By Namakula Mariam
The government has called upon all stakeholders to embrace cross generational engagement as means to achieve proper Environment and Natural Resource Governance (ENRG).
Bob Kazungu, the assistant commissioner forestry ministry of water and environment said that strides have been made to ensure everyone is on board as part of government mandate, special groups like the youth have over the time decried the lack of representation especially on policy making forums thus making it hard to be part of decisions making but also consultation processes and yet they form the majority
“So I think we need to get a balance, even within the youth themselves. They must appreciate that not everything they’re bringing up might necessarily be correct, but that’s a particular situation. They need to be guided also, by people who have been around maybe for some time,”Kazungu said.
“That’s why am saying, we need to have a cross-generational engagement, so that the youth can appreciate that, okay, somebody might have some more experience than I do, having gone through certain things over the years. And therefore can say, but no, what you are raising is going to cause us some legal problems probably, in the future, and cause the country some problems, or loss of money. So that point within the policy, we may need to write it like this,” he added.
Acknowledged however, the good practice it was for whoever was working on the policy to take ona good point raised and include it within the policy.
Youths, according to one of their leaders present at the National Youth Dialogue on ENR Governance during the weekend bring skills, innovation and creativity to the table and that one of the greatest key barriers categorised in four were socio-economic, political, as well as technological.
The National Youth Dialogue on ENR Governace is part of the different activities that are lined up ahead of the Annual International Youth Day scheduled August 12th under the theme Youth Empowerment for Sustainable Development and was organized by Training Education Empowerment Neighborhood Sustainability (TEENS) in partnership with Environmental Alert.
Ms Jacinta Nakesa Nangabo, Executive Director Environmental Alert also emphasized on issues of involving the youth in natural resource government though cautioning them to be more aware on different policies and engage in dialogues to ensure that their ideas are not left at the table.
She adds stakeholders should therefore deliberately work with universities where these youth are studying and ensure that before even they leave school or before they leave university, since they’re doing courses related to what we are discussing now, climate change, environment, that we reach out to them exactly so that they put meaning to the things that they are studying.
“Because these are the things that they are going to interface with when they come out to the field as the reality. So also, that strategy of working with training institutions, the universities, schools, that is going to help us then to mobilize and get as many youth on board,” Nekesa said.
“If the policies exist, do they actually know these policies? You know, having a policy is one thing, but understanding, knowing it and internalizing it, so probably what we need also to do is to come up with maybe abridged versions, what is the understanding by the different stakeholders, including the youth. So that would be one thing. But also ensuring that we disseminate them, because the policies are made at national level, but who is actually,” Nekesa added.
All this however could be achieved with mentorship on how youth can revisiting their approaches such as confrontation influence decisions making especially those involving multiple stakeholders.
Kazungu said, “When you have this confrontational approach, people will not take you seriously. They will think you’re just being confrontational, you want to embarrass people, and so they may not really take you seriously. So they must be mentored to understand how do they engage.”
“How can you engage with government? How can you engage with donors? How can you engage with communities? How can you engage people who have not gone to school? These are different things. How can you engage with cultural leaders? You don’t just come and shout around when there is a cultural leader, for example, a king or a chief. They will take you unserious, and so your point will not be taken.”
While formation of collective groups also came out strong, the need to look at different group dynamics and leadership things and the governance within their groups to be able to build capacity within their groups, take them through dynamics of group management and leadership so that they can stay cohesive together and move ideas in a manner that is wholesome rather than, you know, someone speaking as a video and making a lot of noise and banging the tables, the way they’re saying banging the tables and working in silos like you’re mentioning.” So I think to me, it’s important that they look at that because government wants to work with organized people anyway. They’re easy to track, they’re easy to follow up, they’re easy to get reports from,” Kazungu said.
