Youth and Innovation
for Repositioning of Africa in the World
Mr Miroslav Polzer PhD, Secretary General IAAI &
Mr Jean Paul Brice Affana, head of Youth programs IAAI (via skype)
14th Bled Forum on Europe
EUROPE FOR AFRICA & AFRICA FOR WORLD
Ljubljana, Slovenia, 7.- 8. May 2013
Content of the Presentation
• About IAAI
• Africa-Europe Relations in the Context of Global Challenges
• The Need for Innovation & the Rio+20 Issues Cluster on Innovation
• The Challenge: Connecting via modern information and
communication technologies African Youth with a Global Action
Network addressing with market based mechanisms effectively
global challenges in a mutually beneficial way.
• Central Role of UN System (MDGs, Rio+20 Outcome
implementation, post 2015 regime) and the need for glocal
Sustainable Development governance Systems Engineering
• IAAI “GloCha” Conceptual Innovations (Glocal public goods market
formation, Global Challenges Centers, GloCha ICT Grid)
• case studies: African Youth Engagement, Empowerment and
Participation in Addressing Global Challenges (Jean Paul)
• Future Plans and Cooperation Potentials:
About IAAI
• “International Association for the Advancement of
Innovative Approaches to Global Challenges IAAI”
www.glocha.info is a not-for profit private association, which
has been established under Austrian law of associations by
an international group of scientists, science managers and
futures studies experts in March 2007.
• IAAI main objective is to explore and promote systemic
innovation regarding resource mobilization of global
civil society for effective global governance in support
of the work of United Nation System.
Context I: EU- Africa Partnership:
The Joint Strategy focuses on moving:
• beyond development cooperation, by opening up the
Africa-EU dialogue and cooperation to issues of joint
concern and interest such as jobs and trade;
• beyond Africa by moving away from the traditional focus
on purely African development matters, towards
effectively addressing global challenges such as
migration, climate change, peace and security;
• beyond fragmentation, in supporting Africa’s aspirations
to find trans-regional and continental responses to
some of the most important challenges;
• beyond institutions, in working towards a peoplecentred partnership, ensuring better participation of
African and European citizens.
Context II:
Global Community does not achieve agreed goals!
GEO 5
The fifth edition of the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO-5)
assessed 90 of the most-important environmental goals and
objectives and found that
significant progress had only been made in four. !!!!!!!!!
http://www.unep.org/newscentre/default.aspx?DocumentID=2688&ArticleID=9158
&
Weak achievement of MDGs in African context
- > New Thinking is Needed!!!
-> Conceptual and Institutional Innovations are Needed!
IAAI &
Rio+20 Issues Cluster on Innovation
ORIENTING INNOVATION SYSTEMS TOWARDS GRAND CHALLENGES AND THE ROLES THAT FTA CAN PLAY
Effie Amanatidou
Visiting Research Associate / PhD researcher, Manchester Institute of Innovation Research, UK
Africa‘s Youth – A Great Pool of Talent and Social Energy
Africa is the world’s youngest continent, as the proportion of youth
among the region’s total population is higher than in any other continent.
In 2010, 70 percent of the region’s population was under the age of
30, and slightly more than 20 per cent were young people between the
ages of 15 to 24. The socioeconomic conditions of young Africans
have improved in recent years, but not considerably. There has
been an increase in school enrolment over the past 20 years, and the
gender gap in education has narrowed, however, young Africans
continue to face major difficulties in the realms of higher
education, employment, health, and participation in decisionmaking processes.
African youth have the potential to be a great impetus for Africa’s
development, provided that appropriate investments in health and
human capital are made. However, if youth issues are not addressed,
and if high rates of youth unemployment and under-employment persist,
Africa’s development could be negatively affected.
Source: UN Division for Social Development- Youth Directorate: Regional Overview: Youth in Africa
http://social.un.org/youthyear/docs/Regional%20Overview%20Youth%20in%20Africa.pdf
IAAI/GloCha Conceptual Innovations:
– Global Youth Music Contest (Jean Paul)
– Establishing a market for local and global public
goods (Inge Kaul and Pedro Conceição (eds.), The
New Public Finance- Responding to Global
Challenges) -> micro social entrepreneurship
promotion
– Global Challenges Centers: connecting local level
sustainable development action with a UN oriented
global network of financial resources, knowledge and
social energy
– GloCha Grid - ICT infrastructure for multistakeholder
sustainable development resource management (in
the context of UN goals and programs)
IAAI Conceptual nnovation:
GloCal Public Goods market
Future Plans and Cooperation Potentials
Development of project initiatives with
ICPE, CeGD, etc. in connection with UN
agencies in Vienna (UNIDO, Sustainable
Energy for All Office Vienna, ..) building on
expertise and connecting potentials from
Central and Southeast Europe (e.g. RCC)
with African potentials (e.g. ECOWAS
Regional Centre for Renewable Energy and
Energy Efficiency (ECREEE)
Conclusion
Without African Youth as partners in
addressing sustainable development and
other global goals on local level (= provision of
glocal public goods) there can be no just,
peaceful and sustainable world
UN system - we as humanity - will win or lose
our quest for a better world in Africa –
therefore events like 14th Bled Forum on
Europe are important and valuable.
Thank You for your attention!
Looking forward to a fruitful discussion and cooperation!
Contact:
polzer@glocha.info
www.glocha.info