On 24 April, ALDA, in partnership with 5 other European organisations, held the Final Conference of the project YouthMetre. The conference took place at the Committee of the Regions (Brussels), and gathered together more than 60 representatives of European institutions, local and regional authorities, civil society associations, experts and ordinary citizens to exchange knowledge, experiences and good practices on how to use digital tools to foster youth engagement in policy-making.

The event opened with welcome speeches from Ms. Yoomi Renström, Member of the Committee of the Regions; Ms. Antonella Valmorbida, Secretary General of ALDA and Mr. Karl Donert, Project Coordinator of the project YouthMetre and President of EUROGEO. The first panel invited a wide representation of institutional stakeholders from all EU institutions and local institutions to share their perspectives on youth active participation in democratic life: Mr. Casba Borboly, Member of the Committee of the Regions; Mr. Emilian Pavel, Member of the European Parliament; Mr. Alessandro Senesi, Deputy Head of Unit at DG EAC; Mr. Davide Capecchi, Research and Policy Officer at the Partnership between the European Commission and the Council of Europe in the field of youth; Ms. Stéphanie Nowakowski, Project Officer at the Bureau International Jeunesse and Mr. Wout Van Caimere, Coordinator of the Youth Intergroup of the European Parliament.

The second panel allowed practitioners to share their practices and experiences on the use of e-tools for youth participation: Mr. Alessio Lupi, Secretary General of ARS for Progress of People; Ms. Céline Guedes de Carvalho, Policy Officer at FEPS; Mr. Valentin Dupouey, Secretary General of JEF; Ms. Delphine Rochus, Belgian Young Ambassador on behalf of the Youth Council; Ms Elisa Lironi, Digital Democracy Manager at ECAS; Mr. Evaldas Rupkus, Project Manager at IJAB; Mr. Matías Nso, CEO and co-founder of Kuorum.org and Mr. Daniel Van Lerberghe, Dissemination and Communication Partner at Cafébabel.

The conference was the conclusion of the forward-looking project "YouthMetre: a tool for forward looking youth participation", co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme, under its KA3. The initiative aimed at supporting EU Member States, municipalities and regions in carrying out effective policy reforms in the field of Youth, in line with the indications provided by the EU Youth Strategy and according to the priorities perceived by its target population: young Europeans.

The project YouthMetre was able to show how it reached the objectives it had set for itself. The project launched the YouthMetre e-tool in February 2017 where data on youth policy has been made easily accessible and examples of good practices are presented to inspire young people. The YouthMetre was introduced to both young people and decision-makers alike to foster ground for dialogue through the use of data.

The event was also an occasion for institutional stakeholders to reflect on the current challenges that young people face before being able to actively participate in decision-making at the local level. They all stressed the importance of technology in empowering young people to participate but also to collect data in order to support their advocacy work. In the afternoon, practitioners shared their practices and successful experiences in using e-tools to foster youth participation at local, national and European levels. It allowed for all organisations present to consider possible future synergies between such a rich array of e-tools.

If you wish to learn more about the detailed contents of the conference, you can find the report of the event here. If you wish to stay up to date on the implementation of digital youth participation processes, you can join the conference eXploring youth eParticipation, organised by SALTO in cooperation with IJAB in Tallin (Estonia) from 18th to 20th June 2018.

Useful links:

For more information, please see:

YouthMetre website
Twitter: @YouthMetre
Facebook: youthmetre
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