Based
on the human rights principle of participation and inclusion; the
overall expected accomplishments are to increase youth participation in
decision-making processes at the local county government level and increase
transparency and accountability of local county governments.
The
relationships between youth and governance, with ICT as the main lever, can be
unfolded into four main directions:
i.
Youth on the
agenda. National and county governments are bound to deliver services and
tangible outcomes for their main constituency, youth. County governments
(leaders and staff) are key players in the devolution framework, and with new
responsibilities they also need tools to account for the rights, concerns and
opportunities among their constituencies, including youth. ICT is a tool to
improve public service delivery, operational efficiency and ease
intergovernmental relations. That entails raising awareness; building capacity
and motivating leadership so that policies view youth as an asset in
development and budget are shaped for youth-focused implementation.
ii.
Inclusiveness.
As more and more youth move into cities – and into slums – the role of youth in
urban governance processes is critical. ICT is a tool to reach marginalized
youth (youth in vulnerable situations in cities that for purposes of this
project will include – the poor, slum-dwellers, youth with disabilities, both
migrant and indigenous youth, and in particular young women as they are often
excluded from ICT programs), consider their right and for them to claim their
concerns, providing that both young people and local governments speak the same
language and use common channel to communicate. Use of ICTs is also a mean to
foster local economy by promoting entrepreneurship and technology-based
innovation. Building partnerships with the private sector is a way to include
youth in socio-economic dynamics through developing applications and promoting
existing or new applications applied to policy-making and public/urban issues.
iii.
From
participation to engagement. Through inclusiveness, youth are more likely
to engage in decision-making and become problem solvers. However, participation
is not necessarily adequate; youth need to be engaged meaningfully and with
purpose, often defining the terms of contribution. In this regard, building on
partnerships with communities and NGOs so as to encourage youth-led development
and strengthening civil society promotes democracy at grassroots level, and
enhances governance not just for youth but also for people in vulnerable
situations, of which include: poor,
slum-dwellers, people under threat of forced evictions, children, youth,
elderly, people with disabilities, displaced persons and migrants, indigenous
peoples, homeless persons, minorities, persons of diverse sexual orientations
and gender expressions, people living with HIV/AIDS, and in particular women in
these categories.
iv.
Policy ownership
and accountability. Building on this bottom-up approach, the use of ICT
facilitates a two-way communication process, from youth to county government
and from county government to youth. The objective is that public openness
makes youth supportive of public policies that account for them. Youth as service-users
and service-producers should be able to monitor service delivery and provide
feedback to government in areas such as local services and fighting corruption.
That requires increasing transparency in policy-making by supporting
crowd-sourced data for public goods or extending the impact of social media
into areas of governance.
http://www.unfpa.org/resources/human-rights-principles
