ICMYO
News
12 Aug 2005 - Youth of the World Acting for a Better Life
ICMYO, the International Coordination Meeting of Youth Organisations, gathering twenty six international youth organisations and regional youth platforms on behalf of millions of children and young people met in Mollina, Spain on the 10th of July to reaffirm their commitment to the United Nations World Programme of Action for Youth and the Millennium Development Goals. ICMYO contributes to building up a global partnership for development as stated in MDG8.
ICMYO believes in the potential of youth to solve global problems such as high poverty rates, AIDS, active involvement in armed conflicts and high unemployment, which affect young people to a large extent1. In particular youth organisations believe:
- These problems can be solved through sustainable development and active youth participation,
- Youth NGOs strongly contribute to the promotion of active citizenship through non formal education,
- Non formal education helps young people develop personal positive qualities such as engagement, a sense of democracy, participation, motivation, tolerance, responsibility, and solidarity; and competences such as communication, inter-personal relations, conflict resolution and leadership, vocational and management skills.
ICMYO calls on the governments of the world gathering on the 6th of October to debate youth issues in New York, to fulfil their commitment towards youth. Governments should fully engage youth organisations with grassroots expertise and mobilise our strength to work in partnership for a better life.
ICMYO calls on the UN General Assembly to promote an integrated youth policy across the UN system, based on the World Programme Action for Youth, in which process all the actors, member states, the UN Agency and Youth Organisations fully participate in the development, implementation and evaluation processes.
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1Note to the editors
In 2004 the European Youth Forum (YFJ), the International Movement of Catholic Students (Pax Romana) and the World Organisation of the Scout Movement (WOSM) created an ad-hoc Taskforce to organise an International Co-ordination Meeting of Youth Organisations (ICYMO) with the intention of providing a common space with two main objectives:
a) The co-ordination of political inputs to the ongoing political processes (e.g. YEN, World Bank Children & Youth Strategy, evaluation of the WPAY).
b) The strengthening of the co-operation of youth organisations at the global and regional level.
The first meeting of the ICYMO (Geneva, 11-13 July 2004) brought together more than 20 Regional Youth Platforms and International Non Governmental Youth Organisations with a Global outreach.
Since then ICYMO organisations have met regularly and they have been exchanging information on a daily basis.
According to the World Youth Report 2005, over half a billion young people live with less than 2 dollars a day, 10 million young people are living with AIDS and millions of others are at risk of contracting the disease, 300,000 children and youth combatants are actively involved in armed conflicts.
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Agenda
12 Aug 2005International Youth Day
25-26 Aug 2005Meeting of Youth Representatives - Stockholm
29-31 Aug 2005CONGO Board Meeting - Geneva
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