MY UN YEAR: 2010

After a difficult decision @ Slovak Youth Council

2011-05-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Slovak Youth Delegate 2011 is: Monika Marekova

“Today a new youth delegate for Slovakia will be selected - just watching 6 motivated young people debating. It was a great year, a life changing experience!” - My impressions on May, 18.

All six participants in the final round were great, but Monika was the best. You may be wondering about her: Monika is a 23 years old law student, she is into Human Rights and promoting democracy. To find out more, read her intro (in English) or visit her website (in Slovak).

Me and Monika? We had a transfer of knowledge meeting on 3 June and a visit to the UN Office in Vienna the following week. Next stop: A seminar "It's up to YOUth" focusing on youth participation.

Congratulations and good luck, Monika!

Girls together: Monika, yd2011 on the left

About the Youth Delegate Programe in the UN, Vienna

2011-03-09T05:03:00.000-08:00

On 1 March 2011, I presented the YD Program at the ACUNS Conference in the UN Office in Vienna, in session on “How to communicate UN concepts and issues to the next generation?” Here is my speech.

My name is Dana Vyzinkarova, I am a Youth Delegate to the UN from Slovakia and a student at the Diplomatic Academy here in Vienna at the same time. When I first saw the question, I thought of 2 wonderful ways about how to make the UN more familiar to young people: The Model UN and the YD Program. I am here to present the Program of the YD to the UN.

We can all agree that it is a challenge to make the young people interested in the work of the UN. Many consider the UN an institution too far away from their everyday lives and maybe too complicated.
At first, I will explain the idea of the YD Program, then give you some examples from various countries and in the end I will summarize the tools we use to pass the UN issues to young people.

The idea of the YD Program is two way: to bring the UN to young people and the other way around, to bring the young people to the UN. After all, half of the world's population is younger than 25 and it is a basic idea of youth participation to give them some say about the youth policies.

Since 1981 the United Nations recommend Member States to include Youth Delegates in their national delegations in order to ensure direct youth participation. Therefore some countries send a YD to the UN GA (concretely to the 3rd committee which deals with youth related issues) each year, and some do the same with sending to some ECOSOC meetings, for instance the Commission for Social Development (CSD) and the Commission on Status of Women (CSW).

What does one YD do – How does he/she awake the interest in the UN?
Before I speak shortly about my experience in Slovakia, I prepared examples to demonstrate this from all over the globe.

In 2009, the Australian YD visited all states of Australia, meeting young people with all different backgrounds (with a specific focus on young people with fewer opportunities) and discussed their life circumstances and concerns; on each visit he asked the young people to write a letter to the prime minister, Kevin Rudd at that time. He made these young people's statements a central part of his speech in the GA. By doing so he was able to get peer-to-peer feedback about the needs of young people in a direct way and bring these needs to the UN. And what more, the young people saw their words being spoken in the UN – by this simple personal experience, the UN gets much closer to them.

The German and Dutch YDs do similar tour around the country every year, asking about their concerns and introducing the UN concepts, such as Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and others.

Then we had a Saudi Arabian YD who organized a side event on intercultural dialogue at his permanent mission last year. We always write articles about such events, upload the photos to our blogs (that are linked to our unyouth.com and national websites), Facebook etc.

YDs are selected on demonstrated experience in youth work or with a strong interest in youth related issues and therefore those are the people who have a network to which they can transmit the relevant UN messages.
Every YD works on issues of his/hers interest, the German and Swedish Yds promoted gay rights among other, the second German YD came from background of a Catholic NGO and was promoting youth participation, Finnish delegate chose women rights and me, I chose development and humanitarian aid. Hence I was mostly dealing with development cooperation and participated Europe-Africa Youth Summit in Libya just three months ago, where we had a working group on MDGs.

The Slovak YD Program is organized by the National Youth Council, in cooperation with the MFA and Ministry of Education. The delegate is chosen in May, so there is enough time to prepare and establish contact with local young people before going to the UN General Assembly in October.

My activities is this period were
- tour around relevant organizations: UNDP, Habitat for Humanity and many regional organizations
- An internship at the MFA in the summer, at Development and Humanitarian Aid Dpt.
- Live blog day by day from the GA in New York
- Live stream in Slovak radio

The tools we use to approach young people
- unyouth.com website
- similarly, there is an official UN website www.un.org/youth with guidelines how to establish YD Program in your country
- Social media, Facebook, very frequently
- Videos, e.g. from the GA Hall but also in Central Park to become closer to the youth
- We write articles, letters on youth issues, take part in many events, youth conferences

But the major strength of the program is that we are young people from different countries who cooperate, share best practices and inspire each other. What has worked in Germany is likely to work in Slovakia and I might try that activity, too.

I hope I have shared my enthusiasm for the program with you, thank you for your attention.

Dana Vyzinkarova

The CSD day by day

2011-02-22T06:38:00.000-08:00

The Youth Delegates at the 49th CSD f hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhAhhhhhAt the Permanent mission of Germany, 14 Feb 2011

14 february 2011

The highlight of the first day would definitely be a side event at the permanent mission of Germany titled „More than just an opportunity – Youth Delegate Programs to the United Nations“ where I got chance to introduce the Slovakian YD Programme as the best practices. In my 10 min. speech I emphasized 3 main aspects:

- The necessity of continuous advancement of the programme. There is always chance to make the programme better and add something new to it, which I see positively in Slovakia. I gave few examples, among them our last success in arranging an internship at MFA as an integral part of the programme.

- I spoke about the structure and organization of the programme in Slovakia and about the selection procedure that differs country to country.

- I stressed the need to improve the link between youth delegates and young people, to share the examples and activities that proved working in different programme countries.
After my talk, I have received variety of questions, for example from the representative of the EU delegation and the Iraqi Ambassador.

15 february 2011

I participated in an informal session on the modalities of the World Youth Conference (WYC) 2011. The discussion was going around the possible dates, the duration and about who can take part in it. What is the problem with the dates? Well, there are many events in the worlds' calendar for June to August period; ECOSOC meeting in Geneva, African Union's high level group on youth and Ramadan – how can it be fitted in between, for the satisfaction of all? One thing became clear – the conference will take 2 days. There were efforts to make it longer, but potential budget implications killed the idea. Who can take part in the this upcoming UN conference is not clear either. One side wants to keep the participants list to government related youth and the other side advocates for a „real youth participation“ from all NGOs. Now, there is a talk about allowing youth organizations with ECOSOC status to participate in the WYC. The next informal is on 23 february 2011, we will find out more then.

The next informal of the day was on the youth resolution. Here one did not need long to notice presence of 2 school of thoughts:

1- Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Venezuela taking lead, against all clauses empowering the position of young people.

2- EU and Switzerland as the main proponents, promoting youth participation and calling upon member states to involve young people in the UN work.
The discussion went further than I imagined. The arguments of group 1 went along this line: We suggest to soften the language of the resolution because the countries are not in the same position to send youth representatives. Maybe you have also wondered, what have the youth delegates done so far? Here is my answer, with big thanks to those who helped with creating this list. I believe in benefits of the YD programme.

In the evening I visited Dambisa Moyo's talk on development assistance in the Free Library in Philadelphia. Unfortunately Moyo announced "No questions, please" while signing her new book.

16 february 2011

In the morning we were working the previously mentioned positive input of the youth delegates, in case today's informal on youth resolution continues in the same spirit of yesterday's criticism of the YD programme. To my surprise, this meeting was much more constructive, maybe because it was the final meeting. In the end, we agreed by consensus on the text of the youth resolution.

17 february 2011

Youth delegates were meeting the UN Program on Youth and later the World Federation of UN Associations (WFUNA).

18 february 2011

The formal session of the CSD and adopting the youth resolution. I heard many comments like „it could have been worse“. I don't know.

Later that day I met our representative from the permanent mission as well as another member of the delegation to discuss the quickly passed week.

I was glad to be live where a new youth resolution was created - so thanks to all who helped me becoming the first Slovak Youth Delegate at the CSD!

What have the Youth Delegates done so far?

2011-02-22T06:17:00.000-08:00

The positive input of the Youth Delegates - maybe you have also wondered once? The list is not final yet.

1. Examples of best practices
Australia In 2009 the YD visited all states of Australia, meeting young people with all different backgrounds (with a specific focus on young people with fewer opportunities) and discussed their life circumstances and concerns; on each visit he asked the young people to write a letter to the prime minister, raising their relevant issues; he also brought these young people's voices to the UN and made it a central part of his speech. By doing so he was able to get peer-to-peer feedback about the needs of young people in a direct way and bring these needs to the UN.
Germany Every year German YD are doing a tour around Germany, meeting and discussing with young people; and organize a side event every year on the YD Program.
Saudi Arabia The Saudi Permanent Mission to the UN set up a YD Program in 2010 and organized a side event on intercultural understanding.
In Peru the Youth Delegate Program has created an interest for UN related topics among youth; the existence of such a programme has activated a group of young people in the National Youth Council who is working towards implementing UN resolutions and commitments into national/local policies. This interest can be achieved by a peer-to-peer encounter. Therefore Member States (also in developing countries) should look at the YD Program as an opportunity for development and cooperation.

2. What have we done concretely in the UN, New York
Example 1: Youth Delegates proposed language to the recent GA resolution A/RES/64/130, which was adopted by consensus, on non-formal education to prepare the young people for the green economy (Paragraph 5).
Example 2: The YDs also proposed paragraph on intergenerational dialogue to the resolution on ageing (at the GA in October 2010, RES/65/182, paragraph 13) which speaks about solidarity among generations.
Example 3 (to be further specified): Clause on HIV-tests.

And we still work on achieving more.

The UN Commission for Social Development: Delegates back to NYC

2011-02-02T13:45:00.001-08:00

The 49th Session of the CSocD will take place at the UN, between 9 - 18 February 2011. The Slovak delegation is composed of 5 members, and me, the youth delegate, among them.

The youth delegates are traditionally represented in smaller number here than at the GA. Which countries send a youth delegate this year? To my knowledge, apart form us, Bulgaria, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Viet Nam. We will be a small group with big plans!

The youth resolution is negotiated every two years- during my stay at the last session of the GA, that was a year with no youth resolution. But the draft of the next resolution to be discussed and voted on on the 66th session of the GA (my successor's job), will be born and worked on here, at the CSocD.

The delegates' Googlegroup conversation is getting intense, which gives me a feeling of productive and exciting time at the UN in 1 week's time! Please check my blog again then.

Bratislava, 20.10.2010. My UN year is not over yet.

2010-10-20T06:00:00.000-07:00

The 3rd phase has started: reporting and thinking about how to pass this experience further to fellow young people. This article is about my follow-up activities.

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Talking in the morning's broadcast of the radio on 20 October 2010.

On Friday 22.10., finally I got to see the development education in practice. I visited 1st year class at the University of Vienna, the topic was Afghanistan. See Internationale Entwicklung.

On Saturday 23.10., Meeting with Gita Hulmanova, YD Slovakia 2009.

Weekend 6-7.11. I wrote 2 articles, first for a Slovak newspaper's special issue on development aid and second for Polemics, the Diplomatic Academy's paper. I am especially glad for that one: many possible future diplomats may get to read about the program. I was interviewed by a classmate, for Swedish paper.

On Monday 8.11., Lunch with the Youth Council and my report has been written.

25-28.11., I attended the Europe-Africa Youth Summit in Libya. Here is my article, with some photos (in Slovak).

In December and January, things get usually pretty busy at the university and this year it was no exception. However, I currently enjoy a class called "International Organizations and Multilateral Diplomacy" where we mostly deal with the UN and "Development Economics". Fantastic classes!

On 24.1.2011, we had a meeting in the Youth Council, about the YD 2011. In mid February, the competition will be launched. I am already curious about my successor.

Scheduled and surprising meetings of the Week 2

2010-10-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

This is my second week at the UN and here come my impressions.

Monday 11.10. at UNESCO

During this meeting, topics such as higher education, intercultural dialoge were discussed. "What can UNESCO do so that higher education is free" was question of the Belgian YD. "Culture is not part of MDGs but without culture no goal can be achieved" is what we heard, stressing the importance of taking cultural background always into consideration.

Tuesday 12.10. morning working breakfast at Swiss mission “Successful Environmental Policy; Youth participation in decision making processes”

Meeting of the day Not planned, yet a great luck on being on the right place in the right moment: I ran into Kofi Annan!
lunch time a photo exhibition at the Bulgarian consulate

______________
Kofi Annan____________________________________________Velislava Ivanova, Bulgarian YD

evening Something that particularly stuck in my mind; an evening screening of a documentary by UNICEF, dealing with the plight of Children of war giving an insight into to Uganda’s Lord Resistance Army.

Wednesday 13.10.
morning Reporting from the plenary of the 3rd Committee. On the agenda we had Advancement of women and Children's rights. Earlier I had chance to hear Michele Bachelet, the newly appointed Under Secretary General for UN Women. The discussion has been great today, with a special regard to the question time, there was a lively discussion between representatives of Korea and Japan.

lunch time a side event at the Dominican Rep. mission
Mostly discussing organizational things like how to hand information we collected to the next delegates, our coordination after we are back from NY, website etc.

afternoon At 5pm, we met Mr. Joseph Deiss, the President of the 65th General Assembly. After a short introduction (and photoshooting), we asked questions. Our very enthusiastic Belgian delegate Matthieu asked about future of the UN, if UN Parliamentary Assembly would not be a solution for solving the global problems and would not better represent real people. A question from Dominican Rep. followed, asking about the role of NGOs. Germany asked whether he could support us and call upon the member states to implement the youth delegate program.

Mr. Joseph Deiss and Youth Delegates 2010

Thursday 14.10. morning working breakfast at Thai mission “Sufficiency Economy: the Role and Participation of Youth in Sustainable Development”
10am I am meeting our ambassador
lunch time WFUNA (World Federation of United Nations Associations) event "Handbook for Establishing a National Youth Delegate Programme to the UN"

Weekend. Saturday 16.10., Boston. Dambisa Moyo, the author of the Dead Aid (Why the aid is not working and how there is a better way for Africa) was speaking at the Boston Book Festival. Not only that her book was impressive, she is impressive! The way she spoke - you could really know she means it. Indian Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen and famous Harvard Professor Michael Sandel were also present.
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Dambisa Moyo signing my issue of her Dead Aid. D. Moyo, Amartya Sen, M. Sandel

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She wrote: Dana, make the cycle stop.

New York Week 1: My speech and meeting the SG

2010-10-06T18:28:00.000-07:00

In my speech in the 3rd Committee of the General Assembly on Oct 5, I advocated for youth everywhere to get a basic knowledge of development. This, I emphasized, would lead to every young person forming their own opinion on global issues. I am concerned about the fact that there are too many young people in developed countries who misunderstand the concept of development, as well as humanitarian aid and carry a negative attitude, most of the times without having sufficient background information.

Monday 4.10. Meeting Slovak Permanent mission and first day in the UN HQ, precisely in the 3rd committee's plenary. Most of the youth delegates delivered their speeches today, but mine initially on 44place (eventually moved up to 32) was cut off and planned for Tuesday. Exciting day, many people present and the young deleagtes' speeches very refreshing; one could notice choice of stronger words, concrete references and rarely repeating cliche -like phrases. The speeches are uploaded here. It is worth to click on this link, I was very impressed by my colleagues and friends.

Tuesday 5.10. Highlight of the morning - I delivered my statement on development education. Et voila, it was not so bad. Here is the text, a short video is to come.

Highlight of the afternoon;
We, the youth delegates had the chance to meet the Secretary General, his excellency Mr. Ban Ki Moon. He spoke to us shortly and overwhelmed me with his incredible charisma. Photos are on the UN webiste, too. Ufff a day to remember.

I used a free moment in the afternoon to see a plenary on International terrorism. What happened afterwards? A break at Vienna café, having a huge chocolate muffin with Gitte, the Belgian (Flemish) youth delegate. Carlos, who sells so needed coffee and cookies remarked that it was the 3rd time we went there today. Yes and we deserved it each time.

Me and Gitte Briffa, the biggest fans of American cousine among the Youth delegates

Thursday 7.10. Workshop on Dialogue Initiatives for the International Year on Youth. We'll be brainstorming about possible joint actions for the rest of the IYY.

Divided in groups at the Saudi Arabian mission, an intense dialogue was held and some ideas of concrete actions on promotion of mutual understanding and tolerance among young people were born. Now it is time for follow up and make them happen..

Photo 1 on the right: Abdulaziz Tarazbouni, the YD Saudi Arabia. Photo 2: One group brainstorming

Friday 8.10. morning Meeting Alliance of Civilizations in Chrysler Building
lunch time side event on Youth unemployment at the German mission "Save the date"

Alliance of Civilizations. ______________________German side event

From the Big Apple

2010-10-03T03:16:00.000-07:00

Dear all, I arrived safely in NYC on Sat 2 Oct. Let's get started!

Rodaina El Batnigi, the Austrian YD and me at JFK The United Nations Headquarters

On Sunday 3.10., a coordination youth delegates meeting took place. New and familiar faces from Utrecht, expectations and enthusiasm... and a lot on our agenda!

2 weeks more clever, at SlovakAid

2010-09-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

Incredibly fast end of this summer I witnessed at the Development and Humanitarian Aid Department (ORPO) at the Slovak MFA. I was going there with some degree of curiousity: on one hand I had been to the Dpt. before and I am not exadurating by calling it a very positive first impression, on the other hand comments like "Internship at the Ministry? Oh I had like 5mins. work there per day" had reached me before starting.

I came to a great team of people and got to go through Czech Aid. You know I am half Czech and thus I was pleased to be going to find out how my second half is dealing with the issue. I was however not really able to do more than reading some of the Czech Ministry website, there was a department meeting as the time of evaluating development aid projects had come. Then there was something else, ...

Did I go there to write my speech for the UN GA? Forget it for a week, this is how the aid is happening in practical terms and I was not going to miss the opportunity to watch! I listened, read, paid attention to details and asked. 2 weeks passed very quickly. I have still got now to monitor the Czech Aid, development studies abroad and to write the speech.

It seems like my TO DO list is getting longer, but hah, tonight I can cross out updating the blog. I hope you enjoy reading it.

Meeting Habitat for Humanity

2010-07-28T07:30:00.000-07:00

A house in Yerevan, Armenia

I have met Lucija Popovska from Habitat for Humanity Regional office for the Europe and Central Asia in Bratislava today. Lucija understood immediately my concern about the connection between youth and development and humanitarian aid and raised some issues to think about.

Do you know, what impact do natural disasters and war have on youth? Young people participate in wars themselves many times; not only in Africa, but also in Kosovo the average age of soldiers was far under 30. One of many worrying examples showing that youth-specific policy is needed.

Humanitarian aid is generally aimed to 3 areas and thus places suffering from poverty, post-war and post-natural disasters. Development aid is in contrary mainly about building economic system and fighting corruption.

The objectives of Habitat for Humanity are mobilizing resources and enabling access to affordable housing, which is done in 3 ways:
1. Building/renovating houses and providing resources to do that
2. Mobilizing resources and people – volunteers, donations and loans (micro-loans, youth entrepreneurship)
3. Changing the housing policies on the national level, advocacy

Housing policies are rather poor in “new Europe” – let’s exclude Western Europe now - housing as such is normally cut between more authorities, as land, social affairs, Youth department and other. On the top of that, housing policies are rarely youth-friendly. In Hungary, a change of these policies has been proposed, hopefully it will move to a good direction in a short time. And Hungary is not so far from Slovakia.

If you want to know more about Habitat's activities, visit their website here. Big thanks to Lucija for her time!!

Introduction at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

2010-07-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

"Slovakia is a small country, but sometimes better perceived in Africa than the big ones."

Today has been a motivating day, with special thanks to Ms. Wursterova, the director of Development and Humanitarian Aid Department, who gave me a positive insight on the issue. It has become clear that what matters is the way how the aid is directed and not exclusively the financial aspect. Is the crucial to listen to what the developing countries exactly need - that's why so called "Country Strategy Paper" is produced.

Slovakia is directing its official aid to 3 program countries: Afghanistan, Kenya and Serbia.

How is the Slovak youth involved and informed? A nice example, which caught my attention, is one high school which played "an Afghan day": the pupils dressed in Afghan way, lived their tradition, as well as the Afghan school played Slovak day, staying connected through Skype.

Secondly, there was an essay competition on the topic, motivating students with 1. prize Internship at UN HQ in Geneva, 2. prize internship at UNDP Bratislava and 3. prize internship at Ministry of Foreign Affairs. See the winning essays here (in Slovak).

Thirdly, there are efforts to cooperate closely with the Ministry of Education and implement the development aid topic to the educational contents in Slovak schools.

I am curious to find out more during my internship in the department 23.8. - 3.9. 2010.

Meeting UNDP Regional Centre in Bratislava 1

2010-07-05T03:42:00.001-07:00

I used to go long 8 years to school on the same street - Grosslingova - and during so many hours looking out of the window, I never thought deeply about the blue flag waving on the next building. Some years later, I learned that

in Bratislava we have a Regional Bureau for Europe and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) which serves 28 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, including those in Central Asia.

If you click on the picture above, you can find a publication called "UNDP for beginners", I highly recommend to read it, it is very clear and informative.

UN Advocacy meeting in Utrecht, 25-27 June 2010

2010-07-04T11:45:00.000-07:00

Jens (DE), me (SK), Clara (DE), Jonas (CH), Rodaina (AT), Minke (NL-NGO)

The goal of the meeting organized by European Youth Forum was to get to know each other as Youth Delegates from different countries, share our concerns and objectives and agree on joint actions planned for UNGA. The schedule was much busier than it looks like on this ice-cream eating picture. The tasks were successfully divided - and a video is to come!

Development and humanitarian aid

2010-07-02T08:18:00.000-07:00

Atar, Mauritania, November 2008

will be my core topic. I am convinced me that this is the thing, which should move up in the list of popular topics. Just have a look at these numbers:
ODA/GNI i.e. Official Development Assistance/Gross National Income

Official Development Assistance 2007 2006
Czech Republic ......................... 0.11 0.12
Hungary ................................. 0.08 0.13
Poland ................................... 0.09 0.09
Slovak Republic ....................... 0.09 0.10

Source: MANAGING AID: PRACTICES OF DAC MEMBER COUNTRIES – ISBN 978-92-64-06021-0 – © OECD 2009
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/58/29/42903202.pdf page 183

But how much 0.09 really is? It is hard for a chemist to imagine what it exactly means in practical terms. In Slovakia, it is 12 euro/person/year. 2 drinks less on Friday night.
How much should it be? The members of the UN committed that a developed country would contribute with a minimum net amount of 0.70 percent of its GNI.

Numbers say a lot, but not everything. The real question is about how is this money used and whether it is good at all to influence development in every corner of the world? Let's think together...

Once the good days start...

2010-07-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

21 June 2010 - Visit to the UN in Vienna
12 June 2010 - The elections in Slovakia
9 June 2010 - I got a Bachelor degree in Biochemistry and therefore can start my Master Program in "Environmental Technology and International Affairs" at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna. The first year ever that I am looking forward to -after the summer-.

24 May 2010 - a good day!

2010-07-02T06:56:00.000-07:00

In the final round of the selection procedure, we were 4 and an academic debate was planned in order to decide upon the Youth Delegate to the UN for 2010.
We were 2 vs 2, discussing about non-formal education. I was supposed to arrive in the night from Yerevan, but on the place I decided to rebook my flight and prepare for the debate and the interview. It was worth it - I got the chance to be a Youth Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Not only that, but to meet many talented people, youth delegates from other countries, people working in different organizations, a former Slovak ambassador in the United States and not least, great people from the Slovak Youth Council. Thanks to them for this chance.

The next selection process will take place in March 2011. To read more about procedure, please visit the Youth Council's website (in Slovak), to read my Essay on Youth and Environment, click here.