UNODC Youth Civil Society: Acting with Youth CSOs to Combat Drugs and Crime

“Now is the time to think for the long term, to deliver more for young people and succeeding generations and to be better prepared for the challenges ahead.”

UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres in Our Common Agenda Report.

Objectives

Implemented by the UNODC Civil Society Unit (CSU) and in close collaboration with the Strategic Partnership and Inter-Agency Affairs Unit (SPIA), the main objective of this initiative is to facilitate broad, inclusive, and meaningful engagement of Youth Civil Society Organizations (Youth CSOs) to contribute to the implementation of joint international instruments under UNODC mandates. This will be achieved through targeted initiatives, including “Listening Dialogues” to inform UNODC programming and implementation, capacity building, participation in intergovernmental meetings and regionalization of youth initiatives, while promoting North-South youth cooperation on UNODC mandates, promoting intergenerational and cross-thematic learning and exchange. Synergies will be ensured with all relevant UNODC offices in Vienna, Liaison Offices and Field Offices.

Background

Youth-led and youth-focused organizations are essential partners to implement UNODC’s mandates on drugs and crime, including crime prevention, transnational organized crime, drug policy issues, corruption, terrorism, and other emerging crimes and improving human security.

SG’s Common Agenda report and the Youth 2030 Strategy

The UN Secretary-General’s “Youth 2030: The UN Youth Strategy” helps to address the trends of a rising youth population, and the unique ways that youths are impacted by a changing world. The Secretary-General’s Report, “Our Common Agenda” further emphasizes the need to work with future generations and young people to ensure a peaceful future. Additionally, the UN General Assembly, in its Resolution A/76/L85 established a new UN Youth Office.

UNODC 2021-2025 Strategy

The UNODC 2021-2025 Strategy highlights the empowerment of youth and young people as a cross-cutting commitment. SPIA is the focal point for youth mainstreaming and launched the Youth Empowerment Accelerator Framework (YEA!) in late 2022, which serves as an umbrella for youth mainstreaming at UNODC.

The UNODC Civil Society Unit (CSU) coordinates the engagement of non-governmental stakeholders, including Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), academia and the private sector, in UNODC mandate areas. Since 2008, the CSU has engaged over 4,000 non-governmental stakeholders, including youth- led and youth-focused organizations that counter corruption, drugs and organized crime through trainings, online courses, webinars and intergovernmental meetings.

To better understand the needs of youth, a Youth Consultation was hosted by CSU and SPIA on 13 October 2022, prior to the 11th Session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (COP11). 60 participants of the Youth Consultation from 32 countries emphasized the need to take further steps in the engagement of youth to achieve the aims of Youth2030 and the UNODC 2021-2025 Strategy, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals. The outcomes of this Youth Consultation indicate a need to increase meaningful engagement with youth-led and youth-focused civil society organizations (Youth CSOs).

The following were the challenges identified during the Consultation:

The mindset towards youth is such that they are not seen as experts on their own issues by the UN and Member States.
There is limited accessibility to the UN and its opportunities due to complex, difficult-to- understand language, lack of interpretation and meetings favouring Western time zones.
Youth-led and youth-focused CSOs engaging with UNODC often come from the same regions and/or organizations.
There is a lack of funding for travel to meetings, implementing projects and engaging with UNODC overall.
The space for collaboration is limited as events are often “youth only” and fail to bring together intergenerational policymakers.
Young people feel tokenized as used to legitimize processes without being meaningfully involved.

Participants of the Consultation proposed recommendations to address these challenges, including:

Provide capacity-building workshops that allow youth to engage with UNODC, UN Entities and Member States.
Organize more events that bring together youth and policymakers (e.g., panel discussions, networking events, informal dialogues, etc.).
Set up youth networks in different regions and countries and integrate a Youth Advisory Council into the Civil Society Unit’s regional networks.
Strengthen the presence of UNODC in far-to-reach areas and promote local leadership.
Continue to create youth-focused responses through Youth Consultations and similar initiatives.

Pillars of Action

Responding to the challenges identified during the UNODC Youth Consultation and building on the existing work of the CSU and guided by the YEA! Framework, as well as aligned with and to advance the implementation of the UNODC Strategy 2021-2025 and the UN Secretary-General’s “Our Common Agenda” report, this initiative is built on four pillars of action:

Listen

Conduct Regional Expert Group Meetings and “Listening Dialogues” on youth engagement and develop a compendium of promising practices.
Facilitate consultations/dialogues prior to intergovernmental meetings, such as the Constructive Dialogues on Review Mechanism of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (CCPCJ), the Crime Congress, the Conference of the Parties to UNTOC, and the Conference of States Parties to UNCAC. The outcomes of the consultations will be presented in the respective intergovernmental sessions in the form of side events and/or statements as relevant.

Strengthen

Identify Youth CSOs with whom to work across UNODC mandates.
Develop a training toolkit for Youth CSOs to engage with UNODC.
Provide targeted capacity building workshops to allow youth CSOs to more effectively implement projects related to UNODC’s mandate areas and increase their knowledge about international instruments and how to effectively engage with them.
Create a repository of resources relevant to youth and make them accessible.

Participate

Organize “Round table discussions” in the margins of intergovernmental meetings to bring together Member State representatives and Youth CSOs.
Organize Regional Forums to bring together diplomats, particularly young diplomats with youth and Youth CSOs to exchange on and share about youth related issues relevant to UNODC with the view to inform regional and national policymaking.

Act

Strengthen existing CSU networks and establish new ones in all thematic areas, by including “Youth-focused networks” in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas to facilitate and foster regional youth actions.
Establish a dedicated global online platform for “Youth CSOs” to facilitate virtual exchange and sharing.
Create a “Youth Advisory Council” to inform the programming and implementation of UNODC projects.
Provide “Youth Grants for Action” to support Youth CSO initiatives on UNODC-related issues.

United Nations

Office on Drugs and Crime