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Executive Summary
Since 1992, global leaders have committed themselves to promote sustainable development. However, there have been a lot of shortcomings some of which were highlighted in the presentation from Yonge Nawe. Yonge Nawe recognise the importance of the participation of major groups particularly youth and women who have been marginalized from participating in sustainable development processes. In this regard, Yonge Nawe hosted a one-day conference for youth on the 16th of February 2002 at the King Sobhuza Memorial Park. This conference brought together 48 youth from the University of Swaziland’s Geography and Environmental Science Planning Society (UNIGEP), Nazarene College, Junior Council of Manzini, UNISWA Rotaract, UNISWA Agriculture, UNISWA Economic Society and other local colleges to discuss youth’s contributions towards sustainable in Swaziland. Delegates from Yonge Nawe, Swaziland National Trust Commission (SNTC), Swaziland National Youth Council (SNYC), and the University of Swaziland (UNISWA) also attended the conference. Short papers on sustainable development and Swaziland’s contributions to sustainable development were presented. 

Youth (below 24 years) comprise nearly 60 per cent of Swaziland’s population. Youth make up one third of the world’s population. It is imperative that the government should advance the role of youth and actively involve them in the protection of the environment and the promotion of economic and social development says Mr. Sahr Tengbeh UNIGEP’s Secretary General. Government needs to come up with policies that will encourage youth participation in sustainable development issues he said.

Youth highlighted that they cannot work on sustainable development initiatives in isolation but need to link up with other local, regional and global youth partners. Youth should work with the Swaziland National Youth Council (SNYC) a forum for youth development in Swaziland said Mr. Zolile Dlamini, a representative from SNYC.

Today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders and decision makers hence it is important for the youth to be involved in sustainable development processes. Youth reiterated the need to be involved in the preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to held in Johannesburg, South Africa from 26 August to 4 September 2002 because decisions that are going to be made at this conference will affect their lives today and in future. 

This conference was the beginning of many such interventions that Yonge Nawe is planning to coordinate for different stakeholders in Swaziland.  Such interventions will be used as evidence of Yonge Nawe’s support of sustainable development issues.  Yonge Nawe wants to popularize the concept of sustainable development in Swaziland, especially among community - based organizations, other NGOs and development agencies, the youth and general public.  This particular intervention was also meant to assist the youth in getting their voices and contributions in community development heard.  Yonge Nawe strongly believes in active involvement of the youth in development since the youth are tomorrow’s leaders.

OVERALL OBEJCTIVE

The purpose of the conference was to create a platform for the participants to share their understanding of the concept of sustainable development and illustrate how they were engaged in sustainable development activities.

IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVES:

By the end of the conference participants would have:

• Shared their success stories in implementing sustainable development activities in their communities
• Shared with peers future plans of involvement in sustainable development projects
• Brainstormed possible workable strategies of dealing with the threats caused by poverty, HIV/AIDS, water demand and supply, etc. 

PRESENTATIONS:

a. Sustainable Development path by Yonge Nawe

The conference began with a powerful presentation delivered by Joseph Mutsigwa of Yonge Nawe.  Mr. Mutsigwa gave a broad historical background to Sustainable Development beginning from the very first meeting held by different heads of states and government in 1987.  Mr. Mutsigwa discussed the various protocols entered to by the heads of states and government prior to the Rio 1992 Summit and after.  The historical background went as far as developments in the area of sustainable development 10 years after Rio 1992.  In conclusion Mr. Mutsigwa made reference to preparatory meetings leading up to the Johannesburg Summit coming in August 2002. Mr. Mutsigwa illustrated how different countries’ civil society and other stakeholders have failed in moving towards sustainable development.

b. Government’s contributions towards sustainable development by SNTC

The Yonge Nawe’s presentation was followed by Mr. Bheki Thusi who works for the Swaziland National Trust Commission (SNTC).  Mr. Thusi’s presentation was focused on government’s contributions towards sustainable development.  With the framework that had been made by Mr. Mutsigwa, it was interesting to hear how government was failing to put in place policies and other structures that support sustainable development.  In his presentation Mr. Thusi illustrated sustainable development within the following classification, “ green”,” brown” and “red issues.” “Green” issues were alluded to ecological issues, while “brown” to air pollution and waste management and related issues and “red” to gender and related issues. Mr. Thusi further discussed threats facing Swaziland and challenged participants to come up with sustainable development means of addressing these issues.  The threatening issues Mr. Thusi made reference to included among others, poverty, HIV/AIDS, water demand and supply, and energy.

c. The role of Youth in sustainable development by UNIGEP

Mr Sahr Tengbeh, the Secretary General of UNIGEP, made the last presentation.  He gave the youth’s views on sustainable development.  Basically the youth feel that they need to be involved more in issues of development.  Their feeling is that at the moment there aren’t any structures and avenues at their disposal to express their views on development.  The students also felt that they needed to be supported with empowerment programmes to give them the skills to communicate, organize and network among themselves.

Due to time constraints, a very shot time was provided for questions at the end of the presentations.  Also, the participants were still a little stiff and needed something to loosen them up.  The facilitator moved the process to group discussions, which was thought to be a god way of initiating dialogue among the participants.  The participants were divided into four groups averaging ten people per group and given two issues, namely poverty and HIV/AIDS to discuss.  The guiding questions thrown to the groups were as follows:

• What sustainable development activities are we (youth) doing in each issue?
•  What future plans do we (youth) have for improving the situation in each issue?

After 30 minutes of heated discussions the groups came back from plenary and it was time for group presentations.  Even before getting the groups back into the larger group, it was interesting to note that there was more dialogue among the students in the smaller groups compared to when they were in the large group.  The Yonge Nawe team had distributed itself among the four groups and giving guidance on progress.  Here are responses that came from the four groups regarding the two questions that were posed to each group.

a) POVERTY

•  What sustainable activities are we (youth) doing in poverty?

It was interesting to note that one of the groups said they were not doing anything to alleviate the situation of poverty.  When asked to give reasons for their inactivity they cited the following constraints:

• Too much bureaucracy to go through whenever you want to do something 
• Lack of support from government to youth groups trying to get involved in development
• Lack of support from the business sector for groups that don’t have a prominent patron

- To mobilize youth to form clubs and or associations
- To identify and remove stumbling blocks in the system the country is run
- To set up infrastructure like computer centers for the youth
- To build a national office for the youth

b) HIV/AIDS

•  What sustainable activities are we (youth) doing in HIV/AIDS?

•  What future plans do we (youth) have for improving the situation in each HIV/AIDS?

CONCLUSION
The conference was successful although 50% of the expected participants did not manage to attend the conference. The discussions were lively and the youth seemed to have enjoyed them. Group discussions and responses given thereof also had valuable lessons for both youth and adults.