International Youth Day
International Youth Day
by DIPD on August 12, 2016
Today we celebrate the international youth day. DIPD is of the strong believe that youth is a key actor of change when it comes to democratic development and transition, therefore youth is one of the three main areas of focus in our international partnerships. Read more about our work with youth in politics in the last year below.
Why youth matters
Fostering democracy and consolidating democratic culture with transparency, accountability and coalitionbuilding across old divides call for strong engagement of younger generations who are to inherit the democratic institutions and political party’s being shaped. Across the world, youth is underrepresented in political parties, the youth’s trust in politicians and political parties as institutions is low and so is the youth turnout at parliamentary and local elections. Often, party leaderships claim a lack of experience is preventing young party members from participating in central decision-making, while young party members are disillusioned by the lack of trust and opportunities. DIPD consider political parties the backbone of democracies complemented by civil society movements, media etc. Through cross-political youth networks, technical capacity building, exposure and facilitation of cross-political dialogue, DIPD attempts to enhance the youth’s access to the central decision-making in their political parties and build a culture of cross-political dialogue and respect.
Youth in the Myanmar General Elections
Political party youth representatives were on the frontline of parties’ preparations for the general elections on 8 November in Myanmar. To support youth efforts to deliver voter education and election observation, DIPD, through its Myanmar Multiparty Democracy Programme (MMDP), held an intensive five-day, participatory capacity building session for a group of 50 party youth representatives. Together with its partner, Global Platform, DIPD provided young people with hands-on exercises on the different stages of the electoral process. The training was designed to allow for interactive participation. One of the participants shared his reflection that, “the training activities such as group work and group discussions are very effective and gave us a chance to build relationships with the youth from different political parties”. The training shed light on a wide range of topics such as: principles of voter education, international best practices of election observation, election simulation exercises, party-side election monitoring, voter registration and voter list display. Participants particularly enjoyed the campaigns and election simulation exercise as it provided a chance to witness the practical challenges of organizing free and fair elections. The exercise also helped them to appreciate how the election officials, media, parties, and observers each have a role to play in the electoral process.
DIPD and MMDP ensure that youth take part in formulation of national youth policy
Myanmar plans to adopt a national youth policy in 2016. The policy formulation was initiated under the hundred-day plan of the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement and is being led by the Ministry. MMDP believes that participation of political party youth in the national youth policy-making process will improve the inclusiveness of the policy. In order to foster participation by political party youth MMDP organized a two-day multiparty youth dialogue on the national youth policy on July 7th and 8th in cooperation with Global Platform. The event convened more than 70 participants from 18 political parties. The program was designed with the aim to foster knowledge sharing and gathering best practices of youth policy from different parts of the world with political party youth. Additionally, the event to providing a platform for discussing policy inputs for the national youth policy framework.
Danish-Egyptian platform for youth in politics
Young people in Egypt were important actors in the popular uprisings of January and February 2011 which led to the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak following which Egypt embarked on a process of democratic transition. However, the transition has in some ways been one step forward and two steps back. The youth is again politically marginalized and is not participating in political party politics in great numbers. Furthermore, they have largely failed to obtain influence in the formal decision-making processes in their political parties. However, young politically active Egyptians continue to see themselves as agents of change in terms of being politicians capable of having a multiparty dialogue and thereby building trust beyond political differences. They need a safe space to engage in this multiparty dialogue, though – due to the fragile political context they are to navigate. This is what the Danish-Egyptian youth network offer. In June 2015, DIPD, the Danish Youth Council (DUF) and the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute (DEDI) organized the network’s first international electoral seminar. The seminar combined hands-on involvement in election campaigning, as the Egyptian participants each followed a prominent Danish parliamentary candidate in the last days of the election campaign and on Election Day, as well as facilitating cross-political, cross-national dialogue and providing the participants with useful campaign tools.
The network convenes 2-3 times a year, with the latest seminar being held in Egypt’s Aswan in April 2016, as well as having monthly national meetings, where all the participating parties gather for training, consultations and activity planning. This year, the network has embarked on a new road, which leads towards the local elections that are planned for 2017 in both Egypt and Denmark. As always, the goal is to capacitate the participating party youth in order to enhance their influence in their political parties, and to build a culture of cross-political dialogue.
Party-to-party activities on youth involvement
Several of the DIPD party partnerships address the importance of inclusion of youth. For some of the projectets this is key objective for other it is considered a cross-cutting priority reflecting the overall objective of strengthening representativity, inclusion and accountability.
The Danish Social Liberal Party in Tanzania
On the 27-29th of May, the Danish Social Liberal Party and the Tanzanian opposition party Civic United Front (CUF) facilitated a training seminar in Dar Es Salam on the topic “Youth and women in decision-making processes”. The seminar was part of an ongoing partnership between the social liberals and CUF. The partnership started in 2012 and is supported by DIPD.
The Danish Socialist Peoples Party and the Danish Liberal Party in Zambia
The Danish Socialist People’s Party and the Danish Liberal Party have initiated a joint democracy project with the Centre for Multiparty Democracy, Malawi in early 2016. The project seeks to contribute to the strengthening of youth involvement in political parties in Malawi. The overall purpose of the cooperation is to contribute to the development of a political culture based on democratic dialogue in and between political parties, increasing inclusion of members and involvement of young people in the development of issue-based policies. By cooperation between two ideologically opposite Danish political parties, the intent is to show in practice how democratic dialogue, inter-party cooperation and political negotiation is taking place between the Danish political parties and their respective youth wings; the Danish Liberal Youth and the Danish Socialist People’s Party’s Youth.
The Danish Red-Green Alliance in Palestine
Since early 2013, The Danish Red-Green Alliance (RGA) has had a partnership project in Palestine with three left-wing political parties, The project aims to develop relations and strengthen cooperation between the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), the Palestinian People’s Party (PPP), and Palestinian Democratic Union (FIDA) by increasing cooperation between their youth organizations and at the same time to further the position of the young members and women in the parties. Empowering youth and women in the parties is carried out with a view to enhancing the social and political role of the left and to strengthen democracy in the political life and in the Palestinian society. The approach include different focus areas: Improving the youth members’ ideological and political knowledge and concrete campaigning and planning skills. Activities includes seminars aiming at educating the young members of the three organizations in political theoretical and ideological subjects. These activities are combined with training seminars aiming at building the capacities of the young members of the three organizations focusing on themes like planning and executing campaigns and building alliances. The partnership further want to enhance the influence and participation of youth and women in the parties and political life. In order to reach this objective workshops are conducted on how to promote the participation and influence of the youth and women in the parties. Party members discuss and develop strategies on how to further their position in the mother-parties. Lastly, the project aims at strengthening and developing the cooperation between the youth organisations by facilitating party members’ participation in each other’s youth summer camps. Implementation of joint seminars, workshops, campaigns, and joint meetings for discussing the perspectives of forming a formalised youth frame/umbrealla for the youth organisations. Young Palestinians who are involved in project from the three parties participated in the RGA’s Annual Congress to observe how a Party embrace the engagement by young members.
The Youth Guide
The Idea of a ‘Guide on Youth Wings’ was conceived during a visit to Denmark by a delegation of young members of Egyptian political parties, organized by DIPD. At the end of the visit, one very clear recommendation from the Egyptian delegation was to offer more guidance on Danish experiences with the setting up roles, responsibilities and workings of Danish youth wings of political parties. The demand for inspiration is very common in many of the countries that DIPD operate in, since the presence of youth in the organized political sphere is still a fairly new concept in most developing countries. This is not to say that DIPD have any agenda of exporting the Danish way of setting up and managing youth wings. In fact, there is no one Danish model for how to run a youth wing. This becomes very clear when looking at the many different ways that the Danish youth parties have chosen to operate and interact with the public, the media and even their mother parties. The guide does however offer an insight in to the key aspects of the building, development and running of a youth wing, that every kind of youth branch would have to consider.
The guide has been used across several DIPD partner countries, including Egypt, Palestine and Myanmar.
For more information contact DIPD project coordinator Mathias Parsbæk Skibdal maps@dipd.dk
From: Egypt, Myanmar, News and updates, Palestine