The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> KEITH ANDERE: My name is Keith Andere. With us, we have members of parliament, the honorable speaker of the Guinea National Assembly, as well as youth representatives. And so we hope that this will be a very intimate conversation that we are going to have. They will tackle quite a number of issues and questions, but we will also have an opportunity to seek, you know, audience with them and ask questions.
So without further ado, I will just jump straight into the flesh of this session. When I am done, I will allow the colleagues 30 seconds to say their name and one interesting thing about them so the colleagues can remember who you are and what is interesting about you.
So we always talk about future generations. And the future is now. So as future generations are the most affected by our global future, young people have a leading role in the digital transformation journey in all aspects. Through our dedicated Youth Track, our global network of young people active in the digital sphere has organized workshops across all regions around the theme "Empowering youth leaders for trusted AI," which will coordinate into the IGF 2024 youth Summit that has already happened, for some of you who have followed that. This session brings together youth leaders and parliamentarians to foster a dialogue on priorities and perspective for more inclusive digital future.
So having said that, I want to give my able panelists just 30 seconds 33 seconds to say your name and something interesting about yourself. Thank you. Maybe I'll start on my far right.
>> Thank you. My name is MP is a Har Albazar. I am from Egypt. Something to remember me with, I am one of the young women parliamentarians in Egypt, but I will forever be young at heart.
>> Hi, everyone. Good afternoon. I am Ihita Gangavarapu, youth coordinator with IGF. It's a pleasure to be here. One interesting thing about me, the fact that I belong to one of the most populous nations and with more than 50% of the population is young people. It's a privilege to be working with young people the last seven years.
>> DUAA ALBALAWI: Hi, everyone. My name is Duaa Alba will a wee. My name means prayer in Arabic because I was born premature at six months old, and my parents thought I would pass away.
A little about me. I actually headed the Y20 youth delegation at Y20. Thank you very much.
(Captioner is standing by for English translation.
>> KEITH ANDERE: So we will go straight to the meat and the flesh of the discussion today. It's only obvious that we start off with members of Parliament. So I will put straight the questions to you.
From your perspective as members of Parliament, how can young people most effective contribute to the policy making and legislative procedures? Maybe you can provide some concrete examples from your respective countries and parliaments, if you may.
>> SAHAR ALBAZAR: Sure. Thank you so much for the important question.
I would start with young people are not only the future, but they are our active contributors and in our present time for policies and legislations.
I will give a few examples in Egypt how we can engage young people in our processes. In 2017, for example, our president launched the world Youth Forum, which is a platform where we bring young people from all around the world to come and spend almost a week in Egypt, where they come together, have voice, and this platform yielded at the end of the day a collective voice of Egyptian young people who created an entity or a body called the Coordination Committee for Parties, Young Leaders and Youth Leaders and Politicians. This committee now has in our Parliament 31 MP and 12 in our Senate. So we were able to move these young people from only a platform, they were voicing their Initiatives, to being part of Parliament. That's one thing.
Another thing, which is very close to my heart, it's the simulation of the Parliament, where we go to schools, and the students have simulation for the Parliament. And after they do the simulation, we do a competition. And the winning school will have a group of these students come to the Parliament itself to live the real parliamentary experience. So this is very close to my heart because we are not only trying to empower youth; we also include the children in the schools, which is very important for the coming generations.
Sorry? Oh, I thought someone was speaking.
Another thing is mentorship. This is also very important. Because usually when you ask a kid in the school or a young person in the university what do you want to do when you grow up, how or where do you see yourself in the future, being a politician is not something that is close to the mind. So mentoring them and having MPs who are close to their age a little bit, it's very important to have role models that really can speak to you, can use your language, understand your issues, that you feel comfortable speaking with. So mentorship is very, very important. And I personally always volunteer in my time to mentor African youth. And also, there are networks for global youth, where I spend more time trying to mentor young people.
Another important aspect for me is our tool that we, as parliaments and as governments and as countries, can use is to reduce and decrease the running age, running for elections age.
So for example, in Egypt in 2014, when we had the Constitution change, we changed the age, the minimum age for running from 30 to 25. And in my global advocacy work, we are trying to push to have the age of having driving license, which is the same age where you can vote, can be the same age where you can run. Because if you are wise enough to choose who to vote for, you are definitely wise enough to run if you want.
And you can find other countries, like in the U.S., on a state level parliament, like in Fairmont, their parliament, all their representatives are starting 18. So this is also an example of how you include and engage young people in the process of decision making and policy making.
I will end here so I can give the rest of the time to contribute.
>> KEITH ANDERE: That sounds very interesting. I like how you closed it saying the importance of making sure and I think it's practical, most of our countries the age of where we start voting. That is something to think about.
We have another colleague, Honorable Tobias, another parliament of Germany, and he is online. Before we come to him, the honorable speaker would like to make a statement, so I would like to invite him to share his statement.
(Speaking non English language)
which is the education and digital solidarity. As I mentioned before, if I am here to represent my parliament, it's that I want the advanced countries to understand that this should not compromise the security of other countries. And solidarity here is very important. And bridging the gap between the North and the South and between different countries is now crucial. So we should not accept that there should be a gap between the advanced and less advanced countries. Because if the world is a global village, this means that we have to communicate between each other. We have to concentrate together. This is why the this is very important, and also very important is to include the youth, as we mentioned.
Now, this young MP, she was voting, and she managed to reduce the age of voting. This is also a responsibility of the parliament. So 75% of the population in our country is less than 40 years old. But we have very reduced numbers of these people. This is why the parliament must be very, very vigilant, and it has to represent the needs of the society and the populations and not being governed by some personal interest. We have to allow the entire population to participate in the public work and the parliamentarian work.
And in our country also, we reduced the voting, and the age of candidacy also has been reduced to 21 years. And also, we allowed youth that are under 35 also to run for presidency. So this is how we will be improving this democratic governance in a way that allows the participation of everyone, the entire population. AI and the digital world would reduce the constraints that we have usually. But if laws and conventions are not expected in this regard, and the developed countries do not cooperation with the least developed countries, the Internet will not contribute to the entire populations. IM, Internet for least developed countries, but this also involves the state, the government, so that artificial intelligence does not become a monster that will increase the gap between the developed and undeveloped world. Thank you very much.
>> KEITH ANDERE: I was waiting for a bit more. Thank you very much, honorable speaker. I mean, you are speaking to what many young people in the room, I believe, will resonate with. And for us who come from Africa, some of us will remember the "not too young to run" campaign, which was influencing and urging young people to take up this space. So this is very, very valid conversation.
So we will take up Honorable Tobias, who is a member of Parliament from Germany. Unfortunately, our display screens are doing their tech thing, so we are not able to see him, but I believe we can hear him. Tobias, if you can hear me, just say hello.
>> TOBIAS BACHERLE: Hi. Good to see you. At least I can hear you as well.
>> Go straight to your questions. Thank you very much.
>> TOBIAS BACHERLE: Thank you very much. Sorry, I cannot be there in person. Maybe that's the fun fact I have for you. I had to vote on our snap elections yesterday, and since we have Plenary tomorrow again, I was not able to fly you over for just half a day. But thank you for that.
I think it's interesting to talk about young people in politics in the field of digitalization. Because, I mean, of course, we already heard young people in Plenary sessions. I think this is incredibly important. Young people are the future. They are the future of our democracies, of our parliamentary systems as well.
Besides that, it's also important to have a different way of communication with them. I don't mean that they should be not taken serious. I don't mean that. Just talk to them as you would talk to any citizen, of course. But they have different ways of communication. And yeah, many older people by now also use WhatsApp and Facebook and Instagram and so on. But I think there's one very important difference. And I am still saying I turned 30 now, so I am not really young, young, young anymore, but I still would tick myself into the younger generation.
We grew up with mobile phones, with smartphones, and so on. When I was, I think, 12, the iPhone was introduced.
Many things that seem to change for young colleagues, because they witnessed how media usage has changed, is for us rather something that we are completely used to, that is the environment we grew up with, that we feel comfortable getting information and also having political debates. I think this is important to take into account.
We see many older colleagues, many very smart politicians that drive their platforms throughout digital communication skills. But I think very often, if we look very closely, there are younger people involved that are actually driving that campaign, that are pushing for those parts in the campaign.
But there is also a different or second part in having that perspective on digital communication tools. Because I would argue digital communication tools and the platforms that I have mentioned before, I mean, those are huge companies that have a certain interest making money. But they also provide critical infrastructure for our political debates. And I think this is something, as much as I value older colleagues and sometimes even envy how much they have experienced and how much they also can recall from their memory, I think what I just described in a manner of how do we communicate with young people. It also goes for how do we politically approach digital topics? How much value, how much central points do we give to digital communication tools? And what I often experience is that older colleagues, if they don't understand something in Europe, we have that. When it came to Telegram, we had big demonstrations around the (video frozen) basically jumped to, was like being a bit afraid and deciding to talk about, should we forbid Telegram? How can we shut down the kind of information system? And I think that's something we should not do. The contrary.
And many young people were like excuse my language, but what the fuck are you talking about? First, why do you want to do that on a technical level? Second of all, this is our information space. We don't shut down your TV stations or your newspapers as well. And I think having that part within the debate is incredibly powerful, and it involves young people also in politics because it's topics that are very close to their heart and reflect their reality.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thanks, Tobias. I think what you are talking about, especially, you know, the political communication and the role of digital tools to support political communication, is a very big conversation. Now that you are talking about young people being behind the keyboards, supporting key political players around this. And the issue of shutdowns, be it platform shutdown, be it throttling of the Internet, are very big and pertinent conversations that I have had from various young people in various foras that we have here. And I think it is important that this has come out from a young par Al Arian from a Global North perspective.
I will dive straight to our youth leaders, and not to gag you, just maintain three minutes of time so we are able to flow. I see already hands coming up, and it's not yet time.
So young people are critical voice in digital governance. Do you agree? At least we can agree. As dedicated youth representatives, what would you like members of parliaments to consider in their legislative procedure? And maybe what are some of the obstacles in further including youth perspectives in digital governance? Over to you.
>> SAHAR ALBAZAR:
>> IHITA GANGAVARAPU: Perfect. Three minutes. Hi, everyone. I am Ihita. I would like to start off talking about the vision of the Internet itself. Me as a young people would want the Internet to be a truly digital medium that is accessible by all. This is a cooperation and collaboration between many. That brings us to your question around legislative procedures. And the most important aspect of the legislative procedure is to truly empower all of us. And that is possible if we have an inclusive policy making legislative procedure. And when I say that, I am talking about real youth participation. So youth itself is not a monolith. We, within the young people category, we have different stakeholders from different economies, different cultures, different languages, different understanding of technologies in the societies.
So inclusion, especially from the consultations part of it, especially when we have the bills coming out in India, whenever there is a bill, since being the coordinator of Youth IGF, we ensure whenever there is a public consultation, young people are made aware. We as a community of young people make sure our comments are provided to consultation on the bills.
Similarly, the tokenism aspect. There should not be any tokenism. There has to be real participation and such that the outcomes are incorporated in the actual outcomes.
And when we talk about consultation, there has to be mechanisms to ensure that the young people are drawn towards these consultations, their inputs are provided, they are made to understand why it is important to voice themselves.
The second thing with respect to legislation that I talk about is contextualized legislation design. This is important because although legislation could be at the national level, but the adaptation of it is from a local level. So it's important to understand the local disparities that could be with respect to digital access and digital literacy. And this is where I think a lot of cooperation with grass roots youth initiatives would help.
Moving forward, the last point maybe second to last if we have time is I want to talk about the accountability aspect in legislation. Working with young people in the last seven years cyber fraud, radicalization on the Internet, misinformation, cybersecurity are some of the concerns that extensively they talk about. So when we are designing these legislations, we have to ensure that the accountability is present in protecting the digital rights of youth.
And the last point, not to rush, is to understand the impact of the legislation. The impact assessment, the impact studies, and how these laws affect young people their rights, the societies that access as well as their opportunities has to be put together to ensure a holistic framework. Thank you.
>> KEITH ANDERE: So youth participation by design, youth engagement by design. Super. Duaa, do you want to?
>> DUAA ALBALAWI: Sure thing. Thank you so much, Keith.
So I really want to start off by saying that from my experience at the Y20 this year, there is no one and done approach to policy making. Especially when it comes to digital governance since technology has been evolving at a rapid rate that has never been experienced in the past.
When it comes to youth, they are a key stakeholder in this rapid development of technology. Not only should they be involved, but they should be consulted when it comes to steering our policy making direction.
For example, forums like the G20 youth Summit occur on an annual basis and provide insights on the youth's stances globally on very different topics, including digital governance. If you would allow me, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight two of the youth policies that emerged in this sphere during our negotiations in Brazil this past August.
So when it comes to artificial intelligence, and as His Excellency has mentioned, youth are calling on our leaders to build a global ethical taxonomy for Global AI and its critical security implications by creating one AI auditing framework for fair, accountable, and most importantly, unbiased AI systems. Two, putting measures in place to ensure a fair transition to workers to ensure no one is going to be left behind. And lastly, putting in place national commissions that analyse the impact of AI and propose national regulatory frameworks.
Now, on the other hand, another topic of discussion when it comes to data and privacy. The youth are really calling on leaders to empower citizens when it comes to their relationship to these platforms. And the use of their personal data. Now, this includes developing ethical standards of data management, but most importantly, sovereignty to enable citizens to actively protect their privacy and examine the feasibility of establishing private ownership over each individual's personal data.
Now, when it comes to your question on obstacles of including youth perspectives in digital governance, my answer might be a bit unconventional, but I truly believe one of the biggest obstacles from both sides, the senior stakeholders and the youth, is the gap in communication. From my experience, I have observed a very big disconnect in how the youth and members of parliaments and members of governments communicate and share these ideas.
Where youth and justifiably so are very forthcoming and relentless in their communication which can be very hard to receive and digest for senior stakeholders. But this is where the responsibility of senior government stakeholders truly lies in mentoring and guiding these passionate youth to polish and fine tune their demands.
Now, I believe our MP, is a Har, has mentioned a few examples of how youth can address these key challenges in the governance space, so I might not expand too much on that. But another issue that I really wanted to bring to the table is the point on fair compensation for youth participation. Youth participation is not a privilege. It is a God given right. And youth have incredibly insightful and creative solutions that sometimes are not recognised or compensated for. So I would really like to highlight and approach that emerged from our Y20 deliberations, where youth are calling on leaders to increase and incentivize youth participation in local, regional, and national governments through establishing diverse and, most importantly, paid engagement initiatives, such as youth parliaments and advisory councils. While leveraging and also facilitating maybe public and private partnerships to try and aid this funding and ensure that youth contributions are conserved in their policy making efforts.
Now, of course, I would just like to close on a very positive note and highlight that the session that we are in today truly showcases a remarkable effort from members of parliaments to empower the youth's voices on stage, so I want to take the opportunity to thank everybody for giving us the stage today. Thank you so much. En
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you, Duaa. Already we have had very concrete recommendations and actions and things that are able to move us forward from where we are sitting. Because somebody was already talking on tokenism. So these are very concrete actions that you are already talking to us.
So this next session is for me what is most exciting, because we have been doing the talking and they have been doing the listening. So it's our time, maybe, to listen to them, maybe perhaps answer. So we have a few minutes. And I want to see how do I balance these few minutes and donate it to the audience in the room. By way of hand, I will invite a round of questions. Should we have a few which I can see some hands in the room I want to ask that we do the following:
We just say our name and we go straight to the point. If your question can be in 60 characters, we will be more happy because that means that more people are going to take the floor.
Oh, yes, a tweet kind of question. Of course, not the mask kind of tweet here.
So I see a hand here. I see there was a second hand here. And there is a third hand. Sorry? I see three hands. Okay. I see this one and then another one. We will take those four. Please say your name and speak straight to the point.
>> I will speak in Arabic if you can understand. I am from Bahrain. My question is very straightforward. The young lady from Egypt, she (Speaking non English language) we know that how can we teach the children about the legislation and all that? How can we impact our children when will the children be most able to receive information?
>> My name is Jose from Ghana, African Youth IGF. First of all, I would like to comment on our MPs, especially our African MPs, for doing great work on the open door policy.
I would like to ask questions for all the MPs in the room. How can we measure that kind of open consultation with the youth? What kind of strategies are in place that can be measured, that can be quantifiable? Thank you very much.
>> KEITH ANDERE: That is a powerful tweet. We had the question from the gentleman.
>> Thank you, Keith. My question is to MP Sahar, I am from Egypt as well. I have been in this ecosystem, the Internet Governance system, for a while. I grew up watching the parliamentary Plenary sessions on TV, but I feel like as a citizen I lost connection with the Parliament.
I was wondering, we have a lot of experts in Egypt in different fields, especially when it comes to tech. But I had to build this connection between those experts and the Parliament and rebuild this trust and bond again. Thank you.
>> I am Srinad from India. I will keep my question really short.
So my question across the panel is, is there cultural assistance for young politicians to be elected in the sense that what is less likely to work for young politicians, and how do we combat that?
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you. So we'll take this first round of questions. Just like the questions, please make your answer short.
>> SAHAR ALBAZAR: I am lucky to have two questions here. The first one is about children and exposing them on how the parliament works is a violation for childhood. We are not going to kindergarten. We are going to the primary age and people in high school. So they are actually, in a few years, in two years, will be voting for the Parliament. So they need to understand and be more aware. It's like civic education. So that when it's time to vote, they can understand the process and they vote for the right person.
For I am sorry, I didn't get your name. So thank you for the question. I am currently actually working on AI governance bill. And we have a lot of Egyptian experts, as you mentioned. And as a parliamentarian, I have to have roundtables to discuss. So I always include everyone. It's inclusive. I have private sector. I have experts. I have international organisations. I have civil society. Everyone should be included. So that's how we bridge the knowledge and expertise with the policymaker. So when you produce and introduce a bill, it's evidence based. I hope that answers your question.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Yeah, knows were the two questions that were directly to you.
I think there was a general question from comrade from Ghana who was speaking to all members of Parliament. Honorable speaker, I don't know whether you want to answer his question: How can we measure open consultation with young people? If there are any strategies.
>> That is the most important is access of the youth. We should be creating strategies to allow the youth to access information, especially at the parliamentary level. This is why we have live broadcast of parliamentarian debates on the social media.
So in the classical way, we will do it on a TV and radio, and now in Plenary and in other instances, you will see them on the social media, any social media that you want, you can connect there and you can ask your questions.
Another element that also seems important to me is that we need to create opportunities so that youth are represented in the parliament. The best way to do that, instead of the youth being beneficiaries, they have to be actors. This is why the reduction of the candidacy and the running for parliament youths, age is better.
Sometimes the access to these campaigns and running for elections is a privilege for the rich. So if you open that for the youth and the youth cannot present themselves in their campaigns, they will not be able to bridge the gap.
Also, mechanisms of funding must encourage the youth to take decisions in creating laws.
Another thing is to include children. We have something called the Parliament of Children. So we consult the Parliament of the Children in anything related to the youth, to childhood, for example, from 12 to 18 years, these people are very critic. When senior departments have debates on health, we give the floor to youth to give their views. The implication of youth as electors starts at age 18. But also, these people who can vote now can also be candidates. We cannot create this disparity between the participation and the right to vote and the right to run for election. So the legislation must help us create the harmony between the voting age and the candidacy age. And this is also a very important thing is to allow the youth to access funding.
So in a lot of countries, Internet has changed, some bloggers who, for example, change the way we see the history of some countries because of their YouTube videos. And they were able to sensitize the youth by, for example, regarding about certain countries and certain African populations. So this must be used for the advancement of the populations and not to undermine the stability of countries. So we need to create the conditions so that the youth are able to access and be secure related to access to information. Thank you.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you so much, honorable speaker. I see Tobias, I can gnaw report that I can now report that the audience can see you. If you have any additional response, I give you a minute.
>> TOBIAS BACHERLE: First of all, I completely agree what the honorable colleague just said. In Germany in certain areas, we have a passive right to vote that is 16 in local parts and also for state elections. In some local elections, even an active right, so you are able to run when you are already 16 for local council. And that combined with youth councils, where young people vote their own councils and have budgets in their own council. I think that gives, to a very important part, access. I think access is the most important thing. Because knowing in theory whom to write and where to go is great, and knowing what hearing to watch and so on. But there is a lot of let's be honest a lot of informal ways to reach your parliamentarians, to reach your decision makers, to reach your teams, and so on. And to get to know that, the best thing is to get involved. And I think to encourage young people in that, it's incredibly important.
And we have, in the German mund stat, we have standing committees that are only working on children. A friend of mine who was Chairman of that committee half a year it's always rotating every half a year. In her six months, she decided only to invite children. So children all over the country, they were invited to German Burnastad to speak there, and I think that is a little adaptation of the multi stakeholder process. That is important. Because long story short, wherever you have an Open Forum, wherever you have an open process where people are able to participate when they want, and then on the second step, you reach out to those whom it might concern, who might be willing to actually participate and try to enable them, maybe through some programme that gives them funding to travel to wherever you meet and so on, or to have digital formats as well thank you for that possibility today, for example. I think to have that kind of connection would be very, very great to see that in more places and see it in more political fields. And I think the IGF is a great opportunity to experience the multi stakeholder process, but also to learn from the multi stakeholder process. Don't have closed doors. Have as many open doors as possible, and have them so wide open that people can actually step in and be willing and field allowed to speak out. And if young people feel encouraged to do that and get encouraged, and the possibility when it comes to funding as well because young people, we heard it already, don't have that amount of money, necessarily. Either their parents have or often they don't. So if we fund them, I think that gives an incredible opportunity to actually get involved and be part of any kind of political process.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you, honorable Tobias. Duaa, it would be unjust to leave you out without a response. I think there was a gentleman's question that was not responded to. So very quickly, you know, we could respond to that. Thank you.
>> DUAA ALBALAWI: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Keith.
I think on your question of are voters less likely to vote for young politicians, maybe the response to that is a big convoluted. But in my opinion, I think a key driver to rallying support as a young politician really lies in the age demographic that you are targeting. If you are in a country where the population is mostly represented by youth, then it's very apparent that youth would like someone from that same demographic to represent them and call for their needs and really address the challenges that they want to bring to the table.
However, maybe if you look at countries, such as Japan, where most of the demographic is mostly older generations, they might have different considerations and different challenges that need to be kept to mind. But I really think that's where the youth's ability to learn and gain credibility and expertise really comes into play. Because that evens out the playing field. So I hope that answers your question.
Maybe I want to move to Ihita and see if she has anything more to say.
>> IHITA GANGAVARAPU: That's actually a very good question, and thank you so much for touching on the demographics aspect. But I also feel like in addition to that, there's a lot of narrative around this that we have to change. And it's just not us, but rather, it's so intergenerational that the older generations, we expect very strong support in helping us change the direction of this narrative to ensure that people see young people as which we are as very skilled, informed, and relevant to this generation and the future as well. So a lot of it also relies on narrative. Thank you.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you so much. I see we have less than four minutes left, but because we are all here for tech, I have asked AI how many parliamentarians are in the room, and it says it is more than those already seated here. So I have seen a few parliamentarians from AI and senators from national governments and Pan African regional parliaments. So I will take the power I have to allow those who are willing one minute not to make a huge submission like they do in the House but one minute of intervention. Maybe I will give because I have three minutes, I can give four for 50 seconds each, then we'll come to closing. Are there any takers? So there's one here. There is a senator here. See, I am right. There is another senator here. Those are three. And four. So 50 seconds each. If we have a roving mic, please do share to the four honorable members for 50 seconds. Thank you.
>> Start counting now.
What I'd like to say to the young people, that parliament is a space that has been given a lot of powers to shape everything that happens. Literally everything. It decides what education will happen, how health will look like. So young people must know, must become political in order for their issues to be addressed. So if you just abandon it to parliament because it's an old people's boring space, that is the reason why you then end up with bad laws. So every young person must be political in order to shape the quality of business that comes out of parliament.
>> I think also I want to encourage young people, the first time I was elected, I was 26 years old as a senator. So I had my second and third term in the Senate of the Republic of Kenya. It's to build that conscience, be proactive, understand the nation. Study where you are, from the village, town, city, and be part of heech.
Finally each.
Finally, we call Open Governance Programme, I know you have heard about OGP. That is where we have legislative openness, integrity, and transparency. I thank you.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you, Senator.
>> Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Honorable Ajimbu from Gambia and the Pan African parliament.
What I'd like to say is exactly what is going on in Guinea, where we have a middle Parliament called National Youth Parliament. We have this in Gambia. It is very good to have simply because it mirrors the national Parliament exactly. They sit in the same place. They discuss, have recommendations. So you see that synergy between the real parliament and Youth Parliament, it creates that energy. It allows them to see themselves as the future lawmakers of the country. So if you don't have it, I think it's good to encourage your parliaments to have such so that they can see exactly what's actually happening.
You have to be on the table. Don't allow yourself to be on the menu. Be on the table. Know exactly what you are doing so when you get there at any particular time, be it young or old, you are able to do the right things. Thank you.
>> Considered ought parliamentarians stand to speak. That's what we do in Parliament.
I am from Nigeria, and I would also like to say Nigeria has a youth parliament. We also have a Senate youth. We have speaker like we have president of the Senate.
Second we also allow youth to participate and watch proceedings. I am proud to say I started as a student parliamentarian. Today I am a national parliamentarian. The only thing I would like to emphasize, as we are emphasizing the responsibility for you to take engagement, they must also have responsibility to also maintain the integrity of the country. Countries are not run on social media. Countries I mean, the youth, as they are doing the engagement, on social media, they also need to know some things require national security. If you want to have more space on the table, that space on the table also needs more responsibility. And you have to let them know that being at the table creates responsibility that they need to be aware of.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you, honorable members. It seems that you have brought something, because I see two pressing hands. Maybe they want to challenge that governments are not run from social media. There was a hand behind there. Is it still up? Yes. So please make it very short. And then I'll take the gentleman here.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Matilda Mashoury. Matilda Moses Mashoury. I have heard all the explanation. I want to know what exactly what strategies we, the youth, should use that will contribute to and lead to the digital transformation journey? What are the key steps, things like that? Thank you very much.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you. There is a gentleman here. I hope that you will be as brief as the lady behind.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: As a parliamentarian, I am also President of the Sustainability in the Guinea parliament. I would like to congratulate the panelists and thank the speaker for the opportunity of participating in this forum. An experience related to the youth participation, we should not be only limited to the Youth Parliament and the Youth Senates. In Guinea, we have an experience, which is the local councils of youth within the communities. In rural communities and the urban communities, we have local councils of the youth. Since this community, they will be learning how to participate in the decision making in their neighborhood. And then they will be progressing towards the Youth Parliament and the Youth Senate. So I think decision making must start at the local level, and it allows the youth to socialize in their neighborhoods, in their societies, and also reduce the technological dependence as well. Thank you very much.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Okay. Can you make it 10 seconds? Okay, 20. 25.
>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you, sir. Thank you to everyone.
Quickly, you know, the new generation, I believe, they are not like our generation. We were raised with technology. I remember my son, when he was two or three years I am professor of computer science. He locked my iPhone I couldn't open it. Really. So when we come to them, talking in the same room, they don't talk. They use technology. We can't say, oh, no, you can't do this. Of course we have do protect them. They think we are sorry we are ignorant in technology. Yeah, really. When I talk to my kids, they say please stay away. We know what we do. So always you have to be open. Don't think, okay, they are ignorant, they know nothing about this. They were raised with technology. They know almost everything better than us. So we need to protect them. We need to help them, educate them. But also, what can I say? We have to be flexible. Because they will use technology in all aspects of their lives, despite our world. Thank you so much.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you so much. You mentioned something, and it reminds me of one parent talking about how to monitor their children's behavior. When they went, they found the child was using French, and literally, the parent didn't know what to do.
30 seconds, in the usual fashion, I would like us to make very powerful closing remarks. If they forgot everything you said, this is your time. Thank you. So we'll start to my extreme right.
>> SAHAR ALBAZAR: Well, thank you again. I think I will underscore that the participation of young people is not a privilege. And I would add it's not a symbolic act. It's a necessity for sustainable development and sustainable progress. Because whether we engage young people in structured forums or mentorship programmes or directly in the policy making process, they help us in having inclusive policies and bills and secure the innovative processes and ideas.
Lastly, I want to thank Saudi Shura Council for hosting us and doing great work in organizing this event, and also IGF for putting the effort and giving us the opportunity to be with the youth in the same room, which, for us, it's very energetic and very inspiring. So thank you so much. Thank you, everyone. Thank you.
>> KEITH ANDERE: You already made my closing remarks, so thank you. Yes.
>> IHITA GANGAVARAPU: I have four points. The first one is that we need to institutionalize youth consultation through bodies, structured forums, and mentorships so that we can make informed decisions and impactful decisions alongside all of you.
Point two, that there are certain systemic barriers that, for example, around both digital and cultural, that if we can address, we can also participate.
Point three, one thing very important mentioned earlier is you should treat young people as partners and not beneficiaries when it comes to policy making.
And last, one of the points that I have taken from the floor is that we need to be where we want to see the change. So we need to be at the table, and we are working towards it, as young people. But we need your support.
>> DUAA ALBALAWI: Thank you. I am going to keep this very short and sweet. I think we live in very strange times, and things are rapidly changing day in and day out. And the youth effort is absolutely crucial to building the future that we would like to experience tomorrow. So I guess this is my message to all the youth here in the room. Stay hungry. Stay passionate. Do not get discouraged. Rome was not built in a day, and it is very important for us to continue this fight towards shaping our own digital future. Thank you so much.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you, Duaa.
Honorable?
>> Responsibility. Why participation? Very simply, to be in a politicized society is not the solution. Not all citizens must be politicized. Because politicization will be will constitute an economic and social obstacles. But this is why we have this solution, how to allow people, some people, to participate and to put the parliament before its responsibilities. Because the Parliament represents the people. And this process should be controlled by the citizens.
Also, I suggest that the citizens must have the opportunity to have the possibility to gather signatures to present petitions to the Parliament, and the Parliament would also take into consideration those petitions of the youth.
Another element is responsibility. Yes, the youth was also raised with Internet, but we were not born and raised with responsibility. Responsibility is acquired through education. A responsible numeric education is important so that, for example, we don't have, for example, 3D images of military protected areas and some threats to national security. So this is a very important part. Thank you very much. You are on my far left. That's why you are comes last, not because you are online.
>> TOBIAS BACHERLE: No worries. Thank you. Thank you very much.
I think first of all, just see that young people or it's their future. It's our future. Include young people. And not as a game, but as people and voters and citizens that speak, think, and engage on their own future. And that will be around longer than everyone who is older. And I think that's important to see and to acknowledge.
And the second thing is acknowledge the risks of digital transformation and digital tools. Yes. But embrace the chances. Forge them, shape the developments, and enable people, and young people especially, to enable their self sovereign digital journey. And put that in the middle of policy making, the young people and the people in general, the humans, in the middle of our digital policies. I think then we can enable them, as I said, to make their journey and to engage and to participate.
>> KEITH ANDERE: Thank you so much, Honorable Tobias. We are three minutes into time. So as we close, I would like to let the parliamentarians in the room know that a draft an email has been sent to you that has the draft outcome. Please look at it and give your comments for the Parliamentary Track on your emails. We will be happy to receive that feedback as early as possible to allow the secretary and colleagues to close on that.
Lastly, I would just like to thank again the Saudi Government and all the youth organizers, and Duaa was our able coordinator and point person for all the young people from the host government, as well as the Secretariat. Thank you so much for ensuring that young people have an opportunity to interact with the parliamentarians. And of course the parliamentarians, whether it was on a court or through the parliament, we hope we can engage with you. We invite you too many to room 6, where the delegation will be having a roundtable with members of parliament.
I was your moderator, Keith Andere, until next time. Thank you so much.