Latest content: Youth

Young climate activists from across the Commonwealth shone a light on just how critical youth are at a series of events organised by the Commonwealth Youth Programme at this year’s COP but demanded world leaders need to take more action beyond the annual conference.

The Commonwealth Secretariat organised its first Commonwealth Pavilion at COP26 to serve as an inclusive and collaborative space for member countries and accredited organisations to meet, host side events, convene meetings and showcase research. Here are some of the highlights from the first week of COP26 at the Commonwealth Pavilion. 

National Parks and marine protected areas in The Bahamas both exemplify and help protect the archipelago’s vast marine and terrestrial ecosystems. But despite their important role, they are often ignored by the local community, who rarely visit or feel pride for them. To rekindle this lost relationship, Elijah raises awareness of the parks and marine protected areas and impacts of climate change through visual storytelling, which he believes is more effective for communicating with people than complex data and graphs.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has appealed to world leaders attending the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 to close the gap in ongoing negotiations this week in Glasgow, with millions of lives and livelihoods on the line in climate-vulnerable countries.

The ongoing challenges of the global pandemic can be all encompassing and sometimes overwhelming – particularly for young people whose prospects and plans have been severely disrupted.

As the countdown to COP26 continues, young environmental activists and innovators, academics, experts, and government officials joined a series of regional dialogues to help set the youth agenda at the conference.

This Commonwealth Secretariat blog about marine conservationist Josheena Naggea, is part of a series launched during Youth4Climate and continuing in the lead up to COP26 and beyond, featuring young people from across the Commonwealth who are leading the way on local climate action. 

In the third blog in a series of interviews with young climate leaders, we meet Mogesh Sababathy, a marine activist from Malaysia. He is also an example of how young people across the world can work with education institutions, businesses and governments to amplify their voices on environmental issues that affect all of us.

As part of our youth climate blog series ahead of COP26, meet Kushaal Raj, Acting Manager for Climate Change and the Ocean Specialist for the Ministry of Economy, Government of Fiji, where he develops ocean policy and provides technical expertise for international negotiations on ocean-related climate challenges.

The following blog is based on a speech the author presented to the UK-Pacific High Level Dialogue on Climate Change in July 2021, which has been adapted and updated for this website.

More than 2,000 young leaders and youth-led organisations from across the Commonwealth are  urging governments to respect the needs and contributions of the world’s most vulnerable groups, in the lead up to global climate talks in Glasgow in November.

This blog about young scientist and 'plastic warrior' Kristal Ambrose is the first in a series launched during Youth4Climate and continuing in the lead up to COP26 and beyond, featuring young people from across the Commonwealth who are leading the way on local climate action.

The positive effects of a Secretariat-organised summit aimed at Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) is being felt across the Commonwealth.

The process is now open to make nominations for the 2022 Commonwealth Youth Awards, which offer successful candidates international recognition and cash prizes. The aim of the awards is to celebrate the outstanding contributions by young people delivering development and progress in Commonwealth countries and communities towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

The 2020 Global Youth Development Index reveals that the conditions of young people have improved around the world by 3.1 per cent between 2010 and 2018, but the progress remains slow.

Covid-19 has been an earthquake along the already fraught fault lines of global education. The result has been a deep chasm into which the most vulnerable have fallen: 1.6 billion children were out of education at the height of school closures.

I cannot pretend to know or fully understand how it feels to be a young person in 2021.

Today, Commonwealth Secretary-General Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC announced the ‘Christof Heyns Memorial Commonwealth Prize’ during the 13th Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competition.

In the early months of 2020, governments across the globe stood at their podiums to tell their populations that a new and dangerous communicable disease was forcing them to shut their borders and lockdown their communities.

Youth workers used the words “challenging”, “resilient” and “hopeful” to describe the future of their work after COVID-19 at a Virtual Commonwealth Café.

The Commonwealth's work to prevent and counter violent extremism in Africa has been bolstered by a pioneering online initiative.

Youth ministers met on 9 April to agree priorities for young people at the upcoming Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda.

Forty young leaders have been announced as candidates who will stand in the election to join the Commonwealth Youth Council as executive members.