjorgi has previously worked in the sector of communications and public relations in the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia. He was also an Adviser for general and legal affairs to the Deputy Minister of agriculture, forestry and water economy and was president of the NGO "NOVUS" - Strumica, which aims to promote and affirme youth policies, encourage youth activism and increase the participation of young people in social processes. He is the Government representative in European Steering Committee for Youth (CDEJ) and Joint Council on Youth (CMJ) of the Council of Europe's co-managed decision-making system, and is also the author/co-author of many articles, analyzes and publications in the field of youth policies, social relations and legal affairs.
    Rosaline Marbinah
    Rosaline MarbinahSpecial Representative in OSCE on Youth and Security
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    Rosaline Marbinah is the Special Representative in the OSCE on Youth and Security, to the Chairwoman in Office. Rosaline is also the president of LSU - the National Council of Swedish Youth Organisations that represents 650 000 children and youth in Sweden
    Snežana Klasnja
    Snežana KlasnjaAdvisor to the Serbian Minister of Youth Policy
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    Snežana has over 20 years of work experience in the position of associate, professor and the head master of primary and secondary schools in Belgrade. She also has over 14 years of work experience in the field of youth policy in the Ministry of Youth and Sport, 10 of which were as the Assistant Minister for Youth (from 2008 until retirement in 2018). She has been the advisor to the Minister for Youth Policy since 2019 and both participated and presented in many international conferences in the field of education and youth. Snežana is the author of many articles published in professional publications and manager of many research projects and teams in the education and youth field. She has participated in the preparation and implementation of National Youth Strategy, Strategy of career guidance and counselling and Law on Youth in the Republic of Serbia.
    Alexandra Robinson
    Alexandra RobinsonOECD’s Public Governance Directorate
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    Alexandra Robinson is a consultant within the OECD’s Public Governance Directorate. In her current role, she delivers policy research and advice on youth empowerment and intergenerational justice projects. She is the former Global President of AIESEC, a global, youth-led organization present in over 110 countries and territories focused on developing leadership in young people through volunteering and exchange. Alexandra was previously responsible for AIESEC’s global human resources strategy and was the country director of AIESEC in the United States of America. She graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Global Studies and Public Policy, with thematic focuses in African Studies and Global Health Policy.
    Jayathma Wickramanayake
    Jayathma Wickramanayakethe UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth
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    Jayathma was appointed as the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth in June 2017 at 26, making her the youngest senior official in the UN and the first woman to hold this position. In this role, she works to expand the UN’s youth engagement and advocacy efforts and serves as a representative of and advisor to the Secretary-General. Recognised by Time Magazine in 2019 among “Time 100 Next: Rising stars shaping the future” and by Forbes magazine in 2020 as part of its “30 under 30” list, Jayathma was instrumental in promoting the civic and political engagement of youth, especially young women, in Sri Lanka through the “Hashtag Generation” movement. She also advocated for global youth development internationally as the first Sri Lankan Youth Delegate to the UN, the youth lead negotiator and member of the International Youth Task Force of the World Conference on Youth 2014 where she played a critical role in mainstreaming youth in the Post-2015 Process and in the establishment of World Youth Skills Day.
    Elvira Kalmurzaeva
    Elvira KalmurzaevaResearch and Development Assistant at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs
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    Elvira Kalmurzaeva is a Research and Development Assistant at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs and an MA student of International Affairs at the Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University. Her research interests include international development, China and nonprofit management. Elvira previously worked in international, regional, and local organizations, leading various programs, promoting youth and women's political participation. For the last four years, she has run a youth-led-for-youth regional nonprofit organization, IDEA Central Asia. Elvira also holds a master's in Political Science and Security from the OSCE Academy and BA in International Relations from Kyrgyzstan-Turkey Manas University.
    Roman Banari
    Roman BanariSecretary General of the National Youth Council of Moldova
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    Roman is a Secretary General of the National Youth Council of Moldova and an experienced human rights activist. He began his career in the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family in Moldova, working on human rights policies and regulations. As a Coordinator of Social Policy Development in Keystone Moldova, he developed and promoted legal opportunities for social inclusion of people with disabilities. In the Nondiscrimination Coalition, he was engaged as a consultant and a trainer. Roman is a member of YFJ Expert Group on Youth Rights and a Think Tank member/expert on youth participation in SALTO-YOUTH Participation and Information Resource Centre.
    Özgecan Korkmaz
    Özgecan KorkmazSenior Associate at Kabine Law Office and ICC YAF
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    Özgecan is a Senior Associate at Kabine Law Office and International Chamber of Commerce Young Arbitrators Forum (ICC YAF) representative for Turkey for 2021-2023 term. Özgecan works with Turkish and foreign clients in arbitrations under the ICC, LCIA and ISTAC rules concerning post-M&A shareholder disputes, commercial and construction disputes. She received her bachelor’s degree from Galatasaray University Law Faculty with the scholarship provided by the Turkish Prime Ministry and the Turkish Education Foundation (Türk Eğitim Vakfı). Özgecan received her Magister Juris degree from the University of Oxford with the Jean Monnet Scholarship. She obtained a second master's degree in business law from Istanbul Bilgi University. She was on the board of the Galatasaray Alumni Association (Galatasaraylılar Derneği) from 2017-2019 and is a board member in Galatasaraylılar Solidarity Foundation (Galatasaraylılar Yardımlaşma Vakfı). Özgecan is a registered lawyer in Istanbul Bar Association.
    Camilla Ojala
    Camilla Ojala Youth and Peace coordinator of the UN Youth of Finland
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    Camilla Ojala is the Youth and Peace coordinator of the UN Youth of Finland, where her main responsibility is the coordination of the Youth Peace Week, which brings together many national and international partners to host events on the topics of youth and peace. She has also actively taken part in the drafting process of Finland's recently published National Action Plan on the UNSCR2250: Youth, Peace and Security through the 2250-network that has brought together different youth associations and interested youth to collaborate with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland in the NAP-process. Camilla continues to be an enthusiastic advocate for youth participation and the YPS-agenda nationally through the UN Youth of Finland and the National Youth Council Allianssi, as well as internationally through the European Youth Forum's Expert Group on Youth Rights and Youth, Peace and Security Coordination Network. She studies International Encounters at the University of Helsinki with a focus on peace and conflict studies.
    Stian Skarheim Magelssen
    Stian Skarheim MagelssenPolitical Adviser at the Norwegian Children and Youth Council (LNU)
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    Stian Skarheim Magelssen works as political advisor with focus on international issues for the Norwegian Children and Youth Council (LNU). He manages the Norwegian youth delegate programme and is a facilitator between youth organizations and government agencies. Stian leads LNUs project on real and meaningful youth participation in political processes.
    Roger Padreny
    Roger PadrenyMember of the delegation of Andorra to the OSCE PA
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    Roger Padreny is a member of the delegation of Andorra to the OSCE PA since 2019, year, which he was also elected member of the Parliament of Andorra at the age of 25. Before, he had been the President of the National Youth Forum of Andorra and he had been representing Andorra and its youth in several international conferences organized by international organizations such as: UNICEF, UNESCO, OSCE and the Council of Europe.
    María Rodríguez Alcázar
    María Rodríguez AlcázarBoard Member at the European Youth Forum
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    María Rodríguez Alcázar is Board Member at the European Youth Forum, the platform representing young people in Europe, composed of more than 100 youth organisations. She is responsible for the Social and Economic Inclusion of young people, advocating towards public institutions for policies to allow young people access their rights. Since the age of 14 she works for youth rights at different levels, being a student activist and Vice President of the Spanish Youth Council previously. She has been engaged in several Human Rights mechanisms focusing particularly on age discriminatio and asking for young people to be meaningfully involved in policy-making.
    Sarah Cooke O'DowdeHead of Communication and Membership at Equinet
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    Sarah Cooke O’Dowd is Head of Communication and Membership at Equinet, the European Network of Equality Bodies. Particularly interested in values-based messaging, and supporting the work of communication experts from across Europe within Equinet’s Working Group on Communication Strategies and Practices, she was one of the editors of their recent Handbook ‘Stepping up our Engagement with Youth’.
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