Youth in Action: Youth Informing Policy at FAO

In this episode, we speak with Abby Hill, William McManiman, and Chevaughn Brown, members of the Youth Policy Board, about how youth engagement is being integrated into global policy processes and contributing to more inclusive and forward-looking agrifood systems.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Hello and welcome to the World World Forum Podcast and our Youth in Action series where we amplify youth voices shaping the future of agricultural systems. In today's episode, it's all about youth informing policy of the FAO and how young leaders are not just participating in conversations but actively shaping global decision making. We are joined by three incredible members of the youth policy board, each leading a change in key sectors livestock, forestry, fisheries, and aquaculture. From global consultations to building a youth constituency and contributing to FAO's technical committee, their work is helping ensure that youth perspectives are embedded where it matters the most in policy. So today we will explore their personal journey into the youth assembly, the work they've been leading, and how youth voices are influencing global processes like KoFo, Kofi, and Global Youth Action Plan. So whether you're passionate about sustainability, policy, or creating real impact, this episode is for you. Let's dive in. So I'm more than happy to have you all here. And before we start, maybe to do a short round of introduction that would be more than great.

SPEAKER_02 1:24

So hi everyone, my name is William McManiman. I'm from Canada and I am the thematic lead on livestock.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Hi everyone, my name is Abby Hill. I come from Australia, and I'm serving on the Youth Policy Board as the thematic lead for forestry and also as a regional member for the Asia Pacific regional team.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Hello everyone. I am Chavon Brown. I'm a Jamaican serving as a thematic lead for fisheries and aquaculture and also a member of the Latin America and Caribbean working group.

SPEAKER_03 1:54

And I have another additional question. So I want to ask you what actually motivated you to become part of Youth Assembly, member of Youth Policy Board?

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Well, personally, I've been involved in different youth groups, youth initiatives over the past couple of years. However, um when this was introduced to me, it was introduced as something that would just go away with tokenism and a whole. I mean, and being here as well, I can vouch for that. That I've been working and working and working, and that's what I've always wanted as a youth leader. Um coming from Jamaica, we are uh more along the lines of being underrepresented and um under-engaged, and I'm just serving as a pillar for my community, for my virgins, for my friends to show that uh it is possible with passion, with hard work, just be factual, be real, and you can get there. And the Word Food Forum and Platform has given me that opportunity to uh work as hard as I can as it relates to implementing policies, to work with technical um expertise, to just get the different resources I need to ensure that I can bring these resources back home and as well as um amplified voice of the voices of other youth.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Oh, look, I think I echo some of Siobhan's comments. I think for me it's it's certainly impact. Um, and so I've seen the work of um previous cohorts as part of the youth policy board and the way that that has already begun to shape uh discussions at high-level fora. Um so I think that was sort of the initial motivator for me to apply for the program. Um, and I think sort of more broadly as well, you know, in a lot of policy design, um, there's quite a short-term lens at times. And I think the the real value of youth is that we bring quite a longer term lens to policy design and also look at things not in isolation. So I mean, in my space with forestry, you know, we don't look in at forestry on its own. We, you know, look at that, you know, sort of with bioeconomy and biodiversity and climate change and all these cross-cutting themes. And so I think that was another motivator, just that you know, this policy board really does advocate for that as well. And um, yeah, so I'm I'm very happy to be here, and it's um been an exciting, exciting program.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

Uh for my side, uh, I don't and I don't want to repeat too much uh because I share the same passion as my colleagues, uh, and uh I see for the past months that uh we have a lot of in common in uh why we joined the YPB. Uh but uh my main main uh motivation was uh because I believe a strong voice uh when it's heard uh within the decision-making process uh brings a lot of resiliency uh to uh the agri-food systems uh and also sustainability.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Talking about uh your experience, so we would also like to know could you please tell us a bit more about uh which activities you have worked worked on this uh this year, and how do you foster it connecting to FAO's technical committees?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Okay, excellent question. Um so um I suppose in the forestry space um we have had a number of youth consultations. We had quite a large global youth consultation in uh July of this year, and we had over a hundred participants uh from across the globe providing insights into you know what they see as some of the forestry uh priorities. Um and so a lot of the themes that emerged were centered around innovation and restoration in forestry. Um, so it brought out things like you know the need for more indigenous um practices, um, you know, ensuring that things are still evidence-based and science-based. Um, in terms of innovation, we spoke about things like um how innovation can create winners and losers, and we have to be really mindful of that in policy design. Um we today had our uh thematic session uh on forestry, um, which was very well attended. Um we had um the upcoming Committee on Forestry president, we had member states in attendance, we had uh youth partner organizations, uh, the FAU youth uh so the FAU Technical Division on Forestry. Um and yeah, most importantly, we had yeah, youth youth participants like William in the room, which was absolutely wonderful. Um so, in terms of um, yeah, how we then engage with um sort of other committees, um, we work very closely with the uh PAW forestry division who are quite instrumental in um in the Committee on Forestry, which is coming up next year. And so they've helped us in identifying strategic entry points into these fora. Um, and so I guess moving forward, we're looking at running a whole number of uh sort of capacity development initiatives. We partner with other youth organizations on forestry, um, and we're actually looking at uh establishing a youth constituency on forestry with other youth networks to just really bring all those great ideas together and make sure they're all heard. So um, yeah, I'll I'll pass over to Siobon.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Thank you, Alexandria. Wonderful question. Um, since appointment, I've been working on the formation of my own constituency, which is the global constituency on fisheries and aquaculture. They will be the official voice that feeds into Kofi 37 next year. That's the uh Committee on Fisheries, that's our technical committee that we're supporting. Um we've had we the if the constituency was officially launched last year at COFI 36, but that was just being launched, you know, just a framework that we want this to be out. Um, since appointment, my appointment now we've been taking that framework, we've been building the foundation, we've advertised, we've gotten our general members, we have the steering committee in place now. So, what we're doing currently is that we are finalizing our manifesto, and of course, you know, the manifesto will guide the implementation underground for this for the next activities going into um COVID 37 next year. So we have that draft manifesto, it's ready, it's out, it's on the World Food Forum platform. Um, we had our session on the 15th of October. Now, with that out, all the different um young persons, attendees, they were able to view, they were able to still add inserts into that document if they so need to. Now, with the forum ending, we're gonna be uh reviewing those comments, we're gonna be reviewing the inserts, see where it is that um what is doable, what may not be so doable, we're still not gonna throw them out. We're gonna see how we can make them better. And then we we're just gonna itemize all the items and ensure that we hit the ground running so that um the committee and fisheries, that technical committee that we're supporting, they have factual information on the ground of what's affecting youth in the um in this sector because the real issue that we are trying to solve with this constituency is that young persons globally in fisheries and aquaculture, they have uh they have serious challenges. And not just that, the FAO recognizes that young people across the world they have valuable contributions to um best practices in ensuring that we have sustainable fisheries for the future. So we want to give them that platform to move forward to have strong data to give to um Kofi to present at um that technical committee meeting.

SPEAKER_02 9:25

And if I can explain a little bit of uh uh the um the consultative process of livestock uh in the past year. So it we uh like for the other uh thematics and region, we built a roadmap uh to guide us through the whole year and the whole consultative process. Uh so we so we know where we are, we know what we have to do, and uh we have an end goal that will be uh powerful at the end. So uh during the summer we we did a consultation back in July to hear a little bit more about the uh the uh priorities of youth uh in the agri food system, but specifically for uh the livestock sector. And also for uh this thematic, we wanted to ask the people in the that consultation what maybe you can add a little bit as well. You're all working right with FAA. Common barriers or enablers uh to uh for youth to get uh access to the new technologies in livestock. So this was the first uh consultation we had that brings us uh to the World Food Forum, where we uh have uh another uh session where we uh we have a presentation of uh director of uh the animal production and health division, with also the um uh the chair of the coag subcommittee of livestock that will speak to us and share with them their insights and also their priorities uh that will bring us uh to coag this uh the coag subcommunity on livestock next winter. And between those, uh uh this uh consult this session that we'll have at the Full World Forum and the COAG subcommittee on livestock, we will have uh uh another consultation in November to uh like uh put bridges between the priorities of uh youth and uh so it speaks uh to uh uh the the livestock sector uh in this winter uh uh at COAG.

SPEAKER_03 11:22

I think you can all uh add to it, right? Because you're all working with FAO uh technical uh offices and divisions and how how that feels. What's the experience? Uh is it hard later to uh disseminate and to translate this knowledge uh to young people?

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Thank you. That's such a lovely question because um it's there's sometimes a challenge with having so much information and not being able to communicate it in a way that young people can understand. And that's why it's so important to have young persons like us in the youth policy board because when we do have that meeting, I I, for one, can speak. It is almost overwhelming just seeing what is being brought in front of me. But then um, again, just doing my work, reading, understanding the information, I'm able to absorb it in a way um that I can understand, and not just that. Once I understand the information fully, I can now disseminate the information in a way that my fellow peers can understand well. So it's just important for us to have to have that type of linkage. It's important for myself to have that connection with NFI, the fisheries division, the technical experts, so that um if anybody else should understand, I'm able to understand because I'm able to disseminate the information in a way that they can also absorb it.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

But of course, that's not all. I have an additional question, just one more, and that is is there anything that you would like to say to young people who are passionate uh in transforming the other food systems? Is there anything that you would like to tell them?

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Well, um, to any young person out there that maybe hear my voice, I want to tell you that you do have the opportunity to break barriers. Um, don't believe that it has all been invented as yet. No, I'm pretty sure that you have the answer to solve one of the many problems out there. Um, just put it out there.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

It's a really interesting question. And it's something that yeah, I I think I've thought on a bit throughout the process. Um, I think one thing I've learned is uh probably around confidence and and uh and courage and how um you know confidence doesn't come first. You you sort of have to have the courage to do things, and the confidence comes later. And I think um, you know, certainly in this space where we're surrounded by a lot of experts and we're having to do a lot of speaking engagements, um, yeah, that's that's just been a lesson I've learned. So I would encourage people to to have courage um to build confidence in their domain.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

I the message I would like to say would be to get involved because there's no small uh project, no small initiative uh within uh the transformation that we're doing. Uh like we we hear sometimes uh we eat an elephant one bite at a time. So there's a lot of challenge, uh like climate change. Uh it's not uh by trying to wait that the big industries or big countries uh do a change. We need to be part of that change, we need to to uh to talk to the people that represent us, we need to uh talk to the people around us and try to do small small uh changes, small uh actions, and together uh we can do uh beautiful things.