Asia and the Pacific - 2022 ECOSOC Youth Forum…

The ECOSOC Youth Forum will also be a platform for discussions on the situation regarding COVID-19 and its impacts in the various regions. Regional breakout sessions of the Youth Forum will be prepared by events and consultations organized by the regional commissions, together with regional youth entities and platforms. This will help to gather as wide a participation of youth-led and youth-focused organizations and government representatives as possible. 

The Asia-Pacific Regional Session will explore the significant role that young people play, including volunteering, in ensuring a meaningful, inclusive and sustainable COVID-19 recovery, highlighting the necessity to treat them as equal partners in development, mobilize their talent and harness their potential and skills in innovation, technology, job creation, to boost the economies and advance social and environmental progress. The event will present key trends and challenges faced by young people, such as lack of decent work and productive employment opportunities, gender disparity, education, social and political exclusion, access to resources, and digital divide and will shed light on the importance of youth empowerment and partnerships to reach the most vulnerable and marginalized.

By presenting key recommendations from young people in all their diversity across the region, best practices and transformative pathways for youth empowerment and participation in governance, it will celebrate young people leaderships and their agency as agents of change. 

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) Youth Forum will be held on 19 and 20 April 2022. The two-day event will feature plenary sessions, interactive thematic and regionally based discussions. Young people are encouraged to share best practices, lessons learned, solutions as well as creative and innovative ideas with Member States, other youth and stakeholders on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and also on the sustainable development goals under review in the Economic and Social Council and the High-level Political Forum in 2022.