The Youth Journey is a roadmap for Generation Equality.
Co-created with girls, young people, UN agencies, and Civil Society Organisations, spotlighting activation moments and opportunities for young people and adolescents to influence and lead the process.
What is Generation Equality
Accelerating Progress for Gender Equality by 2030
The year 2020 is pivotal for the accelerated realization of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls. The global community is marking many anniversaries, amongst them--the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and its historic Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action adopted by 189 governments, considered one of the most comprehensive blueprints for women’s rights to date.
This will be done through two main objectives: (a) Building a strengthened movement for gender equality and (b) launching a set of visionary Action Coalitions that are multi-stakeholder partnerships that will drive high-level public and private investment and political leadership from various actors over the next five years.
The Generation Equality Forum presents a vital moment in this mobilization. It is a civil society-centered, multi-stakeholder global gathering for gender equality, fundamentally rooted in the same logic that made the momentous advance of the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action possible twenty-five years ago. This is the power of activism, feminist solidarity and youth leadership to achieve transformative change. The Forum represents a key moment for engagement among gender equality advocates from every sector of society – governments, civil society, private sector, entrepreneurs, trade unions, artists, academia and social influencers – to foster a global public conversation for urgent action and accountability for gender equality.
Originally intended to kick-off in Mexico City and culminate in Paris in 2020, the GEF will be postponed to the first half of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The new dates will be announced in the coming months. In the period leading to the Forum, a series of virtual engagements will be organized in collaboration with partners to foster continued momentum, participation and commitment of all stakeholders. The transformative vision of the GEF and the Action Coalitions to achieve systemic change assumes even more relevance in the context of building back better after COVID-19.
What is the Youth Journey
In July, August and September, UN Women came together in multiple design sprints with diverse young people that are part of the Generation Equality governance structures, youth led and serving organisations, UN agencies and UN Women country and regional offices and national gender youth activists to conceptualise a youth journey for Generation Equality.
What: The youth journey is a roadmap for youth leadership in the Generation Equality process. It lifts up the key activation moments and opportunities for online and physical engagement and leadership of young people and girls.
Why: To centre the leadership and participation of young people and girls in Generation Equality To strengthen accountability, accessibility and meaningful youth leadership and power in this GEF. And to mobilize diverse young people and connect the dots between formal and youth led spaces, global, regional and local work, and be in deeper ongoing collaboration.
Who: Young people in all their diversity: young women, young men, girls and boys and gender non conforming youth, young people and girls with disabilities, Black, Indigenous, girls and young women of Color, Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay, Trans, Intersex youth, young people living with HIV AIDS, and young people living in conflict zones and from refugee populations across the world.
How: Co-created communications, virtual spaces, capacity building and online engagement. Leveraging international days and amplifying the important work being done by youth led and youth serving civil society organisations and different stakeholders.
When: The generation equality process spans till end of 2025.
Where: Locally, regionally, and globally.
Get involved
If you would like to receive regular updates about the youth journey - please sign up to this mailing list or email... YOUTH EMAIL FOR UN WOMEN
Thank you
The youth journey was created in collaboration with:
Young people that are part of the Generation governance structures – Generation Equality Youth Task Force, Civil Society Advisory Group, Multi-stakeholder Steering Committee, Leadership & Planning Group.
Youth/girl led and serving organisations including Action Aid, AGIP, FRIDA | The Young Feminist Fund, Girls Not Brides, Plan International, Resurj, She Decides, WAGGS, and YWCA.
UN Agencies and offices – UNESCO, UNICEF, UNFPA, the Office of the Envoy on Youth and UN Women country & regional offices.
Resources
Platforms
Tools
-
Official Generation Equality Website https://forum.generationequality.org/
-
Action Coalitions https://forum.generationequality.org/action-coalitions
-
Generation Equality Social Media Pack
-
Website on Generation Equality Women Deliver
-
Beijing+25 Toolkit, Plan International – a youth-friendly toolkit about the Beijing+25 process and how you can get involved as a youth advocate.
-
Girls’ Platform for Action, Plan International – common set of priorities and recommendations expressed by adolescent girls, across the world, on the Beijing Platform for Action (BPfA).
-
Young feminists want system change – Global advocacy toolkit for the Beijing+25 process and beyond https://www.wecf.org/young-feminists-want-system-change/
