This October, Earth4All participated in the German and the Austrian Local Conferences of the Youth (LCOY) to interact with young people around the Earth4All messages and understand the perceived priorities of the youth for their country.
These conferences gather youth activists, students and concerned young citizens around political issues, such as climate justice and media transparency – with Earth4All bringing a lens of systems thinking for change.
Together with our Earth4All national partners for Austria and Germany, our Participation Adviser Lena facilitated mini-citizen assembly-style deliberations to identify the perceived issues but also priorities of the youth for their country.
In Austria, the outcome of the assembly showed a strong emphasis on the concepts of human rights and justice.
Young LCOY participants in Austria take part in the Earth4All workshop
Proposals for policy levers focused, for instance, on exponential cost of energy usage or exponential wealth taxation, paired with strong safety nets for society in the form of Universal Basic Services (housing, healthcare, food, energy, education, etc).
Participants also advocated for a strong regulatory role for the state, for instance in auditing circular economy action plans by businesses, but also in tackling issues linked to empowerment such as unpaid care or the pay gap between job sectors to impact perceived perverse social norms.
Finally, calls for better education throughout life and increased participatory politics, for instance through citizen councils, completed the priority demands.
In Germany, the priority policy levers were democratic participation, systemic restructuring, societal safety nets and regenerative agriculture while maintaining a focus on needs- and science-based approaches.
A key demand throughout all groups was centred around civic participation: youth called for “placing value in true civic participation to dismantle systemic corruption and inequality” or for “empowering local communities to distribute responsibility and power in a more decentralised and efficient manner”. The fostering of a stronger sense of community and social trust was also repeated throughout the German groups. Some youth called for a restructuring of the basis for our society, with a “system built aligned with the SDGs and the Brundtland definition”.
Whether Universal Basic Income or Services, guaranteeing social wellbeing was also a shared priority across the groups, with one group emphasising a shared responsibility in bringing this about to both their national governments and supranational organisations.
Finally, policies for regenerative agriculture were pushed, as a mean to both provide organic food security as well as a healthy environment for better living.
Recurring was the view that a major obstacle in Germany is legislative frameworks being inconsistent, contradictory, and not aligned with the interests and priorities of the people.
What’s next?
The voices of these youth will be taken onboard by Earth4All Austria and Earth4All Germany in the next phases of our national engagement strategies. They contribute both to the non-expert stress-testing of the messages of Earth4All, but also have a role to play in contributing to the advocacy activities of Earth4All.
Are you looking to run deliberative sessions with stakeholders to understand their priorities and attitudes to systems-wide issues? You can rely on the free resources developed by Earth4All specifically for non-expert consultations, available here.
About Earth4All at the national scale
Recognising that policy solutions must be tailored to the unique circumstances of each country and locality, Earth4All has embarked on national engagement strategies to champion and establish locally relevant policies aligned with our core messages. This approach allows us to transform our ideas into tangible actions.
