WYF’s relevance to shared global concerns, hopes

WITH the building and promotion  of “peace, security and stability’ as its main guidelines and with the participation of thousands of young people from various countries, the World Youth Forum (WYF) convenes under the auspices of President Abdel Fattah El Sisi in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt’s world famous City of Peace. Today’s event is the Forum’s fourth edition since its initial launch in 2019 as a platform for representatives of young people who come from various regions of the world to engage in dialogue between themselves as well as with statesmen and policy-makers on issues of current and common concern. A reading of this year’s agenda asserts this distinguishing characteristic of WYF. Coming as it does just a couple of months after the Glasgow world summit on climate change and as preparations are already under way to convene the next summit, COP27, in Egypt later this year, the forum organisers have commendably placed combating climate change atop the agenda, dedicating to it the conference’s first panel discussion to follow the inaugural ceremony. The choice reflects growing global concern over climate change which affects almost all regions of the world and implies serious hazards to human and animal life on the Earth as well as on the planet’s atmosphere. Youth’s interest in debating this matter is understandable, given that the phenomenon may for decades to come continue and even aggravate. A consideration of a commonly agreed vision on the shape and content of life in the foreseeable future and even beyond may be incomplete with taking this phenomenon into account. Egypt has for its part promised to contribute most effectively to the success of COP27.

Bringing the multiple consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic to the fore of WYF’s discussions also fits right in the context of the world’s ongoing fight against the virus which has been reproducing itself in variants that demand increasing alerts, close monitoring and continuous medical and health care adaptations. This particular development is placing considerable financial and administrative burdens on governments and health services worldwide at a time when national economies, especially in developing countries, are already burdened with numerous, ensuing responsibilities. Detecting infection cases, providing medical treatment to those infected and launching large-scale vaccination campaigns in addition to the need for redressing the economic repercussions of lockdowns, closures and workforce thinning outcome in the foremost of such responsibilities; hence the worthiness of the choice of “Global Peace and Security in a post-Pandemic World” as a topic for one of the forum’s discussion panels. In a socio-economic perspective, all such responsibilities and new tasks certainly affect the potential of developing and less-developed countries to pursue developmental processes especially insofar as narrowing the gap between resources and population growth is concerned.

For all these considerations, climate change and the scene of the post-pandemic world constitute two issues of common concern for youth since it is this very segment of the world’s population that will carry the responsibility, in their respective societies, of steering action to build on what today’s international community is struggling to achieve; hence the value of the WYF and likewise international events as platforms to introduce to youth the vision of the world they will live in.