Guatemala Declaration on Young People’s Engagement (English)

A FAIRER, More prosperous WORLD IS A WORLD IN WHICH THE YOUNG AND FUTURE GENERATIONS ARE FREED FROM CORRUPTION

Guatemala Declaration on Young People’s Engagement

W

e, concerned delegates, participants and youth organizations represented at the 12^th International Anti-Corruption Conference on: Towards a fairer world: Why is corruption still blocking the way?

· Having recognized that corruption reduces the chances for young people to grow up as empowered citizens, that it undermines their trust in democratic political systems and threatens their opportunities to benefit from any economic and social improvement;

· Being aware that corruption, an obstacle blocking the way for a fairer world, undermines the possibility for young people to build their own futures freed from poverty, exclusion, abuse and discrimination, and that it lessens their access to quality health and education services, economic opportunities and a cleaner environment;

· Recognising that over the last ten years, important improvements in anticorruption education have occurred worldwide, with the current generation of young people being the best-informed and best-educated ever, and that this education needs to be extended to all youth in every continent and mainly in developing countries;

· Reaffirming the potential of young people to generate positive social transformations around the world and recognizing that youth and young leaders’ involvement in fighting corruption is needed if present anticorruption efforts are to be sustained and a fairer world achieved;

· Acknowledging that efforts to increase young people’s involvement in the fight against corruption are investments in the future and that such efforts increase awareness in new generations of the consequences corruption has for their present and future and empower them to act against this cancer;

· Believing that the present participation of young people in leadership, decision making and governance is inadequate;

· Conscious that such efforts must be strengthened and extended to a wider group of youth, and that they must also be integrated into global strategies against corruption, thus focusing attention on youth’s potential to foster changes and lessening the barriers which now limit and frustrate youth involvement in anticorruption discourse and politics;

· Acknowledging growing frustrations, limitations and disengagement among young activists engaged in fighting corruption and promoting ethics and integrity while noting that, to many young people, the anticorruption struggle and its politics are too distant from their daily realities of school, leisure and finding work; and

· Furthermore, recognizing the value and progress of young peoples engagement in fighting corruption and promoting sound leadership, ethics and integrity as demonstrated by the effective participation of young people in different venues such as the 10^th IACC held in Prague, Czech Republic October 2001; the 11^th IACC held in Seoul, South Korea May 2003; the World Ethics Forum held in Oxford, UK April 2006; and the 7^th International Development Ethics Association (IDEA) Conference held in Kampala, Uganda July 2006:

We have thus agreed to:

1. Persist in our efforts to involve and empower young people to act against corruption and to promote good governance, integrity and transparency in our societies, countries and around the world;

2. Acknowledge that youth involvement in the fight against corruption requires creative approaches and solutions that focus on the strengths of young generations to create change;

3. Work in a spirit of cooperation to build a fairer world in which corruption is no longer an obstacle for the future of young generations and does not undermine their trust in the value of democracy nor their conviction to contribute to and benefit from development opportunities;

4. Seek, help and empower young people and youth organizations to work with policy makers and other relevant organizations and for them to work with youth at the local, regional, national and international level to raise participation in decision making;

5. Ask fellow stakeholders in the fight against corruption, including world leaders, governments and international organizations to fight any discrimination based on age and to increase young people’s participation as a key element of any strategy which aims to reduce poverty and improve the life conditions of millions of young people around the world;

6. Call on youth activists and young people’s organizations worldwide to demonstrate that their generation will not remain silent about the damages corruption is causing to our societies and countries, and definitively will not accept corruption as a part of our cultures and lives, and to understand that we must work in creative ways as we approach the problems and their solutions;

7. Call on donors and the general international anti-corruption community to give more attention to young peoples initiatives and to acknowledge the significant contributions that young leaders are already making to achieve sound leadership, transparency and integrity in their societies in spite of scarce resources and weak organizational support;

8. Call therefore on donors and the international anti-corruption community:

a) To pay increased attention to the opinions, initiatives and strategies of young people on how to achieve more transparency and accountability in governments;

b) To invite young people to contribute to the design of governance and anti-corruption programs for their societies;

c) To increase funding for youth-driven anti-corruption, governance and poverty reduction programmes, in order to sustain and increase the momentum of such programmes; and

d) To move away from ad hoc activity-based approaches of youth engagement, to the inclusion of more young people in core aspects of fighting corruption, promoting sound leadership, ethics and good governance.

Guatemala City, 15 November 2006