Youth Summit 2019: More Dialogue, Better Future

Motivated by our belief in young people and their ability to lead change and as we continue to create dialogue platforms for young people to express their views and vision for the future, we launched Youth Summit 2019 in partnership Aman Coalition under the slogan: More Dialogue, Better Future. The summit came was aligned with the International Youth Day 2019.

The opening speech of the summit was with the Prime Minister, Dr. Mohammed Ishtiyya, delivered by His Excellency Minister Osama Saadawi, Minister of Entrepreneurship and Empowerment in which he affirmed the government’s strong faith in youth and its keenness to involve them in decision-making positions, especially political.

4 youth-led sessions: discussion, recommendations and suggested solutions to the most important issues

Youth Summit 2019 addressed four main discussion platforms, namely Good Education, Decent Work and Economic Growth, Active Political Participation, and Honest Media sessions. Youth led all the themes of the summit and formulated all interventions to cover the most important challenges facing youth in Palestine. The summit was to and from young people at a joint table with representatives of government, decision makers and representatives of civil society institutions.

The Summit platforms and themes have been developed from the Sustainable Development Goals and the National Youth Strategy Plan 2020.

Good Education Session

The Good Education platform was linked with the International Youth Day theme entitled “Transforming Education” and worked on discussing the reality of education in Palestine and its relevance to the labor market and the main challenges facing the youth regarding the educational process. The platform discussed three main points:

Education between profiling and creativity.
Opportunities for distance and lifelong learning.
Quality of vocational education in Palestine.

Decent Work and Economic Growth Session

Finding a decent job opportunity is one of the priorities of youth in Palestine and in the whole world. Therefore, the platform discussed decent work and economic growth in youth’s reality and the extent of their involvement in the labor market and the percentage of obtaining decent jobs that give them the opportunity to contribute and leave a real impact on their standard of living and the national economy. The platform also focused on Entrepreneurship as a new window to create job opportunities for young people. This platform is based on the SDG 8 related to decent work, as follows:

Palestinian Labor Market Needs.
The reality of the participation of girls in the labor force.
Entrepreneurship and Empowerment and its role in promoting economic growth.

Active Political Participation Session

The impediment to the democratic electoral process has had a significant negative impact on youth political participation, with young people representing less than 1% in decision-making positions. This has also negatively affected the involvement of young people in refining the most important developments and decisions related to their priorities and refining new innovative solutions to the most important challenges facing them in general. The promotion of effective political participation of youth is to strengthen and build the Palestinian society and create a real and just democratic system:

Political participation with youth vision.
The reality of girls’ participation in the political process.
The reality of youth participation in civil society frameworks.

Honest Media Session

The emergence of new media channels, especially social media, has had a great impact on our view of the news and their presentation, where a large number of people rely daily on social media platforms to watch world news and follow their interests, especially in light of the bias of some media channels and special agendas. The Honest Media session highlighted the standards of transparency and integrity in the media sector and how they reflect youth issues through the following themes:

Media contribution in supporting youth issues.
Social media platforms between change and absenteeism.
Safe use of social media platforms.

Youth Summit 2019 concluded with a list of recommendations for each session, reflecting the youth vision and aspirations for the future that if adopted and invested, it will make a qualitative leap in Palestinian society and the reality of youth.