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Reflections - Youth International Summits

About a year and a half ago I had the opportunity to attend the G8 Youth Summit in London. I came back from London feeling very angry, with multiple questions about the role and impact of the Summit on the development of the globe and especially of the African continent.

This is what made me angry:

1. The whole thing; the debates, the negotiations, it felt like a simulation - something related to the Model UN in various universities where we just practice to talk and present our cases. It felt as though the summit would be of little consequence; that we were only engaging in talks that would not yield any action required for sustainable impact.

2. The majority of the discussions were about Africa and it made me sad that these had to be discussed on foreign land with the majority of negotiators being non-African and many having only read about the challenges that Africa is facing. I believe Africa needs minds and hands well acquainted to her challenges.

3. While at the summit I also discovered that some of the youth had been handpicked to attend the summit. Their attendance was therefore not based on merit of work well done to move the world forward. Some of the candidates therefore did not have the heart for the kind of work that we had envisioned to get done in and after London; it felt as though the youth and their governments just wanted to have it ticked off as an event attended.

In hindsight, with the anger having greatly subsided, I am very grateful for the experience. The summit was my first in global youth diplomacy and I don’t think I will ever want to do it as it was done. I find that many of us youth leaders value more international travel to fancy hotels to talk about problems as opposed to staying at base, or while in that travel, coming up with sound solutions for problems that we continuously state on public platforms. I am not too sure about South African youth but, I see it a lot at home (Botswana). Many believe that travelling abroad and attending this and that summit or conference is youth leadership. The lesson is therefore of the need to extensively examine the problems that we so often talk about, come up with sustainable solutions and act on them.

A few months ago, one of my mentors made a very valid point on her Facebook page. She suggested that as we travel the world to attend all these conferences we must bear in mind that the people experiencing the problems are stuck somewhere in some down trotted village with no food or access to ‘common’ facilities. It is very important that we bear in mind that as we talk the problems remain unresolved. Upon returning home from international travel, we ought to make time for generation of solutions for problems discussed and commit to action.

For impact’s sake, we also need to carefully examine why we are doing what we are doing. It is very disappointing to realize that many are doing it only for self interest – so they may stand tall, shine and say they did something. It is often done for recognition and in other cases for donor money. Africa deserves much better than that. Africa needs leadership that is willing to take time out to think, engage the mind and develop ideas that will lead to sustainable development. World travel alone and posting of pictures on Facebook will not yield any of the results we say we want to see in our lifetime.

This is an edited version of an article posted on Bonfiire on December 11th, 2014.