CSD: Day 8

Crazy day – first, since I took the Youth Caucus’ meeting’s minutes yesterday morning, this morning I have to chair. We only have about 40 minutes to get through a half page of agenda points, so I can’t leave too much room for questions and discussions. Fortunately, everyone by now is so tired that that is not a problem. We breeze through most of the agenda points and end with a presentation by Felix Dodds of the Stakeholder Forum, on the major Rio+20 conference that will take place in 2012. He’s a great presenter who energizes the room, not only for Rio+20 but for the rest of this day as well.

This is an exciting day, because it’s the opening of the High Level Segment: from today on, everything moves into flux as ministers and other big shots arrive to finalize the conference. That is not to say that these people are particularly knowledgeable: since they have such broad portfolios, it’s more a matter of them being brief by staff who have followed CSD in detail, and then giving the official rubber stamp to decisions. This goes with the necessary decorum: in the morning there is a 3-hour plenary meeting at the General Assembly hall in the main building, which most of us can only attend from the 4th-floor balcony. I come in with high expectations, but they have to be rapidly adjusted to the realities of the UN: almost all of the speeches given by the invited ‘eminent speakers’ are excruciatingly boring. My notebook, which I had eagerly taken out, stays empty.

The latter half of the day is devoted to the topic of which I lead the Youth Caucus working group: Mining. This ‘interactive ministerial roundtable’ turns out to be basically the same as previous sessions: a long list of 3-5 minute pre-written statements by governments. A lot of these simply reiterate things that we all knew before coming to CSD: “mining can be a driving force of the economy, but also can have negative impacts, which we must seek to manage and reduce” etc. etc. At the end of the session, the Major Groups are allowed to speak and I take the floor to deliver our statement. It’s primarily about child labor, and ends by directly asking countries what steps they will take to eradicate child labor in mining by 2015. Apart from the Belgian government, we are the only ones to mention child labor – disgraceful. Hopefully our statement will contribute to the topic’s inclusion in policy. The positive feedback I informally receive on our statement gives me some hope.

We close the day by going with a group of 12 to the Apollo Theater’s Amateur Night, in Harlem. After this extremely busy day, it’s great to spend the evening shouting and clapping at the contestants, as well as doing a little dancing. All this energy that gets bottled up during the day needs a way out – I wonder what Friday night will look like… two more days!

- Bastiaan Bouwman

CSD: Introductions

Hello everyone. Like every year, TYN sends a delegation to CSD. Here is a brief introduction to the members of the delegation:

Bastiaan Bouwman

Hi, my name is Bastiaan Bouwman, from Amsterdam. Having worked with TYN for three years now, on topics like the MDG's, corporate social responsibility and international NGO politics, it's great to bring that experience to a real UN conference. I hope to learn a lot from attending CSD and coordinating the delegation, as well as contributing substantially to the process and content of the conference. It's a big responsibility, sothere's an intense two weeks coming up but I'm looking forward!

Matthew Gullo

Hi everybody, as a local of NYC I like my nice walks to the UN and around the world's greatest city. In the fall I'll be attending Duke Graduate School studying International Affairs. I hope to have a productive UNCSD

Sven Herreman

My name is Sven Herreman, from Brussels, Belgium. I have been participating in TYN for one and a half years, with this being my third international UN conference (COP 15, and UNCSocD), as well as participating in 2 TYA’s and being Deputy-President for the 2010 Summer Symposium. I hope to learn more about the functioning of the Youth in the UN, as well as networking.

Tara Yip-Bannicq

Hi, my name is Tara Yip-Bannicq and I'm half French/half Chinese. I'm one of those 'third culture people' who doesn't really know where they're from. I finished my MSc in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics last year and have been working in the disaster relief sector since then for the JUMP! Foundation, a youth empowerment organisation. This is my first TYN delegation and I like bagels.

Natalie Lum-Tai

Natalie Lum-Tai hails from Mississauga, Ontario but is currently living the life of a true Montréalaise while pursuing a Joint Honours in Political Science and History at McGill University. She has a passion for youth engagement and is a strong advocate of children having a role in all matters that affect them, as proscribed by the UNCRC. This is her first time working with TYN and she is excited to see what contribution they can make at CSD-18, especially in the final review year before the implementation of the 10-year SCP framework.

Angie Lai

My name is Angie Lai and I'm from Hong Kong, China, and in recent years I living in different countries trying out all the opportunities. I joined TYA the first time in July 2008 as the chair of the Human Rights and Youth committee, and since then I have been actively participating in the network. I’m really happy to participate in UNCSD-18. My interests are transport and the 10-year framework on SCP, and I’m hoping to learn the most out of this conference.

CSD: Day 4

As usual, the day started with joining the never-ending long queue outside UNHQ, but despite the security check fuzz and the called-off meeting with the Chinese delegates, everything went fine and well. Today was a really busy day all filled with meetings with country delegates and UN officials, as well as people from major groups, and I am actually very pleased to see the enthusiasm from young people trying hard to lobby for changes - they sacrificed lunch time and the opportunity to explore NYC to help create a better world, what passion!!!

The first meeting was with Ms. Federica Pietracci, the Sustainable Development Officer Division for Sustainable Development Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Ms. Pietracci has been working with the UNCSD Youth Caucus for a few years already, and is really in a position trying to understand youths' participation in the UN issues. She told us a lot about how the UN and youths are connected, as well as a few country delegates to lobby to.

Mr. Rasio Ridho Sani, Assistant Deputy Minster for Management of Hazardous Substances and Hazardous Waste in Indonesia, was the second person we had a meeting with today. He and his colleague were both very friendly to us and spent almost two hours trying to help us understand the Sustainable Development situation in Indonesia and provided answers to our other questions. Mr. Sani claimed that it's not because Indonesia does not want to engage youth in the UN issues, however, issues such as waste management and mining are too complicated to be understood by youth and children, and that they also experience shortage of financial aid in promoting these aforementioned issues. Although the promotion in Sustainable Development is being hampered by various reasons, the Indonesian government is constantly working their way on providing youth and children a better place to live in.

After the formal meeting, Mr. Sani and his colleague also spent time in just chatting with us on different topics, for example, what our dreams and ambitions are.

It's a pity that I couldn't finish the entire meeting with the Indonesian delegation as the TYN delegation had earlier on arranged a meeting with Mr. Jan-Gustav Strandenaes - Senior Consultant of the United Nations, at 15:00 in the Austria Café. Mr. Strandenaes is very approachable and interactive, he did not only answer our questions and provided us insights on the topic on Sustainable Development, he also suggested a few professionals for us to contact for lobbying, and even more, he was interested in being one of the guest speakers for the 2010 TYN Summer Symposium J Before Mr. Strandenaes left, he reminded us, as youth, should never give up and be optimistic about the future; when we look back later, we'll see there is indeed a change.

I was actually very happy to see how these adults and professionals in the top of the hierarchy value youths' ideas and participation in important decision-making process, although sometimes we may sound too ideal and unrealistic and perhaps stupid to them?!

After the long and tiring working day, I just sat in the side-event in Mining and Indigenous People, which I found it very interesting and had learnt a lot from the Human Rights Lawyer.

UNCSD has been beyond fun and inspiring so far, however, there's a concern as to whether we will actually have time to see the exciting city or not, if me and Natalie could hunt down to Times Square for shopping, and if Vicnan could ever have a chance to visit the Statue of Liberty after three times of participating at CSD.

And finally, the long-awaited delegation pizza dinner took place in Central Park, and very unluckily, Matt had to rush to work and couldn't join us; and we, the girls of this delegation, are still very curious in understanding some of the secret words used within the group. I propose a motion to explain these 'jargons' to us!!

This is not the end. I can't end this blog by not mentioning the fact that I actually met the Secretary General of the UN today after printing off some copies in the main building. It was short, but it made my day.

Angie Lai