Structured Dialogue on the Move
From the 18th to the 21st of February, OBESSU attended the event “Structured Dialogue on the Move” which was held in the stunning setting of Larnaca, Cyprus. The Structured Dialogue (SD) is a process aiming to promote the active participation of young people in democratic life and to foster discussions between young people and EU policy-makers. European-level organisations such as OBESSU consults member organisations and the answers from all organisations are compiled and fed into the legislative processes of the EU. OBESSU has been involved in this process in several different ways during the last years (see here, here and here). We have also organised different types of consultations, sometimes online and sometimes with individual sessions at events (for example, there was one session on this at the Training Course for International Officers in 2013). A full agenda awaited the enthusiastic participants who included an equal mix of International Non-Governmental Youth Organisations and National Youth Councils. Varying objectives were shared at the beginning and by Saturday most had been met thanks to the Cypriot Youth Council and the European Youth Forum (YFJ).
Initially much of the time was spent on focusing on not only identifying the existing challenges facing the process, but attempting to answer the deep, underlying question as to why these issues exist in the first place. It was agreed unanimously that SD faces many varying issues which currently impede its effectiveness. Undoubtedly, this was an important step as later we concentrated on how it can be improved as a tool for youth participation. Issues such as how to demonstrate that there have been concrete results from the process were the main focus. It was felt that despite the process existing for several years already, many struggle to point out definite results and this can actually disenfranchise more people as they feel despite being engaged they are not listened to regardless.
The final day and a half saw participants come towards actual solutions. There was a fascinating mixture of ideas and experience among participants and hopefully this will give fresh, innovative and practical solutions.
Keep your eyes open in the future; OBESSU will take the ideas onboard and make sure that the voices of its Member and Candidate Organisations are taken into account in all future editions of the Structured Dialogue.
Written by Brendan Power, OBESSU Board member
