An urgent call for intergenerational solidarity: Steps to address the trust deficit
By Michael Boampong, Senior Youth Advisor for ChildFund
Global transformations — from an aging population to a growing youth bulge, rising inequalities, and climate-related risks and vulnerabilities — have created profound uncertainties for children, youth and future generations. Amid slow COVID-19 pandemic recovery, the Russia-Ukraine war has exacerbated preexisting challenges related to poverty, rising debts, food insecurity, hunger and youth unemployment, and there are growing new threats to civic space and political life.
Alarmingly, another crisis is coming, and there is the potential for widening inequalities within and among different age cohorts and countries. OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) indicators suggest that, across several domains, young people find it increasingly difficult to achieve some of the typical expectations of adulthood, including meeting their own basic human needs.
As we enter our third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we see that young people face distinct age-related barriers in various aspects of their lives, as noted in the experience of Paulette*, 19, who participates in ChildFund’s Voice Now program for youth in Brazil:
“The age-related barriers that I have faced in areas such as employment are the lack of opportunities and disbelief in youth in the labor market. Most jobs require experience, and youth are not given the opportunity to acquire such experience required within the market.”
On International Youth Day 2022, intergenerational solidarity is being called for to tackle ageism and global issues, with the UN Secretary-General making new recommendations on renewed intergenerational solidarity.
As we collectively recover from the shocks of COVID-19 and the increased cost of living, short-term needs must not overshadow the urgency of fixing our failing system governance and economic systems. Nurturing trust, accountability and co-leadership to address existing inequalities in employment and opportunities for governance are critical elements in addressing ageism.
To promote intergenerational solidarity, we have identified some key steps on how to reform the current global development architecture in order to serve young people better.
Step 1: Rebuilding trust and building new partnerships
The growing challenges and disparities between generations have led to a distrust in adult-led institutions and systems inherited by young people. For instance, youth’s trust in most institutions, including their governments, has decreased since 2006 in most OECD countries, according to a 2020 study. Likewise, in Africa, where the median age across the continent is 19, a 2021 survey by Afrobarometer suggested that, on average, across 18 countries, more than six in 10 young Africans (64% of those aged 18- 35) say their country is “going in the wrong direction.”
Young people are leading social movements and demonstrate a vital agency for addressing global challenges, including climate change, unemployment, rising inequality, violent conflict and threats to democratic institutions. A youth-adult co-leadership model can emerge from this. For instance, ChildFund Voice Now members note:
“As a student, I have been involved in various clubs to address barriers such as health and environment. In environmental club, I have been involved in planting trees in school and out of school. With regards to health, I have been involved in peer learning. This peer-to-peer learning enables me to exchange my views with friends and learn about HIV/AIDS prevention and protection.”
— Sandy*, 18, Ethiopia“Adults must always appreciate our skills and contributions. They must support us.”
— Balaji*, 19, Sri Lanka
From the Arab Spring protest over lack of decent jobs to the Black Lives Matter movement against racism to the urgent calls to #EndSARS, movements led by young people have been met with resistance from many institutions and adults. In fact, some of these movements are direct responses to a lack of trust in institutions led by adults. As noted by Debbie*, a ChildFund Voice Now member in Ecuador:
“Adults underestimate us. They think we don’t have the skills or the knowledge that is needed. We need more support from them. They diminish us.”
Moreover, the Occupy Wall Street protest following the 2008 financial crisis also indicated a mistrust of the global financial architecture. The UN’s World Economic Situation and Prospects as of mid-2022 recently projected a broad-based global economic slowdown. With another financial crisis looming, it is essential that before the IMF/World Bank Annual meetings in October and the COP27 in November, a youth coalition is organized to build consensus around youth priorities, galvanize action and rally support for youth-friendly measures, including youth budgeting to promote economic recovery. Not only will such action ultimately drive reforms in the global financial architecture to serve youth better, but it will also provide an opportunity to promote youth participation and transparency and rebuild trust and accountability mechanisms in international development.
Step 2: Promote intergenerational co-leadership and accountability
From the African Union Agenda 2063 and the MyWorld2015 survey to the recent UN75 global conversation consultations, most youth involved in global development consultations have demonstrated the need for multilateral cooperation based on human rights, justice and solidarity in responding to global challenges. However, today’s young generation is also prepared to move beyond consultations and protests to play a critical role in governance and leadership across levels of development. Intergenerational co-leadership offers an opportunity to channel young people’s energy and idealism toward addressing local and global challenges as presented in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Intergenerational co-leadership is a strategy that promotes working across generations to co-design, co-create and co-produce solutions for national, regional and global challenges aligned with young people’s view of the future.
Young people’s participation does not occur in a void and must be guided by diversity, inclusion, human rights, justice and solidarity principles. Moreover, it is not enough to say that young people are the future and engage them. We need to move from superficial debates highlighting ‘work with youth’ and ‘voices of youth’ to establishing preconditions of human development that enable young people from diverse backgrounds to influence policies while contributing productively to economic growth. This involves addressing critical gaps in youth development priorities, including workforce development and precarious labor conditions. For instance, on average, 11 million young people join the African labor market each year, yet the continent generates only 3.7 million jobs annually. There is an urgent need to fix this to avoid another ‘Arab Spring.’
In many ways, countries and institutions need to strengthen the relationship between youth and institutions to address the generational gap in governance. For example, Africa is the continent with the youngest population worldwide, with 70% of the population under 30. However, in 2018, the average age of heads of states across the continent was 64.5 years. This indicates a generational gap in governance. It is essential to remember that youth worldwide experience barriers to political participation in instances where there are age restrictions, high election filing fees and campaign costs. This further reinforces the need for us to address some of the preconditions to participation, including promoting youth economic empowerment. Moreover, global development institutions will need to do more to promote youth leadership within themselves by making sure organizational governance systems are representative of young people, their needs and aspirations. Youth mainstreaming offers a useful lens to understanding the significance of youth and how to co-lead and co-create development solutions with youth.
While these two steps are not the exhaustive silver bullet to addressing current global development challenges, they offer some fundamental guiding principles to intergenerational solidarity. If you have any strategies for building intergenerational solidarity, it will be great to hear your views.
Michael Boampong is the Senior Youth Advisor for ChildFund, where he ensures strong program delivery for youth in over 20 countries.
*This article was written with perspectives from youth in ChildFund country office locations. The names of the young people have been anonymized to protect their identity.
