The Youth Leadership Summit series

The European Summit is the fifth in a series of regional youth leadership events. Previous summits have taken place in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean. These will culminate in the first ever United Nations Global Youth Leadership Summit at the United Nations in New York on 30 October - 1 November 2006 with youth leaders from all 191 Member States.

Challenges for European Youth

Using sport and culture as entry points, the Summit in Vienna aims to:

• Inspire European youth leaders to take an active role in achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, with a focus on Goal 8 – “Develop a global partnership for development.”
• Reflect on key issues in Europe facing youth, such as education, unemployment, HIV/AIDS, social integration, and ways of promoting peace;   
• Introduce and integrate the European youth leaders into the global youth leaders network that has emerged from other regional summits;
• Provide access to knowledge, networks and skills to help young leaders meet the challenges confronting their generation; and
• Encourage young leaders to develop their own projects and advocacy campaigns in support of the MDGs and peace.

Main themes

The Summit agenda will comprise plenary sessions with European specialists and the delegates, combined with small group discussions. The plenary sessions will discuss “The Role of Sport and Culture in Accelerating Progress towards the MDGs,” “The Millennium Development Goals and Youth,” and “The Role of Sport and Culture: Best Practices and Way Ahead.”

Clusters focus on the future

After these plenary sessions, there will be group discussions held in five clusters, which will focus on the future of Europe and the Millennium Development Goals. The clusters will address:

• Employment, poverty reduction and youth skills development
• Health challenges: reducing child and maternal mortality ; combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
• Education, empowerment of women and girls, multiculturalism, and social integration,
• Environmental sustainability
• Global partnerships and the Network for Youth Skills Development

The final plenary panel will be a discussion on “Peace-Building through Sport and Culture.” The delegates will conclude the Summit by adopting the Vienna Declaration, which will present their vision for encouraging the new generation in Europe to help achieve the MDGs, working in cooperation with youth worldwide. The declaration will be brought to the Global Summit in New York.