From Kunming to Yerevan: A Vision for the Role of Youth in Implementing the Global Biodiversity Framework
By Deniz Dutton, BES-Net and BIOFIN Intern
Blue and green flags flapped in the warm wind as delegates made their way into the Yunnan Haigeng Convention Center for the first day of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Kunming dialogue.
Over the next three days, their focus would be one document: the Global Report on Collective Progress in the Implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Among them were six young Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) delegates from Europe, Türkiye, Brazil, Paraguay and the Philippines. Some were veteran youth representatives; others, such as myself, were new to the scene. We were all committed to ensuring that youth spoke with one unified message: that the full, equitable and meaningful participation of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, women and youth be ensured, and that adequate, accessible and timely means of implementation be scaled up for these rights holders.
The Global Report identified five key areas where the barriers to effective implementation of the Framework are greatest:
Scope and coverage
Means of implementation
Action and implementation
Whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches
Data and knowledge
Each of these represents unique yet interrelated challenges. When it comes to whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, youth have been disproportionately affected by limited resources, access to information and knowledge, and effective participation and coordination mechanisms. The Global Report suggested that to improve access to the means of implementation for non-state actors, the contributions of youth, Indigenous Peoples and women must be recognized and integrated into Parties’ approaches, and recognition must be followed by investment.
While their contributions are often overlooked or dismissed, youth tend to be deeply embedded in their communities. They are able to do a lot with little resources, and when they engage in grassroots initiatives, they are uniquely positioned to bridge different communities. Youth are often simultaneously studying, working one or more jobs, volunteering and participating in multiple activities. Many are actively engaging with youth younger than themselves, acting as role models and building their leadership capacity and knowledge.
The Global Report identified five key areas where the barriers to effective implementation of the Framework are greatest:
Scope and coverage
Means of implementation
Action and implementation
Whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches
Data and knowledge
Each of these represents unique yet interrelated challenges. When it comes to whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches, youth have been disproportionately affected by limited resources, access to information and knowledge, and effective participation and coordination mechanisms. The Global Report suggested that to improve access to the means of implementation for non-state actors, the contributions of youth, Indigenous Peoples and women must be recognized and integrated into Parties’ approaches, and recognition must be followed by investment.
While their contributions are often overlooked or dismissed, youth tend to be deeply embedded in their communities. They are able to do a lot with little resources, and when they engage in grassroots initiatives, they are uniquely positioned to bridge different communities. Youth are often simultaneously studying, working one or more jobs, volunteering and participating in multiple activities. Many are actively engaging with youth younger than themselves, acting as role models and building their leadership capacity and knowledge.
These insights come from GYBN’s “Ecologies of Empowerment” report, which assessed over 160 youth-led initiatives across 57 countries to determine what makes them run, what their needs are and what they contribute to implementation. When youth are supported in developing their leadership capacities, they tend to work relationally with their communities, and they prioritize work that rebuilds the social and cultural fabric necessary for long-term transformation. However, this work often goes unappreciated by funders and decision makers, who believe that young people should compete with one another to prove themselves.
According to the report, 95 per cent of people involved in the initiatives were volunteers. When youth-led initiatives rely excessively on volunteerism, this “impacts whether young people can thrive as individuals, which in turn shapes how youth organizations can grow as collectives.” Additionally, this limits the time and energy that members of historically marginalized groups can invest, making it more likely that youth with financial safety nets and support systems in place will occupy leadership positions. I experienced this myself as a member of a youth-led climate action organization a few years ago, as I witnessed the replacement of young leaders of colour with white, male leadership who required less financial support. The resulting lack of consideration for equity and justice concerns expressed by the membership ultimately led to a fission in the organization, with over half the membership leaving, forcing the organization to expend a great deal of resources to recover its former numbers.
These insights come from GYBN’s “Ecologies of Empowerment” report, which assessed over 160 youth-led initiatives across 57 countries to determine what makes them run, what their needs are and what they contribute to implementation. When youth are supported in developing their leadership capacities, they tend to work relationally with their communities, and they prioritize work that rebuilds the social and cultural fabric necessary for long-term transformation. However, this work often goes unappreciated by funders and decision makers, who believe that young people should compete with one another to prove themselves.
According to the report, 95 per cent of people involved in the initiatives were volunteers. When youth-led initiatives rely excessively on volunteerism, this “impacts whether young people can thrive as individuals, which in turn shapes how youth organizations can grow as collectives.” Additionally, this limits the time and energy that members of historically marginalized groups can invest, making it more likely that youth with financial safety nets and support systems in place will occupy leadership positions. I experienced this myself as a member of a youth-led climate action organization a few years ago, as I witnessed the replacement of young leaders of colour with white, male leadership who required less financial support. The resulting lack of consideration for equity and justice concerns expressed by the membership ultimately led to a fission in the organization, with over half the membership leaving, forcing the organization to expend a great deal of resources to recover its former numbers.
It is these kinds of dynamics that shorten the lifespan of youth-led initiatives. It is also why these initiatives not only deserve but need funding, so that they can operate and grow sustainably over time. GYBN operated on project-based funding for over a decade, and it was only when they received core, flexible funding from a donor that they were able to achieve their greatest milestone – the integration of all of their demands into the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework at COP15. This was achieved through sustained advocacy campaigns, youth leadership development, research and knowledge generation, and coordination with others working on rights-based approaches.
The lack of emphasis on rights-based approaches is another key “gap” concerning youth. Considering that all the priority areas identified in the Global Report are underpinned by structural, systemic injustices that are driving biodiversity loss, addressing these problems requires viewing them through a human rights and justice lens in order for resulting actions to be transformative.
This sentiment can be found in the Nexus Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, which found that ensuring rights and equity was itself an approach to ensuring the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services. This is because when rights and equity are prioritized, so is the participation of rights holders such as Indigenous Peoples and local communities, women and youth; and when these groups are meaningfully involved, their participation facilitates the emergence of new response options. Implementing rights-based approaches can therefore create a cascading effect and catalyse the transformative change necessary to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.
Failure to mainstream and invest in rights-based approaches to implementation, including youth empowerment, creates long-term systemic risks because youth represent the “regeneration layer” of the conservation movement. For youth-led initiatives to be prioritized and investment to flow towards them, governments need to understand to what extent youth are carrying out implementation activities. To this end, indicators disaggregated by age would help keep track of who is doing the work. When demographics remain invisible, they remain uninvestable. The lack of a youth indicator in the monitoring framework of the Global Biodiversity Framework is unfortunate; however, Parties and non-state actors involved in implementation can develop their own indicators to track youth involvement. At COP17 in Yerevan, Parties must move beyond acknowledgement of youth and start putting commitment into action. A seat at the table is not the same thing as true empowerment; walking the talk begins with equitable participation in decision-making. Youth aren't asking for a seat at the table anymore. We're asking for the resources to build tables of our own.
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