In many cases theres lack of inclusive policies within the government and youth are often part of marginalized group themselves. So young women, young youth with disabilities, youth that are part of other maximize ethnic and groups within the country that theyre operating inches they are facing further obstacles to participation. The other other thing we see is a lack of skills in order to advocate and a dress grievances nonviolently. Knowing how to get involved with some of these processes. Theres a high tolerance of violence, is perpetrated by protesters, by young people who are often encouraged to take to the streets on behalf of Political Parties and others. Its also perpetrated by police, by a culture in countries where there is a high tolerance for violence. This has been seen as an appropriate tool to engage. The last point is a sense of meaning, i think were all looking to lead meaningful lives on it comes to young people it is an important or intense time. Youre trying to figure out where you are in finding meaning. Thats found in different ways wethers economic meaning for your job, whether its a sense of political participation, or, or part of us will political movement. It makes youth particularly vulnerable to people who are going to exploit young people. Theyre susceptible to Political Parties who want to use them to mobilize them, and susceptible to groups who are providing this sort of a sense of immediate light to be something bigger than them. Its critical that this changes over time, it changes country by country. Thank you very much. I know im not supposed to be commenting now because were talking about regional issues but we got a good entry points including the fact that regional generalities can also change per country and likewise we can see global trends. I want to pick up on a point that she made on multiple marginalization and the concern that we have in terms of persistent challenge of youth and looking at a young women in particular and young girls and their access to the political and civic process. This is a concern that isis has. We see of course if we look at the girls themselves, the issue which i know is a priority here at the u. S. Government. Its girls education, its a key piece to access for girls into the political process. Oftentimes in regions where we work around the world, parents, communities have to make choices of who had to go to school. Young, poor, girls are often the least recognized and their families and in their communities as needing this education, or the choices made between the sun and a daughter and the sun is chosen for reasons that tie to a number of cultural understanding. With the sun we can invest and hope for our future and community, so not to put the burden squarely on the parents either but i think the lack of access to education is a key moment for girls. Another piece of that in terms of societal burdens on young girls as early marriage and pregnancy. Making sure that girls can stay in school so they can continue to progress in their society and become leaders in their societies. We talk about politics in particular, there is this masculine av of politics that this is mans worker boys area of work. That is Something Else we try to work and break down the barriers. To do do so as soon as possible is critical. To raise one more point on this, is also security. Many of the places we are working our unstable. Societies are breaking down or attempting to transition to peace and oftentimes in those places women and girls, their restriction is severely, their movement is severely restricted which means they cant necessarily participate in meetings in public life in the same way that men and boys can. Thank you. Thank you very much. There is a lot to unpack in our discussion with these challenges. One followup i want to ask our panelists because it came up more than once, i like to explore the idea of Political Parties collecting a movement. Maybe it looks different across the region but can we talk more about how that might happen or why joining the youth wing of a party might be of interest to a young person and how the party abuse that position. The example that comes to mind is behrendt d which is a country im working in currently. One of the major issues through the past electoral process is the ruling party is essentially created a youth wing for its Political Party to act as, its a very militarized youth wing of the Political Party. They act as goons essentially. They strongarmed people into behaving the way the ruling party wants them to behave. They join the the protest, there are reports that they would dress up as police men and initiate violent confrontations with protesters in an effort to have everything spiral out of control. That is somewhat of a current extreme example but with many rebel movements out there in the eastern congo and in the great lakes region, there are certainly other forms that are equally extreme. Where that becomes attractive to you to join, again were talking about you that dont really have much in the way of opportunity otherwise. Where also talking talking about political systems in which resources are very concentrated in the political system. Its not a very diverse economy. The most immediate way to get access to resource on a meaningful scale is through political activity and for youth in this area the only way to do that is through militants type of engagement. What does that mean for the future to mark can young people who are part of this Movement Come back and serve in Public Office and i crept way you mark. I guess that depends on what unfolds through this conflict. One of the major challenges of in general is how do you bring these actors and a particularly young ones, the line between the victim and perpetrator. They can be seen as both in some sense how you bring stability back in once things and move forward. Ill just make two quick comments. When youre looking at who are part of the party theres a bit of lack of control there as well,. Jessica did you want to add anything about coming back from. Its a huge issue and it relates to deescalation of conflict to art topic of radicalization and how you attempt to bring those who have been citing back into more democratic process. It something isis is struggling with and many of the countries we are working in. The reintegration of young men and boys, this is an enormous challenge or from a gender perspective were very concerned about how to address the issue of whats more exciting, running around around with your goons, your boys and an ak47 or sitting round town Hall Meetings and having conversations about politics. Its not so easy to make that transition and make that shift in a society that has been unstable, unpredictable unpredictable and unsafe for so long. I think thats a key piece that were concerned about. We also cant treat you as the same, they are individuals and come to this for their own reason. I want to recount an anecdote that i would been following. Its been recounted by somebody who i follow on facebook who had been part of these protests and she talked about some of the youth who are perpetrating violence in the majority of the group had turned against them and were trying to get them to be arrested or have Security Forces take them out. They engage with the youth and Start Talking to them about some of the issues and these youth, along the course of the day became some of their biggest allies in terms of preventing the protest from becoming violent. I think theres a sense of engagement with young people on a personal level personal level can make a big difference. Thank you we have talked to the panel about some of the challenges, some trends across regions, i would like to ask if we could turn to some of our programmatic examples. The programs are designed to address these challenges and it would be nice to hear more about what we are doing in countries. Im going to lean on you first. If we think about is a larger scene some of things we can do to address these challenges, one of the first things i would say is that we do need to focus on building more of a culture of democracy, of civic awareness, and civic mindedness. Especially among youth and targeting a younger audience than we typically target. Not only voting voting age youth but slightly younger, gradeschool or secondary school level, this is something were hoping to be doing in tunisia and working with the ministry of education within the School System itself. We hope to be working with them to introduce the idea of voting, will be doing simulation for youth, introducing the idea of civic responsibility, concepts related to democracy, et cetera. Its important to introduce this at a young age because when people grow up with the concept of democracy they have different expectations of democracy. In the middle east and north africa reaching, people are trying to figure out what democracy really means whereas people who were raised with democracy has higher expectations. When i was reading about some of the recent protests in south america some of the youth leaders were saying they werent trying to topple democracy or, theyre trying to work within and had High Expectations of what democracy should offer them. To to bring people up with these concepts earlier on would have higher dividends and higher impact on the system. I also think in our program we support youth groups, we try to empower individuals as well as Youth Society organizations. Some examples i can give our work that we have done in tunisia with a youth group called iwatch. Its a youth based based group that we helped over a twoyear period build their capacity and skills to monitor Campaign Finance and advocate on issues that are important to you around campaignfinance. Also in libya we have worked on a Womens Leadership Program which help young women understand concepts relate to democracy and civic awareness, and also help give them skills to allow them to be in the public. By that i mean they gain some skills and capacity to be able to take what they had learned and use it and internships they had got. Many of these young women went on to take positions that like the prime ministers office, office, i think our Partner Group also hired a staff member and some who joined the staff of the Election Commission. So giving them actual hard skills that they can translate into the workplace is important. Finally it mainstream youth activities throughout the program, this is the way we can sustainably introduce youth programming to our projects. Youth are a big part of the citizen tree in most countries and we need to think about youth when were designing things. Also making sure that governments is able to take youth concerns in a constructive way, facilitate a twoway dialogue. Many youth feel like their voices are still not heard, that they are not being consulting, that theyre not having decisionmaking power. I think one thing isis can do is facilitate some of these consultation and dialogue this is the type of thing that were hoping to do with our democracy form in the future. Will be connecting youth groups with the Syrian Government and the opposition counsel as well for increased conversation. Thank you. You illustrated clearly the classic problem that tension between wanting to affect a change from outside the system versus engaging with the institution. Young people sometimes have difficulty navigating the transition, they are passionate about the issue and passionate about not wanting to engage with what is seen as corrupt or ineffective body. Programs that can help build those links do tend to be sustainable and effective. Thank you matthew would you care to share. Sure, i think in some sense and i touched on the little bits all of the work that isis does which is essentially aimed at building strong and sustainable Democratic Institutions that actually deliver on deliver what theyre supposed to on the economy and society. It is one of the key aspects of promoting engagement in general went but specifically youth engagement. Its almost meaningless to talk about engagement if there is in some sort of a working government with which to engage. If there there isnt that link between the active engaging and eventual result that come from it. In that sense, all the work has sort of an engagement component to it that said, we do do specifically work with the u. K. In our programming. In africa we have one great example, its one that is just starting of a very start youth focus project. Its in kenya, we are doing a youth survey, were trying to address the low rates of registration among kenyan youth. It will start with a survey theyll try to get an understanding of what why they are registering in such low numbers and from there therell be a Civic Education campaign that will be designed to get more youth to register. Along with that will be working with the administrative education and the institute for Curriculum Development and the Election Commission to develop a secondary school curriculum. Basically a civics curriculum which are kind of rare and africa. School curriculum that is focused on civics and how to engage appropriately with government institutions. Thats an exciting opportunity. Up until now are engagement with youth in africa has been more mainstreamed and most specifically into civic and Voter Education because that something we do a lot of in africa, there is a huge need to spread information about how to vote, why devotes, why is a democratic system an ideal system for africa. The way we do that, one way is to directly youth work with youth organizations and the delivery of civic and Voter Education. We are tapping into networks and systems that are ready exist to reach out to youth. The other is to make sure civic and Voter Education is happening where youth are. When we do facetoface Civic Education we make sure that our partners are going to schools to do it. Anywhere youth may sort of gather, school is the big example. Finally developing civic and Voter Education messaging that appeal to you. So think of radio shows or comic books that appeal to youth, weve done done song contest, weve done electoral caravans that sort of get out the vote and kind of a party on the street kind of thing. Thats the way we specifically reach out to you. Not to. I think the electoral caravans were done sort of as election day was getting very close and it was done in hand them with more set substantive Voter Education. The goal and i think they were quite appreciative and quite visible, the goal in the drc the day of the election could be a pretty tense day. There may be fears that there might be incidences of violence of the idea was to create a festive atmosphere or promote a festive atmosphere right before the elections to help get out the vote. Thank you. I want to make one quick comment about the need for a radicalization and the level of violent extremism in Different Countries. Its worth noting that some of this is domestic and some is international. The form of radicalization is different and there are couple number of activities that are similar across regions but some i wanted to highlight on the asian side include, training we work on in countries where the violence is localized in domestic. In those areas we have a Training Program called pay p ave and we train local leaders and members of Civil Society who come to these trainings and learn ways to get involved that dont involve violence. So is understanding the roots of violence, understanding how to fix electoral process, understanding what, understanding what types of activities they can become involved in. How to hold town halls, how to lead peaceful rallies, we also build other Skills Including debate and advocacy skills. Filling that gap of skill building. In afghanistan we have a debate exercise where people learn how to debate and then go on to debate internationally. In some places we work we tape workshops and its an opportunity to explore ones faith and what that means in terms of democratic values. The aim is to equip people to talk about the things that are on their mind. The ideas that that they are ready had but to provide them with the vocabulary and resources into articulated two other audiences. Another area area of involvement is Leadership Camps. We do it in the philippines, bangladesh, these are opportunities for people to have an intensive but out of school Civic Education experience. Then they can gonna do things within their own communities. It could be anything in their communities that are of interest to the youth. It could be could be waste disposal, clean water initiatives, having discussions about the levels of violence in society or bringing together groups that are fairly benign but that dont often come together to have this discussion. Maybe i will leave it up there and answer some of the next question. I want a quick followup so the issue students are dressing, of a projects of the students design. Theyre all designed by the students, i think thats key. Weve discovered through practice and its a bit awkward to talk about this when youre not a silly young person but its key to note that we work with local organizations better step by young people, our staff in most countries are young people themselves. The young people pull the answers come from the young people who participate, theres i think it goes down to exploiting her manipulating youth to support issues if theyre not coming from the youth themselves. Theres two more things i like to touch on. Id like to go back to some comments from jessica, you talked about the unique barriers that young women and girls space, i would like to follow up and ask you what solutions are available to these barriers . Im happy to talk about those but first i want to take a positive knowledge that toda