Active Citizens Youth Leader Sohanur Rahman have actively joined the Commonwealth Youth Forum during CHOGM 2018 to build cross-cultural connections, debate the challenges faced by young people & agree youth-led initiatives to influence decision-makers and ensure a youth voice in future. In CYF, he urged to developed countries must take responsibility for their historic emissions and contribute the funds and transfer of technologies to developing countries needed to help avoid dangerous climate change.
The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018, also known as CHOGM 2018, was the 25th meeting of the heads of government of the Commonwealth of Nations. It was held at London city in the United Kingdom. Overall, 47 out of 53 Commonwealth states were represented at the summit by their heads of government, with foreign ministers being the most senior attendees of the remaining countries.
Out of 4 themes, climate change and sustainability were one of the key points of the whole discussion in the Youth Forum, especially in regard to small state members, Climate vulnerable country like Bangladesh of the Commonwealth.
The theme of the summit was “Towards a Common Future”. The British hosts set out four main goals for the summit was 1. Prosperity: boosting intra-Commonwealth trade and investment; 2. security: increasing cooperation across security challenges including global terrorism, organized crime and cyber attacks; 3. fairness: promoting democracy, fundamental freedoms and good governance across the Commonwealth and 4. Sustainability: building the resilience of small and vulnerable states to deal with the effects of climate change and other global crises.
The Commonwealth Youth Forum started 16 April morning with a keynote speech from HRH Prince Harry, Youth Ambassador for the Commonwealth, at the QEII Centre, Westminster-London and there are positive echoes from inspiring people about how the youth are working together. He mentioned, “60% of the Commonwealth is under the age of 30 and at 1.4 billion strong, it is you who are going to change the world.”
Patricia Scotland, Commonwealth Secretary-General, Danny Faure, President of Seychelles, Rt Hon Damian Hinds, UK Secretary of State for Education, Anna Barker, Chair of British Youth Council, Jayathma Wickramanayake, United Nations Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth and Kishva Ambigapathy, Chair, Commonwealth Youth Council also addressed there.
United Nations Secretary General’s Envoy on Youth mentioned, ` We (Young people) are the first generation to ending poverty and last generation to tackling Climate Change.’’
Other agendas were plenary discussions, Commonwealth Youth Council Election Hustings, action-planning sessions and A Welcome to UK Reception with the keynote speech from HRH the Duke of Cambridge and a performance from popular singer Ellie Goulding.
Prince William made a short speech at the beginning of the evening, sharing that: “The Commonwealth has rightly been described as “the mother of all networks” . There is no other organisation on earth that marries politics with the civil society and the networks that the Forums represent. You represent millions of diverse voices, so use your combined intellect and creativity to challenge the status quo and to push the boundaries of what Commonwealth is capable of.”
“My purpose here on stage tonight is to welcome you to the United Kingdom, and I am delighted to do so,” he said. “If I may, though my duty is to formally welcome you on behalf of the whole country, I wanted to extend a personal note of welcome too.”
On the second day, morning stated with high-level Joint Forums plenary while UK Prime Minister Theresa May talked about the Blue-charter agreement, a landmark to guide nations in sustainable ocean development. She mentioned ‘ The Commonwealth’s Blue Charter will set in train ambitious and coordinated worldwide action to will help make our oceans cleaner now and in the future. Our Cyber Declaration will make a real difference to our safety and security. Our investments in education will allow young people the world over to fulfil their potential. Our work to boost resilience will protect our smaller members from the ravages of natural disasters. And our commitment to fight malaria will blaze a trail for the world to follow, and in doing so save countless lives for generations to come.’
Bill Gates discussed his amazing health accomplishments within the Commonwealth. He said, “As a Commonwealth, you are young. Young people are critical — they are innovators & innovation changes what’s possible. As long as we invest in young people they will innovate in ways we never thought possible”.
Patricia Scotland QC, Commonwealth Secretary-General underlined the need to transform creativity in inclusiveness into actions that can clearly help the Commonwealth build a more prosperous shared future.
As a panellist, Andrew Holness, Prime Minister of Jamaica motioned that, Overnight GDP may wipeout due to climate-induced disasters and climate change is not the only environmental issue, it’s also economical issue’’. The discussion largely addressed the need for active participation of all stakeholders including young people in sustaining a green planet.
After that, Karuna Rana, Commonwealth Youth Climate Change Network facilitated a session while Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zeeland delivered a keynote speech highlighting youth roles on Paris agreement implementation. Panellists also discussed the importance of sustainability in making our planet carbon-free and improving on the health of our oceans.
In this session, I have urged to “developed” countries to reducing emissions with capacity support, technology transfer and climate finance for “developing’’ vulnerable countries who are the innocent victim of climate change. He also highlighted that, International community should ensure guarantee at least US$100 billion per year of predictable, measurable and transparent public funding for climate change adaptation and mitigation in developing countries by 2020. Financing on adaptation needs to focus on the most vulnerable groups and communities including children, women and people with disabilities when determining funding allocations, and ensure these groups are meaningfully engaged in adaptation programme development. This means meaningful and equal engagement of young people and adolescents in adaptation decision-making, implementation and monitoring at local and national levels.
In this day Bangladeshi young delegates have talked with Prime minister Sheikh Hasina after Women Forum where she emphasized on promoting girls education to pathway preventing child marriage. Having an exciting courtesy meeting with Bangladesh Prime minister young delegates joined the Commonwealth Big lunch event with a wonderful opportunity to discover and celebrate their connections, experiences and stories.
On the final day (18 April) of the 11th Commonwealth Youth Forum, the young people of the Commonwealth finalized their declaration, follow-up actions, expressing their policy recommendations to Heads of Government and action plan for the Commonwealth Youth Council.
Protecting the environment and Climate Change issue have dominated the agenda at the youth forum. This outlines the practical recommendations made by the young people of the Commonwealth, which have been adopted by the Commonwealth Youth Council’s General Assembly in support of promoting a more prosperous, secure, sustainable and fair future, including integration of UNSCR 2250 national levels, the use of sport for development and peace and calls for cybersecurity legislation.
Overall, 3 days long Commonwealth Youth Forum was exciting, inspiring and energetic at the end. Various action planning and capacity building Sessions, activities, discussions will help the young people to make our world more sustainable, tackling youth unemployment, countering extremism, creating an equal and inclusive society and ensuring a more secure future for all. We will make a positive use of technology to build relationships with our communities, nations and across the globe. After all, we all united in one desire to make our world a better, safer, justice and green place for all.
Before joining this forum, I was quite clueless what the role of youth in the Commonwealth. So, this has been amazing and meeting a majority of the inspiring young people, the next leaders and hearing from them, putting forward Bangladesh Youth views and receiving an incredible opportunity to be in the presence of Members of the Royal family and Heads of Government including our honorable Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina whilst discussing themes of Prosperity, Sustainability, Fairness and Security in our communities. In the discussion of the forum, we have spoken very clearly on what we want by participating in discussions and action planning sessions.
At the Commonwealth Youth Forum, We have explored the mechanism to strength youth-led action on climate initiatives and the enhancement of youth participation and leadership in climate policy implementation framework at all levels, including the implementation of the Paris Agreement and Commonwealth Blue Charter. Queen’s ambassador to commonwealth HRH Prince Harry also emphasized the importance of youth leadership platforms at the Commonwealth Youth Forum.
By joining this CYF, I have gain vast knowledge and skills. This forum enabled me more politically active at global diplomacy and has our Active Citizen’s work recognized outside our country. For shaping a common future, this forum has really opened my eyes to see what the Commonwealth offers to the young people and what changes need to be made. It also allowed me to build new networks across the globe to serve young people in my motherland Bangladesh & beyond. Geographical boundaries and Time zones are now meaningless as young people are increasingly connected through the internet and social media. So we can now work towards a fairer, more secure and more prosperous future.
