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Stockholm-30
Outcome report from 24 march 2012
Lsu - The National council of swedish youth organizations
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Introduction
Saturday March 24 LSU hosted Stockholm-30: The role of youth in sustainable development at PwC’s facilities on Torsgatan 21 in the centre of Stockholm. 30 days before
Stockholm+40, youth organizations and other civil society organizations, politicians and
representatives from the business sector, gathered for one day to discuss issues regarding
sustainable development, social sustainability and the role of youth organizations in the
work for a more sustainable world. The aim of Stockholm-30 was to increase awareness
and interest of sustainable development, focusing on social sustainability, leading up to
Stockholm+40, Rio+20 and the continuing process. The conference was arranged with
support from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Environment.
Opening speech by Gunilla Carlsson, Minister for International Development
Cooperation
Felix König, President of LSU opened the conference and welcomed the minister for
International Development Cooperation, Gunilla Carlsson who delivered a speech about
the challenges we are facing today, and the need for a long term perspective when working
with these issues.
The minister also spoke about the preparation before Rio+20 and the work of the
UN High-level Panel on Global Sustainability in which she was a member. The panel was
given the task by the UN Secretary General to create a new vision, resulting in the report A
Future Worth Choosing. The report contains 56 concrete measures to achieve sustainable
development. The minister also underlined the importance of including young people when
working for change and that we need to improve the way we organize this work.
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Panel on Social Sustainability
In a panel discussion led by Gayathri Rathinavelu from The Good Tribe, Monica Lorensson
from UNDP Sweden, Karin Nilsson from RFSU and Johan Arenius from equmenia discussed social sustainability under the title “Is Rio+20 socially unsustainable?”. The discussion
centred on the critique against the Rio-process and overall work with sustainable development, stating that social sustainability is a perspective that often gets overlooked. The
panellists begun by commenting on the speech held by the minister earlier in the morning.
Johan described the speech as visionary and pragmatic but questioned how a government
representative could speak about sustainable development without commenting the fact
that Sweden exports most weapons in the world, per capita. Monica highlighted the need to
hold people accountable in order to reach a sustainable development. Karin brought up the
importance of enabling youth to take part of, and contribute to a sustainable development
by ensuring gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Monica said that we should not separate the social aspects from the others. Instead
we need to realize that they are all connected – especially since poverty is the main threat
against sustainable development. If you are poor you don’t have the same possibilities to
make sustainable choices, and create a healthy environment for yourself, limiting your
freedom to make choices additionally.
Karin pointed out that the generation of young people is lagrer than ever today.
Young people’s needs, health and rights have to be ensured around the world. How is gender
equality being achieved, when evidence shows that pregnancy-related complications are
the most common death causes for 15-19 year old girls? When 1000 women and girls die
every day due to discriminatin and lack of access to sexual and reproductive health services?
They die because their rights are violated. This is simply not acceptable, nor sustainable.
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PANEL on Green economy
Green economy is one of the main themes for Rio+20 and a great part of Stockholm+40
will focus on issues related to green economy, a concept that is quite new to many people
and difficult to define. A panel with Rebecka Carlsson from Green Youth, Fredrik Franke
from PwC and Hannah Ohm from Sektor3, led by Linus Källander from Dyrare mat nu!,
tried to explain and develop the concept and what practical consequences an adoption of
green economy would have on different sectors.
Rebecka started questioning GDP as a measure of progress since it only ac-
counts for economic progress and pointed out that there are at least 50 other measurements that can describe progress from different angles. The wellbeing of the population,
discrimination and division of resources are some of the many aspects that GDP does not
account for. Rebecka went on to propose that green economy should not be seen an alternative form of economic governance but the way to handle economic affairs and that we
need to adjust the economy to the number of people living on our planet in the future.
Fredrik defined green economy as an economy that takes more values than the
strictly financial into account. Hannah pointed out the importance of including the three
sectors of society; the state, the business sector and civil society in the equation. Today
the business sector and the financial considerations are dominating society as a whole.
The panel went on to discuss the need for rules and regulations to force companies to
take greater environmental and social concerns. Fredrik brought up different methods
such as labelling of products and sustainable reporting as ways to influence companies
in that direction. Hannah stressed that we are not just consumers, but also citizens and
should be able to influence these issues through democratic structures, and not just
through what we consume. The panel concluded by discussing the role of the three sectors and how they relate to one another by stating that the roles are changing and the
lines between the sectors are getting blurred.
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Debate of ideas
During the day the participants had a chance to discuss some issues in more detail; What
role does civil society have in sustainable development? What role do youth organizations
have in ecological sustainability? How can organizations work for social sustainability?
Here are some conclusions from the fruitful discussions.
Youth organizations are an important part of sustainability efforts by creating
space for engagement, involvement and inclusion for youth. However, youth organizations need to work more actively with their own sustainability efforts. It is important to
ensure social sustainability in areas such as recruitment of members and to give members
ownership of the organization. Organizations must work for democratic and equal values,
and that this permeates all activities.
There is a growing interest in ecological sustainability which should be encouraged
and connected to a broader context. Many youth organizations work for more ecologically
sustainable development through advocacy and lobbying, which should be recognized by
stakeholders and other actors.
When self-examining their organizations and the work done, the participants
concluded that youth organizations should raise the issue in the ordinary activities and
encourage their members to reflect on their responsibility and how they can contribute.
Youth organizations should take the lead and act as a people’s movement to advocate,
inspire and make a change in society. This should also be done by the civil society as a
whole and especially big organizations such as trade unions should take their responsibility
and lead the way. By making it interesting and providing tools, resources and accessible
knowledge for young people, their will to make a change can be strengthened. Accessibility
should also be done thorough communication, using storytelling rather than lining up facts.
Youth organizations create space for development, influence and democracy for young
people. Youth organizations can reach many young people at a local and regional level and
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give young people meaningful spare time and a chance to develop their own interests and
ideas.
Through youth organizations, young people can find likeminded people to share a
common interest and devotion and to create their own community where they can engage
without adult involvement. The purpose can be to engage in advocacy towards politicians
in issues of their own interest or come together to create a meaningful and rewarding spare
time activity.
Youth organizations create space to practice democracy and develop young
people’s understanding of democratic structures, while developing new methods and
structures of managing democratic processes as well as young leaders with power of their
situation.
Young people are often discriminated and marginalized because of their age.
Youth organizations provide the basis for combating these limiting power structures and
give young people real influence over their own lives.
For youth organizations to truly fulfil these tasks and reach their full potential,
they need to be really inclusive, non-discriminatory and open for all members. By excluding people from the organizational life and all the benefits that comes with engaging in
an organization, social sustainability is impaired.
Interviews with participants
Fanny Linnros, Swedish Guide and Scout Association
How does your organization work with sustainable development?
- That is hard to specify as our everyday works covers a lot of sustainable issues. For
example there is a Sailing Scout group, but I cannot imagine there would ever be a Car
Scout group! However, some issues such as vegetarianism and social aspects of sustainable development like gender issues are harder to implement from a national level to the
local groups. We also have projects in Burundi and Rwanda dealing with social sustainability through Scout groups.
Albin Arleskär from Green Youth
What was the highlight of the day?
- Gunilla’s talk was my highlight; I hadn’t heard her talk before and thought she summarized many issues very well. It has also been great to meet people from other organizations, however there are obviously still some sectors of society who are not represented
here.
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Panel debate with party political youth associations
With little time left to Rio+20 and the preparations for the high level UN meeting are
at the final stage, issues of sustainable development, poverty eradication and economic
growth are at the top of the global agenda. The views of five Swedish party political youth
organizations were made clear during a panel debate held as a part of Stockholm-30. The
debate focused on green economy and the question of the relation between economic
growth and sustainability, and whether they are possible to combine. The panellists also
spoke about how they work to increase the influence of young people in the work for a
more sustainable world, both in relation to their parties and in their external work. Rio+20
was the focus for the debate and the panellist started by describing their expectations and
fears for the conference.
Alfred Askeljung, Center Party Youth: - I hope we will achieve a climate
agenda and more international agreements for plant breeding, more sustainable farming
and genetically modified organisms. My fear is that nothing will be done and no agreements
will be reached. In the end I think we will get a non-binding protocol from the meeting and
some form of weak agreement.
Hanna Cederin, Young Left: - I hope the negotiations will be open and include
all countries, and not just be “pretend negotiations” by the west. To reach that point we
need to acknowledge the power structures in the international arena that create different
possibilities for different countries and concretely address the real issues and problems at
hand. I think we will see negotiations leading to a non-binding agreement. It is important
to bear in mind that it is the third world that is most severely affected by the by the problems caused by the west. The worst case scenario would be that the justice and equality
perspectives are lost in the negotiations.
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Rebecka Carlsson, Green Youth: - My Rio+20 dream is that Rio+20 will be
what is was intended from the beginning. My dream consists of three parts: The first is that
the Rio-meeting will be about green economy, an economy that also takes social aspects
and justice into account. The second one is that we will create a fruitful process for taking
the work with sustainable development forward. The third is that they stand up for the
commitments made 20 years ago. I also hope the meeting will be followed by a progressive
process. However I’m rather pessimistic and I don’t think it will be a progressive meeting
about green economy.
Ludvig Berke, Liberal Youth of Sweden: - I hope for a new spark in the debate
about the environment and sustainable development so that it is not reduced to a climate
issue. I hope the meeting leads to a strong believe in the future and that we will get some
form of binding agreement. I think that we will get a framework to continue working from,
but I fear that nothing will come out from the meeting.
Erik Unogård, Young Christian Democrats: - I hope the meeting will lead to
an extension and broadening of the political engagement in order to meet new challenges.
My fear is that heads of states and government will spend too much time assessing what
has been done so far, which should be done between these types of meetings. I think that
Sweden and the EU will be represented by delegates with a clear mandate to discuss and
make decisions. Unfortunately I fear that other countries will send representatives that
only have a mandate to discuss, making it impossible to reach a binding agreement.
The debate that followed: While Rebecka and Hanna had a more critical
view of the current focus on economic growth, Erik, Ludwig and Alfred did not see a
conflict between the two values. Hanna said that a critique of economical growth should
be the point of departure for the debate about sustainable development. Rebecka requested a new way of thinking through focusing on other measurements of progress than
GDP. Erik said he was positive to economical progress but that there are consequences of
growth that we have to take into account. Ludvig stated that economical growth creates
space for other forms of development and positive change.
The panellists ended by describing how the work to increase the influence of
young people in the work for sustainable development. The youth associations have different relations to their parties that influence their work a lot. The Green Youth is very
closely associated to their party, while the Liberal Youth of Sweden is less connected the
their party and the Young Left i completely autonomous. The panel agrees that their are
different ways to increase influence ad power of young people, and they can have different benefits.
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an open panel summarized the day
An open panel put together by participant from the conference summarized the day by
stating that it begun at a visionary level and became more concrete during the day. They
also noted that there was a lot of common ground among the participants. Another reflection was that it was great to meet so many people engaged in sustainable development and that there had been many interesting discussions during the day. At the same
time, there was a tendency to get stuck in the debate about economic growth related to
sustainability and to use an unnecessarily difficult language. The conference ended with
an encouragement to all participants to go back to their own organizations and tell the
story about a future green society that is sustainable, so that we together can work to
change society.
Conclusions from Stockholm-30
Sustainable development is a broad subject with many themes and issues to discuss.
We have many challenges ahead and there seemed to be an agreement that they would
not be met properly if we continue in the way we are going today. The need of a shift,
to a focus on other values than what are promoted today, was discussed throughout the
day. The role of youth organizations in such a shift and a new strategy to meet these
challenges were highlighted during the day and there was a clear agreement that youth
organizations play an important role in this work.
Stockholm-30 focused on the social sustainability and the role of youth, and
youth organizations in the work for a more sustainable world. The need to focus on the
social dimension of sustainable development was made clear during the conference and
something all the participants seemed to agree on. However, the need to integrate all
three dimensions of sustainable development and not treat them separately was also
clearly expressed. In the work for a more socially sustainable world, youth organizations were pointed out as important actors since young people, by coming together in
an organization are empowered and increase their influence over their own lives. Youth
organizations give young people social capital and a context in which they can develop
themselves and realize their own ambitions, through many different forms and activities.
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Recommendations from LSU
Based on the conclusions from the day and the many discussions and panels held
throughout the day, LSU would like to conclude this report by providing some recommendations for different stakeholders in the work for sustainable development.
Support social sustainability by supporting youth organizations
Social sustainability is an important aspect of sustainable development that is often neglected. Youth organizations create and strengthen the social sustainability by bringing young people together around a common interest or hobby. At the same time they
develop and improve the democratic structures in society. Supporting youth organizations is thus a way to support social sustainability and develop democracy. We therefore
recommend:
Politicians:
•
to provide good conditions for young people to organize - locally , nationally and
globally - both through financial support and conditions as well as legal frameworks;
•
to include youth organizations in political decision-making in order to strengthen
and develop democracy;
•
to ensure the needs and rights of youth and adolescents, such as the right to health
and education, in order to enable young people to contribute as agents of change for
a sustainable development.
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The business sector:
•
to realize the benefits of the creativity and engagement in youth organizations and
how youth organizations can be innovators and entrepreneurs;
•
to acknowledge the many innovations that stems from youth organizations, primarily within the social field related to methods for democratic processes among other
things;
•
to respect the human rights of all people, including young employees, according to
the UN Global Compact principles for businesses;
•
to support youth organizations in their creative and innovative ambitions through
more extensive collaborations.
The academia:
•
to further analyze the impact and consequences of unsustainable development in
terms of health, rights and political participation for youths.
Involve young people by involving youth organizations
Many actors are trying to find ways to involve young people in their work, especially in
the field of sustainable development. There is a will to involve young people but there
seems to be a lack of ideas about how to do it. Involving youth organizations is a constructive and effective way to involve young people, since they have a representative base
and are experts within the field they are organized. We therefore recommend:
Politicians:
•
to involve youth organizations in political decisions, at all levels, instead of creating
parallel structures for young people;
•
to send youth delegates to international meetings, like the Rio+20-meeting.
The business sector:
•
to strengthen the cooperation with youth organizations and involve them in your
work to include a youth perspective in it.
The academia:
•
to involve youth organizations in your research to include a youth perspective in it.
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LSU - the national council of swedish youth organizations
Youth organizations change and improve the everyday life of young people.
By coming together in a youth organization, young people are provided the
power and resources needed to influence their surroundings. They are meeting places for over half a million young people in Sweden that through their
engagement develops unique competences and platform to develop their
ideas. LSU gathers Swedish youth organizations to commonly improve the
conditions for organizing young people in Sweden and internationally.
LSU is the coordinating body of 73 independent, democratically structured
national organizations. We are a non-profit organization without political or
religious bias, governed by and in the interest of, youth organizations. Our
member organizations have different objectives based on interests, politics,
religion, ethnicity, sexuality or functionality. We are all young people who
have come together in different organizations to achieve change, socialize and
develop.
We are a meeting place for young people and youth organizations, a place
to obtain knowledge, contacts and experience. Through capacity building for
young leaders, knowledge dissemination and lobbying our aim is to strengthen the young civil society, in Sweden and internationally.
FOTO: SIMON MOGREN