In September/ October the General Assembly in New York will take place. And of course the Youth Delegates will be present there!

United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Basic Facts concerning Youth Delegates

• The General Assembly’s work is divided into six committees. The third is the one that explicitly discusses the topic of “youth”. It falls under the agenda item of “social development” or “social groups”.
• The Third committee has plenary meetings where national statements are read on each agenda item. Some statements are held by one country on behalf of many. Sometimes youth delegates give a speech on youth during Third committee plenary meetings.
• The negotiations on a resolution (so called “informals”) are held parallel to the plenary meetings in smaller conference rooms. Sometimes they also take place during lunch. This is where member states put forward their suggestions for changes to the draft resolution and negotiate them. These meetings may only be attended by delegates representing member states. Whether a youth delegate is allowed to attend or not depends on the delegation of each youth delegate.
• Negotiations in regional groups (G77, European Union etc) are held before and after the informals to agree on a position within the group. These meetings are usually “closed meetings” meaning that only the members of this group may attend.
• The General Assembly gathers in plenary to adopt the resolutions or to discuss topics that concern more than one committee.

The UNGA Resolution on Youth

Resolutions are the foundation on which every UN action is based. Debating and adopting resolutions can therefore be considered two of the core activities of UN diplomats.

Resolutions are decisions by the international community expressing the desire to change a certain situation and prescribing ways in which this can be done. They are adopted by member states of the UN in the various organs of the UN, for example in the General Assembly (GA).

There are several resolutions that concern issues related to youth, and many of them are negotiated in the Third Committee of the General Assembly. The main resolution dealing with youth issues is the "resolution on programmes and policies involving youth". It is negotiated in the Third Committee of the General Assembly usually every second year . For a list of the most recent resolutions on programmes and policies involving youth click here.

The resolution on programmes and policies involving youth is drafted by a member state at some point before the GA. Usually the resolution is introduced at the Commission for Social Development (CSocD) which meets in early February every year. If it is not introduced at the CSocD then it is introduced during the General Assembly.
There are thus a number of occasions to give input to the resolution:

1. Previous generations of youth delegates to the UN GA have started the process of writing an "input paper" which is the core document which youth delegates base their lobbying on. This input paper is sent to the responsible person in the Permanent Mission to the UN of the country that is drafting the resolution.


2. You should contact your mission in New York and the responsible person at your Ministry of Foreign Affairs to convince them to take the input paper into account when deciding on their position on the resolution. This contact is also aimed at making sure that you are updated by them with latest drafts of all relevant resolutions. You should also inform them on the particular concerns of young people in your country regarding what should be included in the resolution.