By Joseph Varghese/Staff Reporter


The Global Youth Consultation (GYC) meet has called for the establishment of a global institutionalised and innovative youth engagement platform led by the youth in disaster management and humanitarian response.
The meet also has appealed for localisation of humanitarian response by obligatory disaster trainings in school and social service workplaces.
The GYC, hosted by Reach Out To Asia (Rota) was held in Doha for the last two days in connection with the World Humanitarian Summit to be held in Istanbul in May next year.
About 300 youth from  82 countries took part in the meet, held at the Student Centre of the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in the Education City.
The details of the recommendations were revealed yesterday at a press conference attended by Essa al-Mannai, executive director, Rota, Ahmad al-Hendawi, UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy on Youth,  Nada Abdel Hayy, Rota’s youth advisory board member, Sam Li Wing Sum, Steering Committee, United Nations Major Group for Children & Youth and Ashanta Osborne International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Youth Commission.
Al- Mannai said: “The youth have come out with a number of recommendations that will be submitted to the UN. They will be incorporated into the UN Secretary-General’s report and the overall proposals for the World Humanitarian Summit. Rota is lending its expertise, knowledge and resources to ensure that youth are given the opportunity on the global stage.”
Al-Hendawi pointed out that the world is moving through a troubled phase and the youth should come forward to lend a helping hand in overcoming the problems.“The youngsters are more vulnerable as more than 60 million people are displaced worldwide and over 50% of them are youth and children. This emphasises the fact that the youth have a vital role to develop humanitarian thoughts and this forum is an ideal opportunity for it,” he explained.
Li Wing Sum explained that the two-day discussions referred to some of the vital aspects that need to be addressed at the earliest.
He said: “Some of the recommendations are recognition and inclusion of young people in peace building, in recovery and in fragile states; improved and continued access to social services and improved integration of refugees,  internally displaced people and migrants; enhanced accountability of humanitarian actors at all level and improved cluster system with regular review, including shadow review.”
The forum discussed several challenges to meet the humanitarian needs including humanitarian effectiveness, serving the needs of people in conflict, transformation through innovation and reducing vulnerability and managing risks.
Some of the other recommendations of the meet are  localisation of human resources in response to humanitarian needs with the  response being age and gender sensitive;  institutionalised information sharing with refugees and migrants about their rights and how to receive and be part of the repose efforts; use technology to transcend barriers in humanitarian landscape; increase access to knowledge for social inclusion and empowerment and use social media platform to empower the affected community.