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YOUTH PARTICIPATION IN GLOBAL DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES
A SEED International Youth Campaign
The A SEED initiative started, as described before, after the Bergen Public Forum. A SEED was started by the European Youth Forest Action (EYFA), an umbrella organization of about 300 European environmental youth groups. "Later, action-networks from all continents joined. The Asian Students Association (ASA), the Student Environmental Action Coalition (SEAC) of the United States of America, the African Youth Coordination on Development and Environment (AYCODE), Environmental Youth Alliance (EYA) from Australia." (SEEDlinks Special Issue, 1992)
A SEED was established by young people in 1991 to provide an alternative analysis to the UNCED proceedings and to forge strong alliances among young people committed to a socially just and ecologically livable world. A SEED operates as a "decentralized network which serves to strengthen and support local, national and regional youth movements."
A SEED was formed by "activists of various groups and movements". It defined itself as a "global youth initiative on environment and development...an international action network challenging the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development".
The aims of the network were:
to offer people the possibility of linking activities concerning UNCED
and our common future
to give those people, who are normally not heard, an opportunity to
voice their concerns.
to offer people the means to inform and discuss issues of environment
and development, locally and globally, during actions, festivals, by
telefax and email.
A SEED also defined itself as a "political demand", it tried to "bring together the different views and perspectives of the people who participated by forming a common platform."
A SEED had the chance to give a very close follow-up monitoring to the Earth Summit process. It had the opportunity to participate in most of the PrepComs and in the Earth Summit itself.
This international action network launched a global campaign that started with various conferences called March Meetings and with actions during PrepCom IV in New York. Then, a two month action period (before the Earth Summit) began and at the same time that the Earth Summit was happening, there were different youth gatherings such as the UNSAID Festival, in Freiburg, Germany.
A SEED was one of the most important international youth campaigns around the UNCED process. It had consistent presence in the process, trying to coordinate actions to denounce some situations that were not positive. It also tried to illustrate the great deal of manipulation of the UNCED process by some northern governments and transnational corporations. As it was expressed in the Third World Resurgence Magazine, Aug/Sep 1992:
"As in the preparatory meetings running up to the Summit, the youth groups provided a lot of the fire and spirit at Rio. Uniting under the A SEED umbrella, many youth from several countries carried out activities demanding that UNCED tackle the underlying roots of the environment-development crisis."
A SEED published a periodical bulletin called SEEDlinks, which contained important information related to the preparatory process of UNCED, analysis of issues, denunciations of irregular situations in the process, and networking information for youth organizations. It served as an organizing tool in its process of coordination towards the Earth Summit. The bulletin was produced (and is still being produced ) by young activists from different regions of the world. Southern participation has been very important in this process and the positions expressed in the bulletin are frequently in the vanguard thinking of the process. It had, nevertheless, quite a strong northern approach to the issues, due to the fact that the leading role in the network was played mainly by the Europeans and people from the United States.
The March Meetings were able to network through email and faxes, allowing people from different regions and backgrounds to discuss issues related to environment, development and youth participation.
A SEED set up the basis for the creation of an international youth network on environment and development. After the Earth Summit the network had to continue to be active and it has grown in members and contacts. It held a training and strategy session in January 1993, in Penang, Malaysia, where it defined the basis for the work that the network will continue to implement in this post-UNCED era.