10:01 PM |
partnerships worth thinking about for those into online journalism....taken from PICISOC post by Anju. (see PICISOC links at the bottom)onwards lisEmpowering Youth to Change the World with ICT and Entrepreneurship
By Rinalia Abdul Rahim
Strategy Council Member of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development
and former Executive Director of the Global Knowledge Partnership (2001-2008).
Young people are the world's largest resource in development. Forty percent of the world's population is under 20 years of age and over 1 billion people are between the ages of 15 and 25. In some developing countries, youth constitute more than two thirds of the population.
Young people who are given early access to information and communications technologies (ICT) tend to become early adopters and adapters of the technologies, skills valued for spurring innovation and economic growth. Youth are at the forefrontof societal transformation through ICT because technology is what they have grown up with, what they know more about than their parents, and what gives them an edge. 1 With the Internet, young people have acquired a powerful new tool to connect, communicate, innovate and take action on things that matter to them on a scale that transcends their locality, making them global actors.
Young people's high level of social consciousness are often underestimated, but they care about many things including climate change and the environment, the spread of HIV and other diseases, economic inequality and the lack of employment opportunities, social justice and human rights. Because of their ideals, those among them who are proficient with ICT and are motivated to create change have apropensity for linking the use of the technologies to development goals. However, without entrepreneurial skills, they lack the necessary ability to sustain their efforts and overcome challenges that stand in their way.
As enablers of ICT-facilitated development and as social entrepreneurs who want to make a difference in the world, empowered youth can be a potent force for change. Yet there are still few strategies and initiatives that truly empower young people tobecome leaders in creating sustainable social, environmental and economic impact worldwide. There are many initiatives that engage youth through conferences and connect them for virtual networking, but few go on to provide a comprehensive support structure that enables youth to create development impact for themselves and for others.
The World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 acknowledged that young people are the future workforce, leading creators and early adopters of ICT, and that they must be empowered as learners, developers, contributors, entrepreneurs and decision-makers.2 The reality is that some young people are already part of the global workforce due to poverty and circumstances. A large number of them are unable to find employment. The International Labour Organization reported 76 million youth were unemployed in 2008, comprising 40% of total world unemployment. Little progress has been made in improving the position of youth in the labor market and young people still suffer disproportionately from a deficit of decent work opportunities. Moreover, youth who are employed often work long hours under informal, insecure and intermittent work arrangements characterized by meager earnings, low productivity and reduced labor protection.3 The issue of youth employment is and will continue to be an important variable when considering effective youth empowerment strategies and it makes a focus on entrepreneurship critical.
To break the cycle of poverty and unleash youth potential in creating change for themselves and for society, a multiple focus on ICT, learning (formal or informal), and entrepreneurial skills development is required, but this alone is not enough. Mechanisms that facilitate youth action, support their learning and help them mobilize resources are also needed.
Key learning on youth empowerment strategies can be drawn from the experience ofthe Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), which has worked for more than 10 yearsin the field of ICT and knowledge for Development. Since its inception in 1997, the GKP understood the importance of realizing the potential of young people as stakeholders in development and in building knowledge societies. The GKP youth strategy evolved over time by learning from young leaders around the world, who use ICT to produce and use knowledge to initiate or support sustainable development initiatives. In 2006, the GKP Youth Strategy converged into a core focus on youth, ICT and entrepreneurship via the Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI) program. The strategy focuses on five elements in empowering young people: Community-Building, Knowledge Generation and Sharing, Projects Support, Skills Development and Policy Advocacy.
Community Building
Young people need support networks that can help them communicate, draw inspiration and gather resources to take action. These networks include not just their peers who share the same interests, but also mentors and others who support their cause. To facilitate the emergence of a global community and network of and for young people working on ICT policy and practice, the GKP and its members have initiated and supported various youth networking and community-building initiatives involving face to face as well as online interactions.4 More than 3000 young leaders in ICT have been networked through these mechanisms and their engagement was brought to a higher level through knowledge sharing activities.
Knowledge Generation and Sharing
As young people gain experience and move on to other things, they often take their valuable experiences with them, leaving others to relearn the lessons of the past. To ensure continuity of learning, it is important to have mechanisms for capturing the lessons from the past as knowledge resources as well as to share that knowledge as widely as possible. GKP and its members have generated various knowledge resources based on programmatic experiences that can help young people learn from past initiatives. The resources include a series of guidebooks on a wide range of topics such as how to develop national youth campaigns based on youth activism during the World Summit on the Information Society; how young people can build communities and engage in Internet Governance issues at the national level; and how to plan social enterprises and solve problems innovatively. A wikipedia for young social entrepreneurs, which serves as a dedicated and expandable knowledge resource, has been developed under the YSEI program. Moreover, ICT success stories based on the projects of young people worldwide have also been published and disseminated widely. Complementing the knowledge resources are inspiring peer-to-peer, face-to-face knowledge sharing activities targeted at young leaders in ICT where they learn from each other's experience and build their network of peers.5
Project Support
Young people usually lack substantial mainstream support in terms of funding for the sustainable implementation and replication of their initiatives. During the World Summit on the Information Society process (2003-2005), the GKP organized its Youth Awards to bring international recognition to the outstanding work of young people around the world that used knowledge and ICT to promote development.6 In 2004, the GKP introduced an experimental Projects Fund that provided seed funding for small and innovative ICT projects targeted at youth, women, the poor andindigenous or displaced communities.7 The learning from the Awards and Projects Fund enhanced the understanding of what is needed to support the involvement and leadership of young people in ICT projects that align with development goals. In 2006, after two years of deliberation involving its members, GKP launched the Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI) as a program that provides comprehensive supportfor young social entrepreneurs in developing countries between the ages of 17 to 30, who use ICT to achieve broad sustainable development objectives. The program, which started with a focus on Asia, provides support in the form of seed financing, essential knowledge, mentorship and access to diverse networks. In addition to the program's seed funding, selected young social entrepreneurs in the program were provided with opportunities to present their social business proposals for start-up andscale-up funding from potential investors including venture capitalists.8
"To date, YSEI has supported over 100 early stage social enterprises in South Asia andSouth East Asia with capacity development and networking, and out of these, 18 young socialentrepreneurs have been selected to be YSEI Fellows and receive financial support based onthe strength of their social business proposal. 94% of them have achieved sustainabilityfor their social enterprises through YSEI support. The support process starts with the callfor proposals, the selection of early stage social enterprises that fit the investment criteria, thedue diligence, the social venture plan development workshop as final due diligence activityand the financing coupled with mentorship and incubation. The support process has aduration of roughly 18 months per round."
http://www.globalknowledgepartnership.org/gkp/index.cfm/elementid/8320
Sunit Shrestha, Managing Director, ChangeFusion
& Program Lead, GKP Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI)
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