Effective and Meaningful Youth Participation in HIV/AIDS Work: Key to Stopping AIDS and Keeping the Promise!

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Effective and Meaningful Youth Participation in
HIV/AIDS Work Key to Stopping AIDS and Keeping
the Promise!

• By
• Shalala Oliver Sepiso
• Rescue Mission Zambia
• World AIDS Day Video Conference on Youth and
  HIV/AIDS
• 29th November, 2005
• Zambian Site World Bank Offices, Independence
  Avenue, Lusaka

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Rescue Mission Zambia is an internationally known
and recognised youth NGO empowering youth of
Zambia to be masters of their own destinies and
of the nation's future. Experts in innovative
ICTs, HIV/AIDS and Environmental projects.

• Recall the face of the poorest and weakest man
  whom you have seen, and ask yourself if the steps
  you contemplate are going to be of any use to
  him. Will it restore to him control over his life
  and destiny

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The General Picture

• Government
• Creating space for youth to voice out their needs
  and concerns
• Capacity-building of youth
• Financial Support

• Other Institutions
• Civic education among the youth
• Civic engagement
• Training and capacity-building

• Inclusive and Developed Society
• Policies and Practices are effective in solving
  problems
• Free society with people enjoying their rights
• Citizens match their rights to their duties
  hence sustainable development
• Stakeholder are consulted in Policy development

• Youth
• Research into how they can effectively
  participate.
• Desire to Learn and Listen to others
• Communicating in a mature way
• Addressing their challenges, etc.

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Youth Participation in HIV/AIDS
Interventions Youths not only make a crucial part
of the productive portion of the population but
also of the reproductive age group. Overlooking
this category of the population in HIV AIDS
interventions renders the whole fight against the
pandemic futile. Youths are a critical resource
upon which the economy is dependent. Youths
occupy a favourable place in society because of
their vigilance and can influence policy,
political and economic change. It makes sense
therefore to make HIV AIDS interventions
pro-youths and involving youth. Therefore, the
fight against HIV AIDS will be either won or
lost through youths.
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BACKGROUND A policy that can stand the test of
time and stands a chance of being successful in
providing solutions for which it has been drafted
needs to foster partnership among and
participation of the various stakeholders in the
sector the policy is addressing. Social change,
progress and development are normative and they
are defined and interpreted differently by
different people. Herding people like animal
into a venture can never be development.
(Nyerere Julius) People need to have their
priorities included in the policy so that it is
not a prescription but an amalgamation of views,
priorities, solutions and reservations.
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For decision-making processes, hearing the youth
perspective is critical, as their concerns top
the agenda - education, access, and employment.
Who can talk with greater authority about these
concerns than youth themselves? Clearly, young
people hold the key to change, innovation, and
action in many sectors. For the decisions and
declarations to result in action, the processes
will need to comprehensively engage youth as
never before. But young people can remain an
untapped resource if decision-makers do not
integrate their knowledge, vision and experience.
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PARTICIPATION It is vital to involve young people
in the decision-making processes of Zambia This
is because Youth are creative they have energy
and outlandish ideas. They do tell emperors when
they are wearing no clothes. Such input is
frequently useful in the search for sustainable
life-styles for communities. Youth monitoring
young people have proved to be excellent monitors
of the development of their communities, others
recommending improvements in life-style, and
other making general reports on the state of the
community Youth need to learn the lessons of
development and sustainability as much or more
than adults their generation will suffer the
consequences of unsustainable practices, but that
suffering will get worse by geometric progression
for each subsequent generation. Being involved in
decision-making about sustainability gives them
the all-important motivation to learn about the
issues, and use the information in the real
world. Above all, young people bring freshness
and the reality of the future to the table. This
focuses elderly minds on the need for
sustainability. That reason alone is sufficient
to involve young people in decision-making.
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• BASES FOR INVOLVING YOUNG PEOPLE
• Involving youth in decision-making processes,
  policy formulation, and action projects has three
  tangible bases
• Legal Basis
• Moral Basis and
• Scientific Basis.

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• Moral Basis for Youth Participation
• Youth are leaders of Today
• You already lead initiative that involve the
  adults too.
• Youth are social entrepreneurs
• Young people are traditionally considered among
  the most socially conscious and active segments
  of the population. They are concerned about
  environmental issues, the spread of HIV and other
  diseases, the lack of employment opportunities,
  economic inequality, and human rights. As
  students and young professionals, many seek to
  understand these issues and how their choices and
  actions impact on others in their community and
  around the world. Given their lack of access to
  many formal institutions in society, young people
  have traditionally developed their own voluntary
  associations to address these challenges.

The idea of a fixed infrastructure of information
sharing, consultation, debate, and actual power
sharing in decision-making with young people
possibly exercising the right to veto projects
that run contrary to their generational interest,
is what is needed.
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1. Youth are a large untapped resource for
   democratic Societies

The worlds largest untapped resource in creating
a developed world is not technology, but young
people. Youth are a huge and growing demographic,
making up more than two-thirds of the population
of some developing nations. Yet, young people
have too often been seen as a burden rather than
an asset, a group to be taught but not to teach,
and to receive but not to give. We must all
commit to working with youth to change this
paradigm. Youth need to be engaged in
decision-making processes related to the
development of our nations and the world at
large.
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• B. Legal Basis for Youth Participation
• Laws of Zambia and National Policy
• Many laws have been enacted in Zambia, like in
  other countries, to promote the inclusion of
  views of young people in the policy formulation
  process, the decision-making process and the
  action process and to protect their rights.
• International Conventions and legal instruments
• These abound and many times our government signs
  or ratifies them and yet the implementation of
  the conventions or instruments is erratic. By
  endorsing the idea of partnership in all the
  declarations and summit statements that
  governments sign, governments signal their
  commitment to a more active, and equal,
  responsibility to citizenship for disenfranchised
  young people.

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Let us look at some of these conventions and
instruments i). Agenda 21 This was a product of
the Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro in
Brazil. In Agenda 21, a whole chapter was devoted
to Children and Youth. Specific policy is
identified in the following clauses Agenda 21,
Chapter 25, 14 (f) and Chapter 25, 9 (a).
(ii). World Programme of Action for Youth to the
Year 2000 and Beyond The World Programme of
Action for Youth to the Year 2000 and Beyond,
endorsed by the UN General Assembly in November
1996, makes a specific commitment to involving
youth in decision-making, with a complete section
devoted to it. WPAY, Section J, Full and
effective participation of youth in the life of
society and in decision-making, Clause 107
The WPAY2000 makes the point that "Any efforts in
any area related to young people are conditional
upon enabling the economic, social and political
participation of youth as a matter of critical
importance." (Italics added)
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(iii). Other UN Documents Other UN Policy
documents, such as the Declarations of the Social
Summit, the Beijing Women's Conference and
Habitat II, have all stressed the importance of
youth participation. Most of these conferences
had a Youth Summit alongside at which the need
for youth to participate was again trumpeted.
The major conclusion of the International year
of Youth in 1985 was youth participation in
decision-making and that phrase has been included
in all UN documents of the last 10 years but in
practical terms, what can young people actually
contribute to promoting sustainability and
development? They don't vote they have little
purchasing power they don't belong to trade
unions or any organised pressure group.
(iv). Conventional of the Rights of the Child
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Related Challenges Facing Youth Today There are
some related challenges which need addressing to
ensure meaningful youth participation in
political processes and to reduce voter apathy.
Lack of Mainstream Support Youth-led programs
are rarely afforded the funding or recognition
required to implement or replicate in a
substantial or sustained manner. Lack of
Communication and Coordination Youth effort is
fragmented, often uninformed by others practice,
unconnected to a bigger picture, unable to
leverage resources, and find moral and
inspirational support. If we network and engage
these young innovators, they will continue to act
as development champions and focal points within
their communities leading to a more equitable,
connected, and inclusive world. Lack of
continuity Youth by definition, is a transitory
demographic. As young people gain experience and
move into adulthood, they often take their
valuable experiences with them, leaving others to
relearn the lessons of the past. This needs
addressing so there is no reinventing the
wheel. Lack of Capacity-Building Leadership
among young people others believe that there is
little capacity-building and there shall be a
leadership vacuum, the problem however is that
there are no placements of young people in
meaningful leadership as no places are created
specifically for young people.
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C. Scientific Basis For Youth Participation Tech
nology It takes about 20 years between the
discovery of a scientific principle, its
application in technology and its eventual
benefit to the people. In order for the young
people of today to be able to fully and
effectively use the results of todays designs,
they need to be involved in the actual designing
so that they have a head-start and the designs
shall not be strange to them. Socialisation Sociol
ogists further argue that re-socialisation is
harder to administer than primary or adult
socialisation. Therefore to think than elder
citizens can champion or can change easily or
more fluently as compared to young people is not
true. Young people are still in the early stages
of their cognitive development and they are
likely to internalise the new values and norms
being given to then as we enact policy, make
decision and implement these decision because
they are still under primary or adult or
anticipatory socialisation as opposed to
re-socialisation which would have to be used when
making social change with adult citizens.
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HIV/AIDS Specific Participation
Since 2000, there has been greater political
commitment to health and HIV/AIDS annual
expenditure in the health sector has steadily
increased and HIV/AIDS receives priority in
health plans. The 2001-2005 National Health
Strategic Plan outlined a new HIV/AIDS strategy,
incorporating mobilisation of national
leadership, a multi-sectoral approach and policy,
integration of health sector activities in
existing systems to strengthen coordination, etc.
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The Zambian Government recognizes that the
country must do more to effectively tackle AIDS
in the coming years. Strengthening
implementation, coordination, monitoring and
evaluation, alignment and harmonization, in the
context of Zambias National Development
Strategy, the Three Ones principles, the
Millennium Development Goals, and NEPAD is
essential for rapid scale-up of the
Multi-sectoral response to HIV/AIDS (FNDP
HIV/AIDS SAG, 2005). It is now universally
agreed that the fight against HIV/AIDS must have
a multi-sectoral approach and no interventions
should be single-pronged. Youth are a major
stakeholder.
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National policies and programmes are now paying
attention to and recognising the critical role of
youths in the national response to the HIV/AIDS
situation. Some of these include The Poverty
Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) The Ministry of
Education Policy on Education Educating Out
Future The Draft National Youth Policy (2005) The
National HIV/AIDS/STI/TB Council Act of 2002 (No.
10/2002) The National Child Policy and National
Plan of Action (1994) The Draft National HIV/AIDS
Policy (2005)
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HIV/AIDS Chapter in 5th NDP In the Zero Draft 4b
of the HIV/AIDS Chapter in the 5th National
Development Plan, the world youth appears 3
times. The first two instances are when it
mentioned the number of peer educators trained in
Zambia and the number of youth reached by
preventive measures. In the last incidence, the
paper says A consortium has been formed for
persons with disability and the Youth. Members of
the consortium have been included in some of the
Technical working groups under NAC. This is
interesting as it does not recognise the Forum
for Youth Organisations which is mandated by the
National HIV/AIDS Act of Parliament of 1994 to
represent youth in NAC. It is important therefore
to ensure that this anomaly is rectified and in
the Technical Working Groups, the youth
representatives are identified through the
Forums structure from community level through
the DATFs and PATFs to the NAC.
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• The HIV/AIDS Chapter in the 5th NDP should
  therefore
• Recognise the Forum for Youth NGOs as the body
  identified by Parliament to represent youth in
  the NAC Structure and Processes
• Lobby for the effecting of youth inclusion in NAC
  Structures and Process as demanded for by the
  requirements of true multi-sectoral and
  multi-institutional approach of fighting the
  pandemic.
• Promote the FYO to have a budget-line for youth
  participation and this should be linked to the
  FNDP by firstly developing an annual
  institutional work-plan that reflects priority
  areas for 'quick wins' and secondly by
  forecasting the estimated costs which should be
  incorporated into the annual budgeting system
  under the Ministry of Finance and National
  Planning and that of cooperating partners.

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National HIV/AIDS/STI Policy Draft of 21st
January 2005 The word Youth appears 16 times
while interestingly, the words computer,
Internet, website and CD ROM do not exist.
There is evidence that the policy does recognise
the special needs of children and youth but does
not recognise our youth-culture. In 4.2 Broad
Objectives the Policy says The broad objectives
of the National HIV/AIDS/STI/TB Policy are (m)
To equip Zambians, and especially the youth, with
knowledge and life-saving skills as a way of
preventing HIV infection This is expanded in 6.2,
9.3 and 9.6
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UNAIDS Implementation Support Plan (UN-ISP) for
2005 In the UN-ISP 2005 in Zambia, the word
youth does not exist. The UN-ISP is a statement
of the UNs strategic contribution in support of
the National HIV and AIDS Strategic Plan or
national HIV and AIDS priorities, focusing on
those areas where the UN has a comparative
advantage and can bring added value. In 2005,
Zambia is going through what is called the
CCA/UNDAF process and there is in existence a UN
collaborative programme on HIV/AIDS (2003-5),
which was in the process of being implemented.
The UN-ISP therefore should identify youth as a
group with special needs and so highlighted it in
line with the Chapter 25 of the Agenda 21, WPAY
2000 in Section J Clause 107, Conventional of the
Rights of the Child in Articles 12 13 and other
UN Policy documents. We therefore recommend that
UNAIDS does include youth in the ISP for 2006.
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MY CONTACT DETAILS

• ssepiso_at_gmail.com
• 097 930 921
• Fax [phone]
• www.rmz.interconnection.org
• (Organisational Details etc)

EndQuestions and Additions