I have been attending the commission everyday for the last week, including the civil society forum that began last Tuesday; anyway, I just wanted to write down some thoughts and perhaps pose some questions for a little food for thought. The theme for this year’s commission is to discuss the process to “eradicate poverty.” While this issue is not going to be solved through the discussions of a two week commission, it has been really interesting to witness the language that Member States use when talking about all of the major “issues of poverty eradication” without admitting their own short-comings or inciting substantive or tangible movement. Now, I understand why bureaucracy is legitimized and somewhat needed within the context of international affairs, however, when it comes to the point that bureaucracy, and even academia for that matter, has desensitized the humanistic nature of what poverty is. I mean to say, that through this rhetoric of population statistics and even through the use of the MDGs there does not seem to be evidence that people are not gaining access to food, clean water, education, or any other of their basic human rights. This is all to say, that while watching the commission I feel demoralized and over come by the conversation that seems to have replaced the concept of action.

Thankfully, this bleak picture was at least interrupted briefly during until last Friday morning’s plenary meeting. I can’t say that I am not still discouraged by the big picture, but my over all pessimism was challenged by an optimistic “silver lining,” so to speak. The meeting opened with a presentation given by a representative of The World Program of Youth Action called, “Tackling Poverty Together: the role of Youth People in Poverty Reduction.” The presenter, Julie Larson’s words surprisingly, did not fall on the stereotypical disinterest that is sometimes given to youth in these settings, it was seemingly on the contrary. She was received with discernible attention by Member States as well as fellow NGOs. She opened with the wise words of the General Secretary who said, “One important lesson is the need for a participatory process that is country driven and that promotes ownership as a necessary precondition for the successful implementation of policies and programmes,” and that is exactly what this program is designed to do. With a regional focus on Africa, the National Council of Swedish Youth Organizations (LSU) along with 25 African Youth NGO’s instigated this program to help motivate the youth movement in a grass root approach to the “eradication of poverty” within Sub-Saharan Africa. Comprising youth representatives from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Sweden, Uganda and Zambia the first land mark workshop was held in Ndola, Zambia. This program holds elements as diverse as producing personal definitions of poverty based on a combination of experiences and interviews held while attending the workshop, reviewing UN documents and other governmental agencies youth policies to find inadequacies in current legislation, and finally plotting feasible outcomes that can realistically be implemented and gain positive results. This group of motivated youth advocates is really making a stir on both the regional level in Sub-Saharan Africa, within the United Nations, and also in substantially changing my mood! Read more about this organization at their web-site: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/TPT.htm.

The Commission for Social Development has now started and the first few days have passed. There hasn't been too much exciting to report yet, except that there seems to be an increasing presence of youth. In addition to the usual suspects, the youth NGOs in New York, a US network called SustainUS has mobilized a group of young people to come attend. In addition, there has been a group of students from Norway attending as part of a trip around the world.

Still, we can't claim we have been very coordinated so far. This morning there was a meeting among NGOs where the issue of youth representation in the Commission was discussed, and there were two different youth statements being circulated. One of them dealt with the issue of representation of youth, and the fact that pretty much all of the young people here are from northern countries. The other had suggestions for how the Commission can integrate youth issues into its work by including youth as an annual sub-theme.

We quickly realized that we should combine these two statements into one, that would both make the case for including and investing in young people AND contain concrete recommendations for what should be done by the Member States.

Sometimes I wonder though if we focus too much on promoting youth participation and too little on the actual issues being discussed. During the review of the World Programme of Action for Youth in October there were a record numbers of youth delegates addressing the General Assembly, but many focused their speeches on how important it is to involve young people in decision-making. It's always important to address this, but perhaps if we focused on concrete policy recommendations that the technocrats of the UN and governments can actually use, young people could be seen on as effective contributors to the negotiations and not tokenistic excuses by governments, as is the case sometimes.

The meeting this morning also brought up another issue. It can be difficult to make substantial contributions to the negotiations during the Commission itself, given that most of the groundwork is done during the months leading up the Commission. In fact, the chair of the NGO Committee on Social Development, a group of NGOs that works on these issues all year, gave us a little "slap" and said young people haven't showed up in the committee at all and shouldn't expect to just show up now and expect to make an impact.

I really felt provoked by this statement, and was disappointed by the lack of understanding of the situation of most young people. These NGO committees around the UN are filled with older people that are in positions where they can focus all their time and energy on the issues at hand, while most young people doing this are students, interns or work in youth organizations with limited resources.

For me, these committees, although a useful avenue for participation, represent "the old and the tried", and I believe we should look for new ways to get our voices heard that enables more young people to get involved and stay updated. We should utilize communication technologies where young people are at the forefront, such as live chats and video conferences, and push the UN to enable virtual participation in these Commissions. That can also help address the lack of presence of young people from developing countries.

There are a lot of initiatives like this already in place, such as the live chats organized by TIG, GYAN and Chat the Planet on the Millennium Development Goals. We have to try to bring this into the UN and other institutions when important decisions are being made, enabling young people all around the world to participate and contribute, and not being hindered by funding and visa problems.

Until then, we'll have to make the best out of the next week.

On Thursday February 9th, Ashley and I embarked on the UN for our first time since working at GYAN, with our spiffy new UN passes. Our first stop at the UN was conference room four for the Commission on Social Development. We had absolutely no idea where to go, but we found our way soon enough thanks to the signs (and Vidar’s directions).

Once we arrived at conference room four, we found a seat on the side of the conference room floor. Once we entered the commission was allowing different member states to make statements about social development in their nations. We heard from countries like China, Tanzania and Spain. Once the speakers got their thank yous out of the way, they began to talk about what each respective government has done to attempt to eradicate poverty in their own nations ant their overall positions. This was also a perfect time for us to practice our language skills Ashley switching between English Spanish and Russian (although the Russian was a bit beyond her vocabulary) while I listened intently to Spain’s remarks (in Spanish) and the switching between Spanish and English for the rest. We love the multi-lingual ear pieces! It was then time to depart from conference room four and embark onward towards our main event of the day: UN Management Reform Panel moderated by Lou Dobbs!

Our mission was to find Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium. Considering that neither of us could pronounce this properly we figured it would be difficult. After wandering around for a bit we found the library and the auditorium, and we were early, to say the least (people still lingered from the previous event). It then became time to explore the UN. We wandered around, found a cafeteria with a wonderful view of the east river, and sushi. When leaving we found an area with tables set up by the women’s guild. Here they were raising funds by selling anything from knitted shawls to jewelry to chocolate covered strawberries. We then made our way back to the library for the panel discussion.

We were still early so as people poured into the auditorium the main question on our minds was…what do all the different colors on the UN passes stand for. All we knew was that our passes were brown to indicate NGO status. We saw red, blue, yellow, and orange ones with a diagonal slash passes. The auditorium filled quickly with a random of passes. Now for the main event (drum roll).

The panel discussion was hosted by Lou Dobbs of CNN, with panelists Ambassador Richard Williamson, Danielle Pletka, Branka Jikich, and Roderick Hills. The overall consensus of the panelist was that without management reform the UN was failing in its task and those who would be hurt the most are those who the UN is primarily there to help, the poor and oppressed. Each panelist offered a different exact prescription. Richard Williamson felt that the most effective reform would be better oversight and that the human rights commission needs to be made more meaningful. Danielle Pletka felt that the UN is mired in the past and needs to be brought into the present. Branka Jikich laid out three suggestions: 1. the creation of an effective chief operating officer, 2. a better ethics office and whistle blower protection, 3. a modern personnel system to create a more professional staff. Roderick Hill felt the most pressing matters were for accountability and more efficient oversight. After the opening statements, the panelist proceeded to answer specific questions from the audience.

It was a great day overall and we learned a lot. Like a red pass means a country delegate, and that there needs to be management reform in the UN. Hopefully these ideas for reform will take place to make a more efficient UN.