Framing Paper 3 Blog Post – Whole People, Holistic Approaches: Cross-Sectoral Action and Learning

By Barbara Zeus

To download the full paper, please visit: http://www.ineesite.org/roundtable2010

Today’s youth population is the largest the world has seen. Overall, of the 1.2 billion youth aged 15 to 24, almost 85 per cent live in developing countries; areas that see most of the world’s conflict, disaster or protracted crisis.

Youth find themselves in a formative and decisive period as they assume new responsibilities and make decisions that will affect lifelong potential. Youth have a lot to offer and contribute to peacebuilding, community reconstruction and development. Their physical strength, resilience and capacity, however, also render them more vulnerable under the extreme conditions of war and crisis as they may be targeted for violence, abuse and exploitation through forced labour, recruitment into armed forces, trafficking or commercial sex. They are thus at increased risk of related health issues such as unwanted pregnancies, HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases.

Despite these risks, youth continue to fall between protection, mandate and funding cracks. Youth in conflict situations are often prevented from attending school because of school closures, lack of safety and security in or en route to school. In refugee settings or once repatriated there may be bureaucratic obstacles in continuing or accessing next levels of education and many youth cannot integrate at levels commensurate with their prior levels of learning leading to frustration and drop-out. Of all beneficiaries in UNHCR-supported education programmes for refugees, only approximately five per cent are enrolled in secondary education, six per cent in non-formal and three per cent in vocational and tertiary education programmes. Access to education for crisis-affected youth living in rural areas, as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), illegal migrants in urban areas or in the immediate aftermath of disasters is even more challenging than for long-term refugees in camp settings.

Youth have proven themselves to be a tremendous asset for any society. They can be far more than passive beneficiaries but can become positive actors. With adequate support structures and room for creative outlet, youth have self-initiated and further developed programmes leading to positive impacts beyond expected programme goals. Countries with very young and youthful age structures face great challenges, but also great potential to their development and security. When education, healthcare and employment are available, young people renew and revitalise a country’s economy and institutions. Without access to these social services, however, countries with a large proportion of young people have historically been the most volatile and vulnerable to conflict.

Effectively responding to youth’s rights, meeting their needs and allowing them to develop to their fullest potential even when affected by complex crisis should be a key concern for international humanitarian action. In order to tap into their potential and use their energy and resilience in a positive and constructive way for the common good, innovative approaches are needed. Considering how youth traverse a variety of sectors as they transition from childhood to adulthood and from education to employment, holistic approaches and coordinated action between the public and private domain, across sectors and domains of activity and across levels of decision-making are emerging as solution strategies for such complex challenges.

Holistic approaches recognise and contextualise the whole person’s well-being by looking beyond the individual and taking into consideration the environment youth live in and the factors that shape their behaviours, such as families, communities, schools, the media, the legal system, socio-cultural norms and the broader socio-economic and political context. Programmatic approaches are holistic when they match youth’s needs, interests and skills with locally available resources, services and market realities and integrating programmes into the wider context by establishing referral networks and cross-sectoral partnerships thus facilitating the transition from training to income generation. Such strong local linkages are also important for ownership, programme relevance and sustainability. Involving young people themselves in all stages of the project cycle and as peer educators has proven successful and led to youth empowerment.

What is needed therefore is coordinated action from researchers, policy makers and practitioners so youth move up on the priority list of the humanitarian agenda and receive the attention they deserve. Lessons on best practices and documented programme impacts need to be shared and disaggregated data on the characteristics of the heterogeneous youth population systematically collected. Youth participation in humanitarian action as partners and leaders needs to be treated as a matter of course and such mechanisms be formalised and institutionalised through the development of national youth plans. Improving coordination at the global level, with a view to improved practice at the national level to address the rights and needs of youth affected by crisis is also essential.  Mechanisms and spaces for increased partnership and learning should be created, particularly between the Education, Protection, Early Recovery, Agriculture, WASH and Health Clusters, as well as with other cross-cutting issues such as Gender, HIV/AIDS and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support.

With increasing popularity of such approaches practical challenges remain that require our attention:

• What mechanisms and tools are needed to overcome challenges of data collection on crisis-affected youth?
• What partnerships are needed to effectively advocate for youth’s needs and how can such partnerships be developed and maintained at national and global levels?
• How can meaningful youth participation in humanitarian action become systematized and scaled up?