20th UNIVERSITY ON YOUTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Mollina (Spain), 15-18 September 2019. Taking advantage of the unique space for exchange, peer-learning, cooperation and networking that the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe’s University on Youth and Development offers, the UfM Secretariat aims at convening a focus group during the 20th edition of the event to discuss the development of its Youth Strategy, and more generally the structuring of its youth programme.
The focus group will gather experts on youth programming and policies, as well as representatives of main youth-led and youth-serving organisations from the Euro-Mediterranean region, that will exchange on concrete successful experiences and best practices. The focus group aims at identifying an inclusive process and participatory approaches that will help build a relevant bottom-up youth strategy for the UfM, advising on how to actively involve youth in the definition of UfM priorities and action, helping define how to mainstream the youth dimension in other UfM activities, advising on the creation of a UfM regional dialogue platform on youth, in line with the UfM Secretariat working methodology and experience in other sectors of activity, and helping create synergies between the UfM future Youth Strategy and other existing strategies in the region.
The meeting will also contribute to the overall UYD objectives, as it will bring together experts and representatives from the youth sector within a multilateral regional scope, in view of enhancing youth cooperation through knowledge-sharing, peer-education, exchange of best practices, design of common strategies, and action-planning.
Moreover, by helping to develop a coherent, inclusive and participatory UfM Youth Strategy, the activity will indirectly foster structured dialogue between governments, local and regional authorities, and youth organisations, as well as increase the mainstreaming of youth-related issues in the Euro-Mediterranean region through a bottom-up approach and multilateral cooperation efforts.
