un mgcy whs working group: guide for open-ended consultations

Open-Ended consultations with youth

An Open Source Manual

by the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth World Humanitarian Summit Working Group

Open-Ended Consultations with Youth

An Open Source Manual by the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth World Humanitarian Summit Working Group



If you are reading this manual you are probably thinking (or already planning) to arrange a youth consultation for the World Humanitarian Summit. This manual intends to cover everything you

need to know about conducting a consultation, no matter the level of experience. The outcomes from your consultation will then feed into the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) process through the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth (UN MGCY) Working Group for the World

Humanitarian Summit.

If you need assistance or want to become further involved, send us an email on [email protected].

Thank you for being one of the many young people who ensure that youth priorit ies will be recognized and highlighted by the World Humanitarian Summit!

The UN MGCY WHS Working Group

This guide is developed by the UN Major Group for Children and Youth. For more information about UN MGCY please visit www.childrenyouth.org. More information about the World Humanitarian Summit process can be found at www.worldhumanitariansummit.org and the general consultation material of WHS Secretariat can be found under the tab ?Resources? in the WHS website.



The pictures and logos in this guide are originally from the following organizations:

International Federation of Medical Students' Associations-Sweden

UNICEF

United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth

The World Humanitarian Secretariat Secretariat

Youth Beyond Disasters



Introduction

How to use the manual

Open-Ended Consultation with Youth

What is an open-ended consultation?

Why open-ended consultations?

Who can facilitate an open-ended consultation?

The Consultation

Preparatory actions

Breakout Session

Introduction

Presentations

Open-Ended Consultation

Part 1 - The line

Part 2 - Group Discussion

Part 3 - Technical Open-Ended Consultation

Closing

Facilitating Tips

What happens after the consultation?

Keep in touch with us

Annex 1. Example of Agenda for Part 1, 2 and 4

Annex 2. Questions for Part 3

Table of Contents



Leading up to the WHS are eight regional and one global consultation. These aim to capture the priorit ies of dif ferent regions and of the global community. The process is managed by the United Nations Off ice for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA).

The WHS will bring the global community together to commit to a new agenda for humanitarian action beyond 2016. Young people have a recognized role in the process and the Summit. During disasters and conflicts, young people are considered a vulnerable group, whose individual and social development can be affected in the long-term . However, young persons are also capable agents for change and possess unique, innovative, and effective solutions that contribute to improving humanitarian action. Organized youth networks and organizations, together with the use of new technologies, make young people important humanitarian actors, now and in the future.

The UN MGCY WHS Working Group seeks to comprehensively facil itate the meaningful participation of youth in the WHS and its preparatory process. This manual is one way for you to actively take part in the process by holding an open-ended consultation.

The manual sets out to comprehensively describe how to conduct an open-ended consultation. By reading the manual and its l inked materials, you should feel prepared to host a consultation. However, consultations are group activit ies, and dif fer from one discussion to the other. Please consider this manual, then, as a guide rather than a hard set of rules. Above all, it is important not to lead the discussion, but facil itate it.

Introduction

How to use the manual

The humanitarian landscape is changing with a growth in the scope and diversity of humanitarian needs, disasters, and humanitarian actors. The United Nations Secretary General has called for the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), which will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, in May 2016, to improve the coordination of humanitarian actions and meet the needs of mill ions of people affected by conflicts or disasters.



An open-ended consultation is a series of facil itated discussions to capture young people?s realit ies, stories, and concerns regarding a particular matter. For the WHS, it means gathering experiences and views on the following areas:

1. Challenges in meeting humanitarian needs;

2. Priorit ies of needs to be addressed and actions to encourage in the WHS process outcome;

3. How youth contribute to sustainable and effective humanitarian actions.

What are the priority areas of need and humanitarian action that the young people believe need to be addressed, and what are suitable, innovative solutions that improve humanitarian action and address said needs?

A lot of decision-making processes take a top-down approach. It is important to ensure that we do not lose stories and thoughts from the grassroots level, as we seek ways to actively incorporate all input within an emerging developmental framework. Facilitators should not provide answers, as there is no right or wrong. Open-ended questions and exercises will be used instead, to ref lect the realit ies and perspectives of all participants involved, keeping the discussion inclusive, forward oriented and ensuring a meaningful and relevant outcome.


An open-ended consultation is a means to voice the priorit ies, concerns and ideas of stakeholders. The technique is used in a number of UN processes to ensure that youth opinions feed into the processes and ultimately into decision-making.

For the UN MGCY, open-ended consultations ensure that our policies ref lect as many youth voices as possible. Our consultations are designed to be easily conducted and viable for use in a range of dif ferent settings, be it at local organisation meetings, regional events, or international gatherings.

The outcomes from open-ended consultations are one of several means to shape the UN MGCY policy for the concerned process. Our policy should ref lect youth priorit ies from all regions and all parts of society, the consultations are an important tool to collect such diverse opinions. Only by acting together and combining all input, we make our voices count.

What is an open-ended consultation?




The consultation aims to ensure that youth voices are recognized, heard, and ref lected upon by achieving the following objectives:

? Enhance young people's knowledge on humanitarian action and challenges;

? Introduce young people to the WHS process and the themes it addresses;

? Develop possibil it ies of youth participation and the presentation of young people's priorit ies for the WHS process, through discussions on innovative solutions to address the challenges of humanitarian aid and action;

? Inspire young people's commitments to contribute effective and innovative actions to enhance humanitarian response;

? Facilitate opportunities for young people to contribute to the global and regional voice of youth and children within the WHS process;

? Build the tools for participants to continue communicating the priorit ies and commitments of youth in humanitarian action in the long term, and then work to implement these outcomes.

You don?t need to have any specif ic qualif ications or prior experience to facil itate a consultation, aside from a sincere interest in contributing to a productive WHS through collaborative and inclusive dialogue. Everyone is encouraged to host their own consultation, and your contribution is important and recognized!

After concluding the consultation we aim to reach the following outcomes:

? Young people have knowledge on current challenges for humanitarian action and have strong motivation and confidence to take actions to address these;

? Young people are conscious of their role as humanitarian actors and play an important role in the system at all levels (national, regional and international);

? Use collected inputs to develop policies to be further communicated in the WHS process, based upon young people's priorit ies and commitments for the WHS agenda.

Objectives

Expected Outcome

Who can facilitate an open-ended consultation?



The Consul tat ion



Preparatory Actions

? Prepare a presentation covering topics regarding humanitarian action: Either you f ind speakers for the session or you prepare your own presentation. The UN MGCY WHS Working Group can help you in preparing materials;

? Select a suitable energizer for breaks and the introduction (a quick game or exercise that energizes the group);

? Prepare for the consultation (see more information below);

? Prepare enough resources for all youth participants;

? Make plans for follow-up and feedback.

A good consultation starts with the preparations.

? Select and prepare facil itators for the consultation according to commitment and comprehension of the process;

? Engage and recruit youth participants who have a good understanding of humanitarian action;

? Select a venue that allows easy speaking, l istening, and writ ing for all participants. Facilitators should be able to make eye contact with all youth participants and receive their opinions clearly. (Tables and chairs can be arranged in a semi-circle to facil itate this);



Breakout sessions

The objectives of the consultation are to ensure that the participants? thoughts are heard and ref lected in the WHS process.

The consultation facil itators should begin the session in the following manner:

? Welcome all participants ;

? Present the agenda and objectives for the session;

? Explain what a consultation is, highlighting that there are no right or wrong answers during the discussions, that their thoughts are their own ideas and no one can take them away from them or question them, and that each contribution is valuable;

? Inform the participants that their contributions will be translated into policy, and that they are welcome to take part in that process within the UN MGCY WHS Working Group.

The presentations are either delivered by external speakers and experts or by you, the facil itators. Presentations should help provide an understanding of the WHS process and issues regarding humanitarian action that has led to the call for the WHS. The UN MGCY WHS Working Group can provide you assistance in preparing materials.

1. Introduction

2. Presentations



The following section describes an open-ended consultation within the UN MGCY. The aim is to create a forum where young people can raise their priorit ies and transform them into meaningful and effective policies.

We suggest four exercises for the consultation: The Line, Group Discussion, Technical Open-Ended Consultation, and Individual Survey.

If the time is l imited to an hour, it is advised to focus on exercises one and two. If you have more time available, you may benefit from including relevant aspects of exercise three, which provides more specif ic focus on technical aspects of humanitarian issues.

You are encouraged to leave time for exercise four, which records the opinions of youths worldwide. This is to ensure that eventual policies may be effectively measured against youth priorit ies and concerns.

Part 1 - The Line

The Line aims to warm up the group and give you insight to the group?s dynamics. The Line is one of many value-based exercises. If you are familiar and more confident using another suitable interactive introduction exercise, you can choose that instead.

The exercise consists of the following:

1) Participants take away their chairs and stand in two lines facing each other.

2) You will say statements concerning humanitarian action and their task is to decide whether they agree or disagree. If they agree they take one step forward, if they disagree they stand stil l.

3) After each statement they return to their original position.

3. Open-Ended Consultation



Proposed statements:

? Humanitarian action meet the emerging needs of people affected by disaster and conflict;

? Conflicts are the main reason for the need of humanitarian action;

? Your region/Your country is prepared enough to manage any hazard and, therefore, does not face disasters;

? It is okay that the private sector or NGOs have a f inancial prof it from delivering humanitarian response;

? The United Nations should intervene more often in disaster settings;

? Young people can work in humanitarian response;

? Young people are vulnerable during disasters and conflicts;

? The humanitarian mindset is diminishing in every succeeding generation;

? If States were better prepared to handle disasters, they would not need international aid and support;

You may add questions of your choice, related to the discussion topic.



Part 2 - Group Discussion

Divide the participants into smaller groups of 3-10, and make sure that each group has a facil itator, t ime taker and a rapporteur.

? The rapporteur is taking notes and will report back after the discussion.

? The facilitator sets up the questions and makes sure that everyone in the group gets a chance to speak. It is also the facil itator?s task to ensure that the discussion stays focused on the topic, however without steering the discussion to specif ic answers.

? The time taker helps the facil itator to watch the time for the group discussion, so that each question is addressed and adequately discussed.

Inform the participants that they have 30 minutes to discuss the following four questions.

1. What are the pressing priorit ies for humanitarian action?

2. Why is the international and national community having dif f iculties meeting the needs of humanitarian actions?

3. What are the main challenges young humanitarian actors face? How can humanitarian action be improved?

4. What is the role of young people in humanitarian actions and how can young people contribute better? What support is needed to ensure a meaningful contribution?

Part 3 - Technical Open-Ended Consultation

If you have additional t ime you may want to focus on a specif ic discussion point of the consultation. Depending on your group, you can decide to focus on a specif ic topic, such as the role of f irst l ine responders, or the importance and challenges in ensuring proper water supply in humanitarian disaster. . You should then consider complementing the above questions with a subset of technical questions, which can be chosen from the online survey or taken from Annex 2.

Another possibil ity is to focus the consultation on one of the WHS themes: humanitarian effectiveness, reducing vulnerability and managing risks, transformation through innovation, and serving the needs of people in conflict.

You will f ind example questions of a more technical character in annex 2, as well as information on how to streamline a consultation. These can be used if you decide to have a technical discussion based upon the four themes.



Part 4 - Individual Survey

The online survey is not only an alternative to the off l ine consultations, but a means to collect input from youth worldwide. We encourage you to leave time at the end of your consultation for all participants to f il l out the survey individually. If participants have internet access, they should do so directly online. You can also print the survey, but the answers will have to be manually entered in the online survey afterwards.

By taking the time to ensure that your participants f il l out the survey, you are ensuring that our policy more accurately ref lect youth priorit ies and concerns.

The Online Survey is currently being f inalized and will be linked very soon (with translations to the UN languages).



The closing or wrap-up of your consultation is your chance to sum up everything that has been discussed.

? Remind the participants of the objectives for the consultations and that the outcome will feed into youth policies to be delivered in the WHS process;

? Should they want to follow the process of youth participation in WHS, advice that they sign up to the WHS Youth mail ing l ist . Alternatively you may consider asking participants to write their names and email addresses legibly on a sheet of paper for future reference, and emailing them the link directly;

? Thank the participants and the facil itators, t ime keepers, and rapporteurs for their contribution.

4. Closing

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GNO4L8siBloPGHqDENxPS2-cBB-POVfT9OmuZRplqIM/viewform



? Think about some of the barriers to gathering everyone?s voices (one person dominating the conversation, people too nervous to speak up, language barriers, etc.). What can you do to ensure that everyone has the chance to offer an opinion?

? Think about how you will keep young people engaged when they are in the consultation, such as dif ferent ways of moving around the space, ice-breakers, warm-ups, or energisers that can keep engagement levels high. If something is not working, change it!

? Have you explained concepts using language that is easily understandable (avoiding jargon and acronyms, for example)? Have you considered the level of understanding of the UN Summit process?

? Think about how you will give participants a chance to take the lead during the consultation. Could they facil itate some of the group discussions or take the lead in summarising the group discussions?

? Make sure that it is possible for everyone to participate, not just those with the loudest voices - think about ways in which you can check that everyone has understood the information (for example by asking participants to recap the main points at the end of each session) and ways in which you can ensure that everyone has a chance to speak (for example by making sure it is not always the same participants presenting, with a gender balance from those who are speaking).

? Ensure that there are multiple forms available for participants to contribute e.g. mixture of oral presentation, mind maps etc. This is due to the fact that many participants may have excellent ideas to contribute but may not be comfortable expressing these verbally.

Facilitation Tips



In order to ensure that WHS takes into account the results of your valuable time and effort, please take care to thoroughly summarize your f indings through the following steps: .

1. Report the outcome of the Consultation in this form: Feedback form Open-ended Consul tat ions?.

2. If you wish you can summarize the outcome of the consultation into a position paper, to be submitted to the WHS Secretariat before 31st July. This might be your organization's position throughout the process, which in turn can feed into the global UN MGCY WHS Working Group policy position. For assistance in how to summarize your consultation into policy contact the UN MGCY WHS Working Group at [email protected].

If there are any of the participants or facil itators of the consultation who wish to actively contribute to the WHS process, they are welcome to become engaged. Agendas for the following meetings can be found in the WHS Youth mail ing l ist and on the WHS sect ion of the UN MGCY Website.

What happens after the consultation?

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/11SPVXkoBDRGmgskNcV6CmUiZEnKUA_aW3-5YMe1uwnA/viewform

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GNO4L8siBloPGHqDENxPS2-cBB-POVfT9OmuZRplqIM/viewform

http://childrenyouth.org/policy/world-humanitarian-summit-working-group/

http://childrenyouth.org/



You want to contribute more? There are more ways to engage in the UN MGCY WHS Working Group: First, please join the email l ist to follow all updates to know all the latest information.

You can also reach us through the following media:

? WHS Facebook: www.facebook.com/WHSYouth

? MGCY WHS Off icial Website: www.childrenyouth.org/whs

? Email l ist (messages are sent to everyone): [email protected]

? Email to the UN MGCY WHS Working Group: [email protected]

Keep in touch!



Annex 1. Example of Agenda with Part 1, 2 and 4



If you decide to have a technical discussion, you have the freedom to design it as you see f it for the consulted group. You may wish to focus one of the four themes of the WHS. A good source of information is the WHS website, where you can f ind questions from previous stakeholder events. Also, feel free to reach out to the UN MGCY WHS Working Group to discuss your specif ic consultation. We are many young people engaged, including young professionals, and we are here to support each other.

Below, you can f ind a few example questions for each theme.

Annex 2. Questions for Part 3

Humanitarian ef fect iveness

- What practices need to be in place before affected people can truly say that humanitarians are accountable to them, and what would be the implications for the way humanitarian action is structured, funded and practiced?

- What is required to make sure that international humanitarian response is tailored to the specif ic context?

- How can the engagement of the private sector in humanitarian preparedness and response best be stimulated?

Reducing vulnerabil i ty and managing risk

- What are some of the new humanitarian risks that are emerging in your region?

- Participants to the WHS regional consultation for Eastern and Southern Africa called for joint risk assessment, planning and f inancing between humanitarian, development and climate change communities, including through linkages with post-2015 development and disaster risk reduction processes. With this in mind, what steps must be taken and incentives introduced to make a major step change in how the humanitarian and development communities collectively assess risk and prepare for response?

- How can the use of science, data and modelling be improved in order to enhance preparedness and response? What new partnerships can be formed between expertise within this region and that in other regions?



Transformat ion through innovat ion

- What are the areas of humanitarian action where innovative approaches could have signif icant positive impact?

- How can donors, governments and humanitarian organizations be incentivized to engage more in responsible risk-taking and the testing of new and potentially beneficial approaches and products?

Serving the needs of people in conf l ict

- How and under what conditions can there be more coherent and longer-term planning, investment, and joint action among humanitarian, development and peacebuilding actors to meet people?s needs in protracted conflict situations?

- Given that humanitarians usually have litt le direct inf luence over the degree to which parties to conflict respect international humanitarian law, what new ideas could work in ensuring affected people?s safe access to humanitarian relief and the safety of humanitarian actors?

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The full set of these questions can be found through this link.

un mgcy whs working group: guide for open-ended consultations

Documents