By Akewak Yadeta Gobosho and Rozemarijn ter Horst
Highlights:
- Youth water Ambassador programme is important tool in addressing lack of coordination in WASH sector (Alix Lerebours).
- Intergovernmental panel dedicated to water sector is recommended to tackle the problem of SPI (Maelis Monnier)
- The youth should grab the communication channel to get their voice heard (ANDRAS Szollosi-Nagy)
- The youth could have been represented better in other forums also (professor Stefan Uhlenbrook)
What is the role of the youth in water governance? What should be done to improve the involvement of the youth? Session 3 of the Budapest Water Summit- Youth Forum is filled by young and senior water professionals to discuss the issue of youth involvement. The discussion started with the presentations of young professionals followed by the discussion by the senior water professionals.
There is a lack of cooperation, coordination and mutual goals in the WASH sector. With this strong statement the morning session for the BWS Youth Forum on ‘how youth can improve water governance’ started.The session commenced with Alix Lerebours, a post graduate student in international development at Pantheon Sorbonne University, who present the role of the youth in addressing the visible lack of coordination in the water sector. Among others, she indicated that the problems associated to fragmentation of stake holders in terms of difference in agenda and incoherence of action can be well addressed by involving the youth through communication and water ambassadorship. The other young professional, Maelis Monnier , a post graduate student on Natural Resources management at school of Oriental and African studies, in her presentation on Science and policy interface(SPI) explained the importance of Water Youth Network. According to Maelis, creation of intergovernmental panel dedicated to water sector and supporting Water Youth Networks is important in addressing the problem of SPI.
The panel of senior water professionals: ANDRAS Szollosi-Nagy, Rector UNESCO-IHE; Stefan Uhlenbrook, Professor of Hydrology UNESCO-IHE; Woulter T. Linckean, Leadership coach and Ned Breslin from water for people, followed up discussion on what has been presented. Soon, the statement was bounced back to the participants by the panellists. They challenged the participants to build stronger networks themselves and to build towards a stronger youth presence outside of the youth activities. The message was that dialogue is not enough! We need to integrate and partner with the older (although often young of mind) professionals.
According to ANDRAS Szollosi-Nagy coordination or how to put together the stakeholders in WASH sector is what appears to be the challenge of the day that can give an opportunity for Water Youth Network to act on. He also advised the youth to grasp the communication channel to get their messages across. Professor Uhlenbrook , commenting on BWS, indicated the importance of hosting a youth forum but that is not enough. According to him the youth should be better represented in other forums from day one including in the preparation and convening meetings. Mr. Ned Breslin on his part stressed the importance of understanding the past endeavours and offering an alternative dialogue by the youth.
The session revolved in a great discussion between the panellist and the audience, in which the panellist kept encouraging the youth to move beyond discussions and go and take actions. The youth were encouraged by great lines such as “finding your passion, finding your voice”, “you are setting unambitious goals; there are a lot of voices out there. Connect, and make them so loud together that we can make a change”, and “youth seem to be able to communicate across boundaries. We are hopeful for the things you can achieve”.
In a discussion about youth participation in the World Water Forum and beyond, one of the biggest challenges acknowledged by the youth was to make the connection to the local level. We are dedicated to work hard on this. We hope the rest of the water sector is going to take up this challenge as well.
