"To survive the republics of Central Asia need to unite. Regional integration should become priority for all Central Asian countries", - Chingiz Aitmatov, famous Kyrgyz writer.

On August 3-10, 2006 the Central Asia Regional Youth Summer Camp “Youth Participation in Country and Regional Development” took place in a mountain resort near Almaty, Kazakhstan. 117 youth leaders from various youth organizations and movements of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan participated in the event, as well as representatives of the World Bank, other donor institutions,  government agencies from five Central Asia countries, and guests from Russia, Turkey, and Macedonia.  The Youth Summer Camp was organized by the “Association of Young Leaders of Kazakhstan” with coordination from World Bank.

The Camp has become the main outcome of the project that received a grant from the World Bank's Small Grants Program (Regional Youth Initiative). Additional funding was provided by Eurasia Foundation in Kazakhstan, Soros Foundation in Tajikistan, UNDP and UNICEF in Uzbekistan, and USAID in Turkmenistan.

The goal of this Camp was to provide forum for young people to exchange ideas and discuss ways and mechanisms for youth participation in the development and decision-making processes for reaching Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Central Asia countries.

"This camp gave us the real opportunity to sense the need for regional integration to achieve our common goals aimed at development and improvement of our peoples' lives", said Farzona Muhitdinova, one of the Tajik delegates to the camp, adding that "This event was the best proof that our hopes, intentions and dreams are so much the same. We as young leaders have unique opportunity to shape the policies of our countries in the time to come and what we know is that better regional integration would alsways be our top priority".

117 representatives of youth organizations in five countries of the region from 16 to 23 years old were selected for participation in the Camp in a very competitive process. More than 800 applications collected throughout the region were examined by the Selection Committees in each country and up to 25 most outstanding applicants from each country were selected for participation in the Camp. They represent various youth organizations: students’ councils, debate centers, youth centers, volunteers’ organizations, NGOs working on issues of healthy life-style, HIV/AIDS, and problems of disabilities, and other youth organizations.

Program of the Camp included presentations and discussions of young leaders’ engagement in the development and decision-making processes, in the solution of important for youth issues, such as education, employment, corruption, healthy life-style, etc.  In the course of the Camp participants had a chance to acquaint themselves with experiences of neighboring countries in the areas of youth policy making and youth movements, acquire leadership skills, and learn art of making presentations, youth project management, conflict resolution, and other important skills.

One of the important outcomes of the Camp is creation of informal regional youth network with its web-site (www.centralasiacamp.narod.ru) and on-line emailing group (CAleaders@googlegroups.com). The Camp participants are willing to establish regional youth cooperation and implement various projects at national and regional levels. They are already starting their project on creation of Central Asia youth web-portal for information and better coordination of their efforts. They are also discussing directions to constituting a regional body/union of Central Asian youth. They are going to work on follow-up activities to expand youth cooperation in countries and the region.