Meaningful youth engagement at the EU and UN

It’s an honour to sit here and speak on behalf of the European Union. Let me start by highlighting how the EU works together with youth, and what we learned, or should have learned at least.

First, Every year, all EU commissioners have to organise a youth policy dialogue. The first time, they were not perfect, they still are not. But everyone is learning. To transform a Q&A into an open conversation. To give young people time to prepare and align priorities. And to find a way in which Commissioners like it. So they WANT to meet with youth and work with them.

Then, Last year the EU Youth, Peace and Security Conference resulted in a network of over 550 young peacebuilders from all regions in the world. By bringing them together, they can meet, learn, and collaborate. Not only with each other, but also with EU Delegations on the ground.

This is also exactly the goal of the AU EU Youth Cluster we are launching next week. A place where young people from Africa and Europe can directly meet with diplomats about their shared challenges, and where they can share experiences, best practises and ideas among each other.

Institutions need to be open to youth, yes. But we need to look at ourselves as well.

When I stepped into the United Nations with 18 years old, I thought I needed to pretend to be a diplomat to be taken seriously. So learn the difficult words and write official letters.Because if I was myself, I was too young, too inexperienced and too naive. But then I realised, this is exactly our power!

We are young, so we can raise concerns of our generation;

We are inexperienced, so we can come up with new, bold ideas;

We are naïve, so we can believe in things that might seem impossible.

Not with perfect diplomatic language that could come straight out of a resolution, but with the honesty and authenticity that these rooms need. That is why our voices matter.

So what did we do? We brought the real stories of young Europeans straight to rooms like these. We stopped writing letters, and instead brought a football with messages from young people from almost all continents into the UN. After we got kicked out by security, we smuggled it back in and gave it to the ASG. And I heard he still has the ball with the messages in his office more than half a year later. No way that would have happened with a letter.

So, if there is one thing you remember from today, let it be that you never hide yourself. Never pretend to be a diplomat. Because your ideas, your concerns and your dreams is what makes it that you deserve to be here.