Bangkok- Carolin Kern and Jonas Freist-Held,

The UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth Ahmad Alhendawi concluded a 3-day visit to Bangkok- Thailand where he held series of meetings with the Regional Directors of UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, UNEP, ILO and moderated a youth session at the Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics. The Youth Envoy joined the UN Thematic Working Group on Youth for Asia-Pacific where he discussed the implementation of the UN System-Wide Action Plan on Youth and the upcoming UN report on youth for Asia-Pacific.

At the special youth session of the Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia Asia-Pacific, Plan International and UNICEF facilitated the participation of a youth delegation to be part of a Youth Special Session at the conference. On Wednesday morning, Team CRVS, a group of young advocates from Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Germany, raised their voices to proclaim the importance of engaging youths in decision-making processes. The Youth Envoy led the session and underlined the importance of involving young leaders.

During a panel discussion, youth representatives of Asia-Pacific had the chance to present their experiences and hold their governments to account. Afterwards, Carolin and Jonas, members of the Youth Advisory Board of Plan International Germany, shared the story of their successful advocacy campaign “Make Me Visible!”. In their home country, they collected more than 10,000 symbolic fingerprints to raise awareness about the importance of CRVS. They called upon the German government to intensify its efforts to promote CRVS in its development agenda. The Team CRVS presented the Youth Call to Action for the decade of CRVS from 2015-2024.

Google Hangout

During a Google Hangout session in the afternoon, Alhendawi and Team CRVS discussed about youth participation. They talked about role of young people contributing to a successful Decade of CRVS. Everyone agreed that the engagement of young people is crucial to get everyone in the picture.

Press Conference of the CRVS Ministerial Conference

Thursday afternoon, Ahmad Alhendawi, Executive Secretary Dr Shamshad Akhtar and Carlo, a Filipino youth representative of Team CRVS, answered questions at a press conference. Dr Shamshad Akhtar underlined the commitment of all member countries to register everyone by 2024. Carlo stressed the important role of young people in this process: “If you do not listen to youth, your development goals will be nothing but a dream.” Alhendawi concluded, pointing out the importance of governments, civil society and young leaders to work together: “There is a success story to write here.”

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Learn more about TeamCRVS Portal Plan International: http://plan-international.org/where-we-work/asia/campaigns/count-every-child/civil-registration-and-vital-statistics-amplifying-youth-voices-1

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