Asia-Pacific Regional Youth Call to Action Ahead of the APFSD 2023

The Asia Pacific Youth Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) Youth Forum 2023
convened with a unique and intersectional group of 300 young people, activists and
advocates from 36 countries across the Asia-Pacific region. The forum held in hybrid
modality, from 18th - 20th March 2023 in Bangkok, Thailand gathered diverse individuals
aged between 13 - 30, who represented youth-led and feminist organisations,
changemakers, social entrepreneurs, activists, and students.
This APFSD Youth Call to Action puts forward the concerns of young people across all
backgrounds and identities including persons with disabilities, persons belonging to various
sexual and gender identities and expressions, youth from ethnic and minority groups, and
various socioeconomic backgrounds, amongst others, and embodies our demand for
sustainable, inclusive, and human rights focused solutions, with focus on the SDGs under
review for this year:

★ SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) ★ SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals)
★ SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy) ★ SDG 3 (Health and Wellbeing)
★ SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure) ★ SDG 5 (Gender Equality)
★ SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities)
 Accelerating the Recovery from COVID-19
● Ensure meaningful participation and leadership of young people women and girls in all
their diversity in decision-making including, planning, implementation and monitoring
processes related to COVID-19 recovery and the implementation of the SDGs.
● Young people of all diversities to be included at the table to be able to speak and voice
out their concerns. Voices of young people, with disabilities, very young adolescents
should not be left behind. Social inclusive, equity and intersectional lenses, is crucial
recognising the heterogeneous nature of young people.
● Prioritise gender equality, human rights, equity, meaningful and inclusive youth
engagement, comprehensive sexuality education, and Sexual and Reproductive health
and rights (SRHR), as these are foundational values to achieving individual well-being
and sustainable development .
● Implement policies that promote equal access to education, gainful employment
particularly for marginalized communities. This can include providing technology and
internet access, increasing funding for education, and reducing education fees to
ensure recovery from COVID-19
 Accelerating the Recovery from COVID-19

● Empower, invest in and support youth-led and youth serving initiatives and
organizations led by young women and girls that are working to address the
barriers to COVID-19 recovery and achieve the SDGs, providing funding, technical
support, and other resources to help them scale up and expand their impact.
● Invest in sustainable recovery plans that focus on creating green jobs, promoting
sustainable renewable energy, and developing sustainable infrastructure. Such
investments will help create a resilient economy that is better equipped to achieve
the SDGs while, prioritising marginalized communities such as gender and sexual
minorities.
● Implement social protection programs and provide direct support to those
affected by poverty and inequality. This can help reduce the negative impacts of
the pandemic on progress toward achieving the SDGs
 SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 3 (Health and Wellbeing)
● Accelerate open dialogues with multi sectors to share own explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge
for creation of Sustainable, safely managed Water Management.Translate resilient, prosperous,
sustainable, inclusive, innovative, and dynamic water actions at the level of local to international with
ensuring their financial support mechanisms.
● Centralize the nexus of water-youth-climate issues at the heart of SDGs and peak them as a
political agenda for all stakeholders,
● Employ necessarily trained service providers in the health care service centers so that they can
provide support to the adolescents without any delay ensuring privacy in clean and hygienic , water
and sanitation supported facilities .
● Ensure social inclusion including gender equality and disability towards youth SRH with
menstrual hygiene.
● Include a specific focus on adolescent SRH information and services in universal health coverage
policy, plans and financing mechanisms. In safe water and sanitation facilities.
● Remove policies and regulations that require minimum age, mandatory parental or spousal consent,
and other regulatory barriers that limit access to health, SRH services and commodities and ensure
water and sanitation systems at community level are functional and accesible
 SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation) and SDG 3 (Health and Wellbeing)
● Provide competency-based training of providers in non-judgmental counselling and
services for adolescents, and improve supportive supervision
● Monitor and evaluate national AFHS standards The following must be enforced: (1)
Prohibit forced marriage before the age of 18 years for girls and boys, (2) Prohibit
sexual violence, including within marriage, (3) Prohibit child sexual abuse and
exploitation
● Decriminalise and ensure positive legal environment for SRHR and transgender
persons and ensure legal protection against discrimination on the basis of gender
identity and expression, as well as sexual orientation.
● Invest in strengthening the health, water and sanitation systems by improving
infrastructure, Increase funding for healthcare. This will help ensure that countries
are better prepared to respond to health emergencies like pandemics, ultimately
supporting progress toward SDG 3.
 SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy)
● Empower young women and girls in all their diversities as agents of change in climate action and
ensure sustainable livelihoods, agriculture, and clean energy for in COVID-19 recovery efforts.

● Ensure equal access to technology and internet connectivity, including renewable energy solutions,
for young women and girls with disabilities and in rural, marginalised and vulnerable communities.

● Provide youth-friendly and accessible funding, resources and support to youth-led initiatives and
ensure exposure, opportunities, and scholarships to young people to pursue careers aimed at
decarbonising the sector.

● Ensure access to research, innovation and technology to provide clean and accessible energy at
schools, universities, and educational institutions and ensure meaningful and inclusive participation
of young people at all levels of policy-making.

● Promote a culture of mutual respect and trust within countries in the region to develop reliable
affordable clean energy policies and procedures and increase cross-border mobility of youth
throughout the Asia-Pacific region to learn about clean energy development methods, standards and
policies, financing mechanisms, and challenges.
 SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure)

● Ensure young people are represented and visible at the inception stage of planning to ensure that
the infrastructure is planned and designed to meet their needs, and give them a sense of ownership
for long term sustainable impact.

● Integrate modern technology in infrastructure and ensure access to technology to young people in
all their diversities, across the region.

● Increase equitable representation, visibility, voice and meaningful engagement of all youths with
disabilities. Engaging youths with disabilities themselves to better understand their support needs
and what innovation and accessibility looks like to them. The diversity of impairment groups allows a
more comprehensive and broader perspective of the challenges and barriers persons with
disabilities.
 SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities)
● The design of cities should be implemented with people at the center. Advocacy on design and
implementation of cities must be disability and elderly-people friendly. Partnerships between people in the
community - children, adolescents, women, men, LGBTIQ+ persons, persons with disabilities, etc. must be
prioritised.

● Ensure accessibility for all by implementing disability friendly infrastructures in cities .

● Prioritise and promote sustainable tourism to protect and uplift socio-cultural aspects of marginalised
communities, such as Indigenous people.

● Provide trainings, programmes and services that inspire, empower, and connect young people to create
innovations to help strengthen the quality of life of society.

● Ensure the creation of and protect green spaces for people to exercise and create space for everyone to be
involved in the community.

● Ensure the subsidisation of public transport fuel at the floating rate and increase the number of buses and
other forms of public transport to enhance accessibility for all.
 SDG 13 (Climate Action)
● Ensure protection of environmental human rights defenders throughout the Asia Pacific region and
focus on implementation of policies & projects, in addition to education and policy framing.
● Reinforce sustainable development education that seeks to envision youth-led programs and
projects that are aimed to promote climate action.
● Provide financial aid and technical assistance to strengthen capacity building for diverse for young
people with special needs, indigenous, and underprivileged.
● Ensure gender equality and uphold sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) when
responding to the climate crisis. This includes ensuring inclusive and meaningful participation of the
most affected and marginalised communities in decisions related to climate change at all levels of the
planning, development, implementation and monitoring processes.
● Climate change, environmental and disaster risk reduction policies and programs must be developed
and implemented with an intersectional, equitable lens and a human right-based approach.
 SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals)
● Increase equitable representation, visibility, voice and meaningful engagement of all youths partnerships
including with disabilities. Engage youths with disabilities themselves to better understand their support
needs and what innovation and accessibility looks like to them. The diversity of impairment groups allows
you to have a more comprehensive and broader perspective of the challenges and barriers persons with
disabilities.
● Partners and stakeholders must collaborate with organisations of persons with disabilities in their
programmes and activities that will give youth with disabilities opportunities, resources and platforms for
empowerment, engagement and participation. This contributes to capacity building, drives leadership and
contributes to skills building.
● Clearly define the objective of equal cooperation, and rebuild a reasonable reporting hierarchy in line with
the actual situation of each country in the region.
● Ensure the distribution of resources in an equal manner with marginalised groups at the forefront.
Government bodies must be responsible for distribution without any corruption and misuse of resources.

● Invest in proper mechanisms to collect and analyse accurate and reliable data.

● Implement a transformative experience-based educational ecosystem with active and meaningful