Youth Speak: Ensuring Jobs and Social Protection as Driving Forces of Sustainable Development

Social protection and decent job creation create prosperity, help build trust in institutions and make societies more resilient against shocks. These require long-term, affordable financing and decent job opportunities(1).

Kazi Fahim Ahmed, a youth champion from Bangladesh, provides insights to ensure this prosperity through empowering youth: “We can engage youth by educating them properly on the issues of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity. Then we can create a nationwide, young, and motivated force of proactive groups who will work on the ground level to educate people and ensure a community based consciousness regarding action against climate change, protection of biodiversity and action against pollution.”

The Joint SDG Fund aims to facilitate the creation of decent jobs in the green, care and digital economies and increase the coverage, inclusion and level of benefits in social protection, while expanding the fiscal space for decent jobs and shock-responsive social protection systems.

To increase jobs, especially among youth, Fawziyya Zakariyya, a youth champion from Nigeria, shares that “In order to bridge these challenges, we have to substantially increase our awareness campaigns at the grassroots and do them in languages that youth understand. We also have to include more than challenges in our curriculums and include after school clubs for things like climate change, biodiversity laws, clean energy, and sustainable food production.”

We extend our thanks to Doha Debates for their support in bringing together the voices of young changemakers around the world to advocate for the Global Goals.

Join the movement using the hashtag #YouthSpeak at @JointSDGFund!

About United Nations’ Youth2030 vision

A world in which the human rights of every young person are realised; that ensures every young person is empowered to achieve their full potential; and that recognises young people’s agency, resilience and their positive contributions as agents of change.

About United Nations Joint SDG Fund’s Youth Corner

The UN Joint SDG Fund’s Youth Corner is a youth platform where young people’s needs can be addressed, their voices amplified, and their engagement advanced as part of its Youth2030 mission.

About Doha Debates

Doha Debates engages a vanguard of intellectually curious truth-seekers to constructively debate differences in order to build a better future.

For further information about the incredible youth featured, you can connect with them via the links below:

Kazi Fahim Ahmed: (Research Intern at The East Asia Study Center): X/Twitter, LinkedIn

Chukwuemeka Orukwowu (Digital Innovator): Website, X/Twitter, LinkedIn

Fawziyya Zakariyya (Digital Storytelling and Campaign Analyst): LinkedIn

Note:

All joint programs of the Joint SDG Fund are led by UN Resident Coordinators and implemented by the agencies, funds and programmes of the United Nations development system. With sincere appreciation for the contributions from the European Union and Governments of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and our private sector funding partners, for a transformative movement towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.

(1) United Nations, “Secretary-General’s Policy Brief: Investing in Jobs and Social Protection for Poverty Eradication and a Sustainable Recovery,” September 28, 2021.