Listening to the voice of the young generation

This early summer evening in June, the Weltsaal at the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin is the setting for a discussion of major future issues such as climate change and artificial intelligence, though some very handy tips are also provided. “It’s relatively unspectacular: I simply write a mail or call the MP on the phone,” says Manuel Frank when asked how he gets in touch with politicians or their offices. Frank is a youth ambassador of the ONE development organisation that campaigns worldwide to end extreme poverty and preventable disease. This evening he is on stage at a UN youth conference in Berlin to discuss what the young generation in Germany and worldwide is demanding from international policymakers and how it can make its voice heard.

Under the banner “The UN and us”, the two-day conference will see around 250 young people aged between 15 and 25 discussing global future issues such as climate change, digitisation, upholding of human rights, gender equality or refugees and migration, as well as Germany’s role in the UN. The conference is being hosted by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and the United Nations Association of Germany. Following the launch event in the Weltsaal, a nearly 900 square metre conference hall at the Foreign Office, numerous workshops on subjects such as “Climate and Biodiversity” and “Peace and Security” are on the programme, as is a media workshop.

Germany’s two UN Youth Delegates Ilka Essig and Lew Töpfer are also in Berlin; this year they will be representing the interests of young Germans at the UN General Assembly in New York and in the Commission for Social Development. Since 2005, two young people from Germany have been picked each year for this volunteer role.

As Töpfer explained when the conference opened in Berlin, the two young delegates plan to tour Germany this summer with a view to asking for example school students what messages they should be taking with them to the UN General Assembly in New York in September. “See us as your mouthpiece, we want to represent as diverse a range of your interests as possible,” says the youth delegate. Lew is studying space law and sustainability at Leuphana University Lüneburg and works as a project assistant for UN affairs at the German Space Agency.

The UN Youth Conference in Berlin is being held to markGermany’s joining of the United Nations (UN) 50 years ago. The Federal Republic of Germany officially applied to join the UN on 15 June 1973. Following the horrors of the Second World War, it was initially unthinkable for Germany to join. The Federal Republic of Germany and the then German Democratic Republic finally joined the UN on 18 September 1973. Since reunification in 1990, Germany has been assuming ever more responsibility and today is one of the world’s largest supporters of the United Nations.

“The global challenges that the international community faces today are more diverse and serious than ever,” states the Federal Foreign Office on its website about the UN youth conference in Berlin. “Many are generational issues about which young people are particularly passionate.” Günter Sautter, who is director general for International Order, the United Nations and Arms Control at the Foreign Office, appeals at the UN youth conference in Berlin to the young people in the audience, saying that he believes the most important job is “for young people like you to make somewhat older people like me get moving”.