Declaration of the participants

EU- Measure „SOLUTIONS 2011“

Declaration of the participants

We, approximately 30 youth workers and young people from Austria, China, Germany, Ghana, Senegal and Togo, have exchanged ideas regarding goals, contents and framework conditions of youth work in the North-South-context in practice from December 2010 to November 2011 within the scope of the one-year dialogue and working processes « Globale Dialogue 2011. SOLUTIONS » of the EU-programme « Youth in Action ». Thematic focus was the question of how young people and their supporting agents, such as youth organisations, can implement sustainable objectives that have been formulated by international committees such as the UN or the European Commission with concrete effective and feasible activities in their region and everyday life. Thereby, we have concentrated our work exemplary on the practical implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) in the everyday routine of our organisations and institutions. The implementation aspects of youth work in North and South, which have been named during the working process, have led to several fundamental thoughts and demands related to the qualification of young agents within the North-South-context :

• Good intentions and strong personal dedication do not suffice nowadays for efficient youth work and especially with regards to the cooperation between North and South concerning the implementation of strategic goals, such as the MDGs. Besides the contentwise expertise, a strong professionalism in the field of organisation and project management including the fields of project management, organization of the implementation of measures, financing and effective management of funds, controlling, acquisition of volunteers, public relations, networking etc. It does not suffice anymore that few executives of youth organisations possess respective knowledge and necessary competencies for implementation. Also those people who are directly working at the basis of youth work in their everyday life and heir region require this knowledge and these competencies. Each participant of the dialogue stated that there are broad deficits with regards to this issue. The future effectiveness of youth policy and youth work depends on the quick reduction of these deficits, especially within the North-South-context. Especially youth organisations and youth agents in the countries of the South feel a need for action.
• Based on our multifarious and longstanding experience and our praxis we determine that there are no and only rudimentary supply of qualification measures in developing countries, with regards to the group of youth workers  including professional management in youth organisations and institutions below the managerial level, within the bilateral (between countries of the European Union and African, Asian and Latin American countries) as well as the multilateral (between the European Union as a whole and regions in developing countries) context. Existing education opportunities within the frame of development cooperation and international (European) youth work show high barriers such as academic degrees of the participants which results in the exclusion of this target group. Furthermore, they do not take into consideration the everyday local operating procedures sufficiently.
• Thus, we demand an increased supply of qualification and further education with regards to the above expressed management aspects. We believe, in particular, that existing offers for further education for the qualification of societal agents from the South on bi- and multilateral level in the European Union and its member states are getting tailored towards persons who do not have an academic degree and long-term school background as well as who are directly active on the implementation level. In addition, they have to be tailored towards the operations of small- and middle-sized organisations and institutions which are acting on the local and regional level. We believe the most rational solution would be practice-oriented small-sized courses of up to four weeks which are prepared and evaluated via Internet-based distance studies. Technical conditions and competencies for the execution of Internet-based communication and further education have to also be established. The courses should only target people, who do not have an academic degree but who are declared experts in their region. The necessary funds and implementation structures have to be provided. Existing approaches to further education such as the current EU-youth programme (eg. Within the scope of Action 4) or the offers of the German society for international development (GIZ) on bilateral level could be modified. The further education should be jointly developed by young agents from North and South while the practical demands of the everyday and local/regional work in the South should be focused.
• Furthermore, we suggest that opportunities for agents from North and South to conceptualise and develop steps of implementation within the frame of the EU-youth programme will be provided. Therefore, the augmentation of EU-training measures for youth workers may be a sensible first step. They should not only expand the pool of participants for non-European partners. There should also be the possibility of training and planning measures to take place in the countries of the South. Such an approach would reflect the principle of the actual implemented North-South-partnership.
• The needed funds for the implementation of our demands have to be provided by the EU or by the member states of the European Union due to the precarious situation of most youth organisations and institutions in the South. A first quick step would be the modification of existing qualification and exchange programmes, thus the named intentions can be addressed short term and middle term

Through the proposed measures the partnership-like character of the North-South-cooperation with regards to solving common tasks would be deepened. The setup and respectively the improvement of the mentioned qualifications would strengthen the equal relationship and communication between all sides. Only this way, the agents from the South can be supported to become planning partners for the executing partners, who execute projects that are conceptualized by them mainly independently from the agents in the South, and to independently develop North-South-activities including their own. On the other hand, the proposed measures would also strengthen the agents in the North to build or improve their professionalism and expertise with regards to the actual implementation in the countries of the South.

In general, our suggestions foster the change of perspectives and the competence of taking the interests and needs of the other within one’s own thinking and acting into account as well as acting jointly, based on this competence, in everyday life and letting the regions move closer together with regards to sustainability in this globalised world. We therefore demand:

Regard our propositions and quickly implement them in a dialogue on a partnership basis.

Magdeburg, Berlin, St. Louis (Senegal), November 2011