South African Youth Tackle Sustainable Development

March 4, 2008 --The World Bank partnered with South African university students for the inaugural African Development Partnership -- an initiative by African youth that attempts to bridge the divide between today's leaders and young people by creating an environment for engagement. The students took the initiative to organize the event at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. It brought together the World Bank and Business Leadership South Africa -- the student organization known as “oikos”. Oikos is an international student organization devoted to sustainable economics and management among tomorrow’s decision makers.

“Our ambition is to raise awareness on the developmental problems that plague the African continent and build a partnership of young leaders to tackle these problems,” says Katelgo Moilwa, one of the chief organizers of the event and a student at the University. “Every year we will select an issue that we feel needs to be debated”. This year the African Development Partnership focused on the overall theme: "Creating an Environment for Sustainable Development".

Rogier van den Brink interacts with students.

The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts

The African Development Partnership is based on the premise that collective action is greater than the sum of individual and isolated actions taken by government, tertiary institutions, civil society and business. The students argue that through a cross-sector partnership among this group of four, the African Development partnership intends to build leadership capacity in these sectors. They hope the result leads to creating an environment of confidence and responsible social and economic action for tomorrow's leaders and policy makers.

“The inaugural conference was a success in that it brought African youth together to discuss what they can do as the future leaders of the continent to promote sustainability. In observing the participants, one could see the partnerships already forming”, noted Moilwa. “Current leaders in attendance were overwhelmed by both the young leaders' enthusiasm and their understanding of the selected sustainability issues. The partnership has now begun and it is now the duty of oikos Johannesburg to take it forward.”

A number of speakers discussed the role of students as the leaders of tomorrow and cited poverty and climate change, among others, as issues that they will have to continue to tackle in order to achieve sustainable development. Some encouraged the youth to engage in community work, to work with others as much as possible, to learn about social and economic development issues at a young age and begin to formulate ideas for tackling the challenges.

The World Bank’s senior economist in South Africa, Rogier van den Brink, approached the issue by supplying a definition for sustainable development. “It is development that meets the needs of societies today, without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own goals, allowing for better opportunities for economic, social and human progress than the current generation has.” Van den Brink told the students the sustainable development concept helps to focus on the long term. “It helps to take a step back and see the big picture.”

Next Steps

Moilwa said the workshop was just the beginning. “We will also use our links with oikos International to work with universities from Europe, the United States and Asia and garner international interest. We need to get people focused on the partnership in order to motivate them toward our goals.”

She said the findings of the discussions will be compiled in a report that will serve as a framework for a plan of action that will be shared among the partners in attendance and organizations for sustainable change. “This process is the first step toward influencing policy and practice. The long-term strategy is to form a coalition with a major media house, universities, business associations, and work with governmental authorities in order to broaden our reach to include young leaders from all aspects of society as well as spread our message across the continent.”

Contributed by Mallory Saleson, Sr Communications Officer, World Bank. Photos by Mmenyane Seoposengwe, Public Information Associate, World Bank.