AGA 2018
Young and ready to move – empowering the new generation in the rural space
The future of agriculture, transformation of rural spaces and the need to provide youth with the conditions for a decent and meaningful life are interlinked. How can donors plan and implement successful interventions while working on this nexus? What are the key leverage points for enhancing the impact of development investments in agriculture, food systems and empowering rural livelihoods for and with the young people? Inspired by these questions, the Platform members chose Rural Youth Empowerment as an overarching theme for the Annual General Assembly (AGA) 2018. This year the AGA will be held on June 13 – 14 in Berlin.
Why rural youth?
Youth accounts for one out of every six people worldwide. Globally, millions of young people are bound to engage in agriculture. These young women and men will shape the future of the agriculture and rural development. Thus, addressing inclusive rural transformation entails bringing rural youth on board, empowering them to speak for themselves with their experiences and ideas, and creating the means for them to connect, share and develop solutions for the challenges they face.
AGA in a nutshell
The Annual General Assembly (AGA) of the Platform is a yearly event that provides an open space for debate and/or consensus by Platform members, partners and invited guests on emerging topics in agriculture and rural development (ARD). AGA participants benefit from the core services of the Donor Platform: knowledge sharing, advocacy and networking on key development issues and strategic directions that affect lives in rural space.
AGA 2018: What to expect
The AGA 2018 will bring together the donor/IFI community and young women and men for a dialogue to:
- provide an effective exchange of information and knowledge between the young rural generation and the AGA participants on how to make ARD programmes more youth-responsive;
- present donor / IFI engagement in rural youth empowerment and provide insights of private sector engagement; and receive feedback from the young generation and what are the priorities in moving forward.
“Donor engagement with youth”
In preparation to the Annual General Assembly 2018, the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development commissioned a compendium “Donor engagement with youth”. It will be presented in Berlin to AGA participants. In parallel, young people will offer some answers on how to move forward in rural areas.
For more information about the AGA 2018, including the event agenda and booklet, as well as the compendium "Donor engagement with rural youth", please consult the downloads below.
video
AGA 2018
Empowering the young for a sustainable rural space
More than a hundred participants from around the world gathered in Berlin on June 13-14 for the Annual General Assembly (AGA) of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development to discuss the strategic perspectives on the role of donors and international development agencies in empowering young people in rural areas.
The Global Donor Platform for Rural Development organised its AGA 2018 with the support of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the African Development Bank (AfDB). The title of the event hints on hot policy areas for donors these days - "Young and ready to move - empowering the new generation in the rural space".
The background to the thematic discussions was the Rural Youth Employment Initiative, to which governments and heads of states voted on at the G20 summit in 2017. This historic vote signalled a clear political commitment of the international community to improve the efforts to empower youth in rural areas.
DAY I: Bringing young voices in the discussion
From the first day on, the AGA 2018 had an innovative format: it brought young women and men from rural areas and the donor and development community to dialogue about ways to youth empowerment and making ARD programmes and private sector engagement more youth-responsive. What matters the most for the youth empowerment in the rural space? The discussion about these key priorities brought the young generation of agriculturalists on stage to share their views.
Later on, the panel Joint Donor and Youth Think-Tank brought this discussion onto a new arrangement. Donors joined young people on the stage. The primary goal: finding ways to better align programmes and policies supported by the international community with the priorities of the young rural generation. You can find a video summary of the panel in the subsequent section below.
Many members and partners of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development are already walking the talk. One of the highlights of the first day of AGA 2018 was the presentation of the Compendium “Donor engagement with youth”, commissioned by the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development in preparation for the AGA 2018. The study can be found in the Downloads section below. In the afternoon, participants split into four working groups. The results of these discussions were then again summarised in the plenary. For further information about the working groups, please scroll down to the Downloads section.
Mahedere Adimasu, manager of the Maheder food processing PLC, and Hernan Manson, from the International Trade Centre (ITC), offered at the end key takeaway messages:
- Many challenges that young people in rural areas face are interlinked. Responding to these challenges requires systems thinking.
- Donors need to generate an environment for private sector integration.
- Social media can be effectively used to communicate valuable information to the young people.
- Farmers need be to empowered in the changing world. Donors can support this by providing basic and technical education, enhance farmers’ capacities to learn, innovate and adapt.
DAY 2: Connecting the dots: employment, youth empowerment and development effectiveness in the rural space
The tone of the thematic discussions of the second day was set by the keynote speech about “Strategic Framing of Youth Empowerment – What is needed in the future?”
The links between the future of agriculture, the transformation of rural areas and the commitment of the donor and development community to enable young people to live a decent and meaningful life were the focus of the two-panel discussions during the high-level forum. First, the focus was on the young farmers and the decent rural employment.
The final panel discussion focused on increasing development effectiveness of donor/IFI programmes and strategies to better support rural youth. You can find a short video summary of the final panel in the subsequent section below.
The agenda of the second day also included the Members’ Session, which as tradition has it, provides space for the platform’s members to learn through exchange with each other, to reflect on and strengthen the Donor Platform as a community, build partnerships and devise concrete actions to reach the goals of the Global Donor Platform for Rural Development. All relevant documents, including presentations and the video-summaries of some discussion panels, can be found in the subsequent sections below.
videos
Photos
AGA 2018: photo highlights of the day 1
AGA 2018: photo highlights of the day 2
Downloads
AGA 2018 documents
Related Documents
Presentations
Links
Contact | Secretariat
Maurizio Navarra
Secretariat Coordinator
protected email