By Dimithri Wijesinghe
The Global Youth Forum on Climate Change (GYFCC) was first organised in 2016 by the SLYCAN Trust – a not-for-profit think tank – in partnership with the Climate Change Secretariat of the Ministry of Environment of Sri Lanka under the Sri Lanka Next programme as well as other national and international partners.
This year, the forum will be held virtually, from 16 to 18 December, with a Sri Lankan local language pre-event taking place from 14 to 15 December.
The forum is set to include partners and collaborators from national ministries, international and local think tanks, civil society organisations (CSOs), non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and research institutions.
The primary thematic areas to be discussed are climate change and disaster risk, biodiversity, oceans and coastal ecosystems, and sustainable food systems, and in addition to these main areas, the forum has five cross-cutting issues that will receive special attention across all areas, including just transition, participation and inclusion, education and capacity-building, means of implementation, and just recovery.
We reached out to SLYCAN Trust Executive Director Vositha Wijenayake, who shed further light on the forum and what audiences can expect when they tune in next week.
She shared with us the purpose of the forum, sharing that it is in order to continue the work of the SLYCAN Trust related to youth engagement, to build awareness and capacity for youth, to create change, and to contribute to climate action.
It was also organised with the objective of ensuring that there would be more youth in Sri Lanka who could contribute to decision-making processes at national, regional, and international levels and identify the importance of engaging in climate action and implementing actions, individually and collectively. Another key element they wanted to focus on was to bring youth from out of Colombo to the discourse on climate change, engage in climate change-related actions, and ensure that there are opportunities to be involved through different means – awareness, capacity building, technical support, financial support where possible, and mentoring, etc.
Wijenayake added that the first forum was organised in 2016, and it has continued with the Climate Change Secretariat of Sri Lanka playing a key role as a lead since its inception. The previous events were held as part of the Sri Lanka Next Conference, which was organised by the Government of Sri Lanka, and with the collaboration of other entities that the SLYCAN Trust partners with in climate change, sustainable development, and biodiversity and ecosystem conservation.
She also shared the benefits reaped via the forum and the nature of the outcomes they have experienced in its continuous runtime.
She said that at the initial event, they were looking at building awareness, and they targeted a larger number of participants. However, from the second one, they’ve tried to make the event more focused. While there is a component of general awareness creation and engagement, they have focused on youth submitting a proposal and wanting to implement it in a collective sense. There has been continued capacity building where youth are provided the opportunity to engage in future events and provide their insights through online events as well as in-person events and training.
She shared that this year, they are expanding the component of global engagement, as the overall event will be online. While Covid-19 has restricted the event from being one that would be in person, it has also provided them the mindset to organise the event in a different and scaled up way.
As for what the participants can expect, Wijenayake said that they have retained some of the elements as the previous events – where they request for submission of projects and they showcase them and provide inputs and support, as well as a development of a project based on the thematic focus during the period of the forum.
At the end of the three days, the participants will be requested to pitch their project which they developed with other participants, and to present how it would be a collectively implemented project across different regions and countries. She said that they look forward to engaging mentors, who would guide the participants in implementing the project, and also envisage providing technical support and other forms of support where available for the implementation of the projects designed during the event.
Wijenayake said that their target audience is national and international youth, aged 18-30. The key takeaways from the forum are enhanced capacity to take climate action, increased technical expertise on climate change, and other relevant thematic focuses of the forum, and then develop a group project which would be implemented post forum with the guidance and support of the SLYCAN Trust and other partners.
The Trust aims to motivate, encourage, and support youth to be part of climate action and decision-making processes related to climate change, to build their network to scale up their activities, and to provide support to facilitate effective and sustained engagement and contribution of youth to the national and international climate change processes and climate action.
Finally, Wijenayake further shared that the SLYCAN Trust will be engaging different thematic leads for the sessions, and will be working closely with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in the activities of the forum. Some of the links to the programme include the contribution of the unit related to Action for Climate Empowerment, Gender, and Youth of the UNFCCC as well as the Resilience Frontiers Initiative of the UNFCCC. Additionally, there will be more partners in the programme, at national and international level, including policy makers, civil societies, networks, youth groups, the private sector, academic institutions and think tanks, and media.
