SDG’s and the Role of the Youth

The agenda of 2030 for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) was made by United Nations as a worldwide agenda comprising of 17 goals and 169 targets that became guidelines for global actions in the next 15 years. Among them are no poverty; zero hunger; good health and well-being; qualified education; gender equality; clean water and sanitation; affordable and clean energy; decent work and economic growth; industry, innovation, and infrastructure; reduced inequalities; sustainable cities and communities; responsible consumption and production; climate action; sea ecosystem; land ecosystem; peace, justice and strong institutions; and partnership to reach the goals.

SDG’s applies universally to every country, thus all countries without exception has moral responsibility to reach SDG’s goals and targets. Every country must perform review on SDG’s with its achievement and make a document to be reported to global level. Further, knowing that youth has potential capability to influence policies, under cooperation with BAPPENAS, Save The Children Institute Indonesia, and Gusdurian network held a youth consultation on March 23rd to 24th, 2019 at Ibis Hotel Yogyakarta which was attended by 30 youth participants from various organizations, universities, and origins.

Ratna Yunita, an advisor from Save the Children Institute asked the participants to do a “river of life” by writing and describing issues or forms of injustice that they have encountered since their childhood until now. Afterwards, she explains the purposes and goals of SDG’s for youth and communities and the role of today’s youth. Ratna also explained the parameters of achievement, challenges for SDG’s implementation and emphasized that the government has created a coordination team up to regional level.

Accompanied by Ryan, one Youth Independent Consultant, participants formed a large group and identified issues at a much deeper scale for every reviewed- parameter based on the “river of life” before the presentation session. There are 6 parameters which are reviewed this year, covering qualified education; climate action; peace and justice; social inequality; partnership to achieve the goals; and gender equality. Participants also created parameters for SDG’s accountabilities and funding, discussed a set priority and the capital, and wrote a recommendation for each parameter at a major issue to be forwarded to BAPPENAS (National Development Planning Institution). On the last session, the participants were asked to discuss and choose one male and one female youth as the recommended representative to BAPPENAS-Jakarta in order to deliver the aspirations of Yogyakarta’s youth.

At the end of the two-days event, Ferdi from Gusdurian network and Sarloce Apang from Stube-HEMAT Yogyakarta was chosen to represent Yogyakarta’s youth delivering ideas and inputs to Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning at Jakarta around April 2019. (ELZ).