Y20 Summit: Empowering the Amrit Generation Through Participatory Governance

The third day of the Y20 Summit at Varanasi witnessed a session on ‘Empowering the Amrit Generation through participatory Governance’ curated by Ashish Khare, Director and Renu Singh, Senior Manager from MyGov India. The session began with a video emphasizing on ‘Yuva Shakti’, the driving force of India. It was followed by an insightful glimpse of MyGov platform, which has been established as Government of India’s Citizen Engagement Platform that collaborates with multiple Government bodies and Ministries to engage with citizens for policy formulation and to seek the opinion of people on issues/ topics of public interest and welfare. It was informed through the presentation that MyGov has time and again solicited inputs of drafting policies from citizens. Few of those are National Education Policy, Data Centre Policy, Data Protection Policy, National Ports Policy, IIM Bill etc. MyGov have also been frequently soliciting ideas for Mann Ki Baat, Annual Budget, Pariksha Pe Charcha and many more such initiatives.

Under the framework of G20 Presidency, Department of Youth Affairs, Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India is organizing the Youth 20 Summit-2023 in the city of Varanasi from 17th – 20th August, 2023.

The ongoing four-day Youth 20 Summit is being held in Rudraksh International Cooperation and Convention Centre (RICCC) in Varanasi, which has provided the youth a platform for open discussions, ideation and interactive sessions to address the challenges faced by young people and to formulate a roadmap for the global development of the youth.

The session was followed by Discussion on Y20 Draft Communiqué, where more than 100 international delegates from G20 Countries, Guest Countries and International Organizations engaged in deliberations and negotiations on the following five identified themes of Y20:

1. Future of Work: Industry 4.0, Innovation and 21st Century Skills

2. Peacebuilding and Reconciliation: Ushering in an Era of No War

3. Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction: Making Sustainability a Way of Life

4. Shared Future: Youth in Democracy and Governance

5. Health, Wellbeing and Sports: Agenda for Youth

The discussions took place under the watchful guidance of the five track chairs of the respective themes, thus building the way to drafting of the Y20 Communiqué. The sessions provided a discussion platform based on agreed recommendations related to the G20 agenda, which are being compiled into a joint communiqué to represent the point of view of the global youth on the G20 priorities. The finalization of Y20 communiqué is the result of several months of recommendations, ideations, brainstorming sessions, youth consultations and discussions that created a dialogue on global matters.

An Organizer’s Conference was also held, which reflected on the learnings from the past few months since the Inception Meeting of Youth 20 Summit held in February, 2023 in Guwahati, Assam. The conference was presided by Mr. Priyank Chauhan, India’s OC Representative and members of Y20 Secretariat including Ajay Kashyap, Convenor; Abhishek Malhotra, Arya Jha and Drishti Rawal, Secretaries of Y20 India were also present. The Organizer’s Conference ideated the way forward for the Y20 Communiqué and an outcome document was prepared emphasizing the mutual learning and support among Y20 groups reflecting G20 India’s spirit of ‘One Earth. One Family. One Future’.

Youth20 is one of the official Engagement Groups of the G20. The Youth20 (Y20) Engagement Group organized discussions pan-India, to consult the youth of the nation on ideas for a better tomorrow and draft an agenda for action.

The day ended with Gala dinner and cultural program at Durbar Hall, Hotel Taj Ganges to mark the concluding program of the event.