World youth gathered in the Vatican City to strengthen global movements for sustainable development

The Vatican Youth Symposium 2018 brought together more than 70 participants, from over 30 countries and a variety of disciplines to co-generate solutions for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This year’s meeting was about bringing youth together to discuss young leadership for sustainable developmentwhere SDSN Youth stands today, how to create a smooth path forward and how to broadening the SDSN Youth reach and vision for the future.

>> Check out the Vatican Youth Symposium 2018 photo album

Karin Bylund from the secretariat in Gothenburg represented SDSN Youth in Northern Europe. She gives us a short summary of the programme and her reflections.

“One area that was discussed was ways to raise social awareness of sustainable development in schools, workplaces, and other areas of life. SDSN Youth wants to embed the concepts of sustainable development in all parts of young peoples’ lives, such as school curricula, job training, and public engagement. We shouldn’t treat sustainable development as a separate thing”, says Karin Bylund.

Another area that was discussed is the role of entrepreneurship and social businesses for the SDGs and how the SDSN Youth organization can help mobilizing the necessary financing for SDG-related solutions. Connected to this, Djaffar Shalchi from Human Act and Lynn Zovighian from NEXUS were invited to talk about philanthropy and financing for SDGs. One question that came up was how we can lift the “1% principle”, meaning that the richest 1% in the world should be willing to spend 1% of their wealth on SDG funding.

“A campaign will be launched to honour the Nelson Mandela Centenary 2018 on December 2nd – look out for that! We will spread it online”, says Karin.

To sum up, Karin also says:

“In several of the discussions at the symposium it became clear how the conditions for sustainable development differ quite radically in different parts of the world. In the near future, SDSN Youth in Northern Europe will focus our efforts on the challenges facing the Nordic countries, especially in terms of sustainable consumption.”

>>Read more about the Vatican Youth Symposium 2018

Watch the speeches!