Unlocking the potential of Youth through South-South Cooperation ( City-City learning and knowledge exchange

With 85 percent of the world's youth living in the Global South, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of South-South Cooperation in empowering and harnessing the leadership capacities of global youth to contribute to global development efforts. In this context, there is a common agreement on the important role and value added of young people's contribution to development through policy dialogue, programme formulation and implementation at national, regional and global levels. In addition, despite the different identified challenges in the global south, young women and men are the source of creativity, innovation and positive change, where there are conditions in place to facilitate their effective and equitable participation and hence providing equitable, inclusive and sustainable solutions.

Young people also play an important role in stimulating development, and in promoting cooperation and partnerships at various levels, from municipal and national to regional and global. Their openness for change and diversity contributes to their active participation in intercultural exchanges and dialogue and hence are goodwill agents of change.

In this regard, knowledge exchange forms an integral part of the South- South Cooperation towards meaningful participation of young people and their empowerment.

In this regard, the side event will:

1. Seek to showcase youth-led development solutions in the global south while better understanding the existing regional trends on youth development, inclusion and meaningful participation in South-South Cooperation.

2. Identify and share relevant good practices in different countries and contexts in order support actors to develop and implement effective youth development policies.

3. Contribute to identify potential solutions to address the urban youth challenges, as well as partners to support the replication and adaptation of initiatives from the Global South.

4. Provide specific recommendations to South- South Cooperation beyond project implementation and cycles.

5. With the rise of new mechanisms of dialogue and cooperation among developing countries, the development solutions that will be showcased in this side event represent essential tools that bring new technology and capacity (i.e. transfers of know-how, technology, and exchanges of information), which can be utilized to promote youth development especially on entrepreneurship and innovation.