Making rural youth's voice heard

13/12/2017

"We want to farm and benefit our communities. We want to be more involved with FAO" said Attila, one of the 18 young farmers trained on global governance mechanisms by FAO and IPC in December 2017.

Rome, 12 December - FAO and the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty (IPC) joined forces to guarantee that future farmers, pastoralists and fishers can meaningfully contribute to decision making processes about food and agriculture.

IPC is the world's largest association of small-scale food producers, rural workers organizations and community-based social movements, bringing together more than 6,000 grassroots organizations. From 9 to 12 December, 18 IPC youth representatives from all over the world gathered in Rome to meet FAO staff and learn about viable tools and governance mechanisms that can help them better understand the ongoing global discussions on food and agriculture and have their voice heard on international fora.

The 4-day training also opened up a space for the young IPC members to exchange experiences and engage in dialogue with FAO representatives, sharing ideas, concerns and proposals.

As a result of the training, while recognizing the heterogeneous needs among rural youth, young participants and FAO staff agreed to continue dialogue on key global issues such as agroecology and sustainable agricultural practices, migration and decent youth employment, and youth participation in policy dialogue.

Partnering with youth for rural development

As part of the training, FAO representatives provided the young participants with insights into the different modalities FAO is partnering with civil society organizations and possible solutions that can be tailored to their own context. IPC young members also learned about existing FAO's initiatives and tools targeting rural youth.

By recognizing the key role played by civil society, and rural youth in particular, in the fight against hunger and food insecurity, FAO has developed a dedicated Strategy which provides a framework and a set of complementary tools for the collaboration between FAO and civil society organizations. Youth are one of the twelve constituencies identified in the Strategy as main groups of FAO beneficiaries.

With the aim to empower rural youth and help them access decent employment in rural areas, FAO offers field-tested and tailor-made educational methodologies designed to provide youth with job-relevant skills for agriculture and off-farm activities. Furthermore, FAO facilitates youth participation in producer organizations to involve them in policy dialogue, and promotes start-up funding opportunities for rural youth to engage in agriculture.

FAO also advocates rural youth needs at global level as an active member of the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development (IANYD), giving youth the opportunity to voice their opinions and think together about what they can do to achieve sustainable development.

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