In a packed room in Crimea, the Ukrainian government was fully present. Presenting, debating, and voting on the country’s development priorities, 40 cabinet ministers engaged in a lively debate with the newly appointed World Bank Country Director for Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova. After a bit over two hours, the new World Bank Strategy was adopted: waste management, health and social insurance and alternative sources of energy were the selected three priorities.... This was not the real Ukrainian government. But the representatives in the room could be Ukraine’s government of the future. It was formed by participants of the Students Republic, an annual gathering of youth leaders, to which the World Bank was invited.
The Students Republic is a game aiming to develop the skills for active civil participation among young leaders by modeling the political processes based on a real country. Each participant could form political parties, compete to be elected President, Prime-Minister, Ministers, but also play journalists, judges, the police, the National Bank….. The goal of the game is to strengthen the civil society movement through developing among youth the culture of civil engagement and the values of democracy. ”Student Republic is a place for those who want to win” – says one of the slogans of the game. For the first time the project called Students Republic was organized during the Youth Day celebration in 1998. Since then Students Republic became an all Ukrainian project supported by the Ministry of youth, family and sport as well as by the Ministry of education. For the last 10 years most of the young leaders of Ukraine took part in the Students Republic. The ‘graduates‘ of the Students Republic have become city mayors, active players in different political parties, government officials, advisors to ministers. Now Students Republic is the only one all-Ukrainian project-game for young leaders from all regions of Ukraine. This year Students Republic accommodated around 750 participants of the game and up to 1,000 guests. Each year the game takes place in a different location in order to discover and attract attention to new parts of Ukraine. This year Students Republic was organized on Tarkhankut cape – the western part of the Crimea peninsula. The World Bank session- game was called: “Modeling the cooperation between the World Bank and the authorities”. Participants were asked initially to name their top priority for Ukraine’s development going forward. Topics related to youth, such as the development of a network of hostels, bank credits for young people, green tourism, development of sport, support for young families featured prominently among the priorities raised. But there were also challenges facing the whole Ukrainian society from global to local levels: energy and economic security, global warming, ecology, agriculture, EURO 2012, employment, fighting corruption, connection of villages to gas supply, cheap credits for big enterprises, social advertisement, social programs for disabilities and others. Then a vote took place to identify the top ten priorities, and then a second vote to drill down to five key issues. “We should switch the focus from the general to the local problems.. – says Kostyantin Bilyk, participant of the game - “No reason to ask for assistance in general, it is impossible to do all. Let us concentrate and chose one actual problem which has to be solve here and now.” It is interesting to analyze which topics were suggested and why. Pavel Krasnobryzhny, former president of the Republic, suggested a project on development of a high speed railway as he is a transport university student, another young girl proposed an initiative to develop a credit scheme for young people as she had personal difficult experiences with accessing finance, others suggested student loans as a priority, reflecting their own experiences with financing higher education. “I am quite disappointed with my people and the topics they have chosen to present to the Bank and ask for its support. They concentrated on the local and concrete projects– so they can not improve the lives of all citizens of the country, - says Oleksiy Chornyi , Prime-Minister of the Students Republic, and former President in 2005.- “But in this respect I see a role for the Bank in showing the high level of professionalism and educating future leaders on how to think in a more strategic way”. Following a debate on the shortlisted themes, three final topics were chosen and further elaborated in sub-groups: waste management, medical insurance and alternative sources of energy. In all three projects ministries were asking for the Bank`s expertise, global knowledge and in the case of the waste management project: financial support. “We had a chance to play a real game with professionals from a real organization”,- says Mykyta Polatayko, candidate to the post of the Student Republic president 2008: - “Now we have a clear picture on what we have to improve in order to become professional decision makers in the future.” “It is very exciting how the World Bank cooperates with young leaders and helps our voices to be heard.” – said Artem Mikhaylyuk, active member of the organizational committee, moderator of the session-game. – “These young leaders playing the roles of the president, prime minister, ministers will take over their country in the nearest future and their views and ideas should be taken into account by the decision makers already today. There is a big future in such fruitful cooperation and we hope that the World bank will work with us and support youth initiatives in the future.” Martin Raiser was pleased with the outcome: “The student leaders were very engaged but also quite well organized. And I come away with a sense that we are already working in many fields that are important for young people. However, young people look to the future and as such environmental concerns play a particularly important role for them. This is something we will need to try and strengthen as a theme in our dialogue with the authorities; an area where we have struggled so far.” During the last years, World Bank organized a number of events for youth such as Youth Open Houses, Essay Competitions, Summer Forum for young leaders of Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, Development Marketplace. Theses initiatives aimed to inspire young Ukrainians to actively participate, share their views on the most urgent topics for society, and suggest new initiatives which will help to improve their lives. In September 2008, the World Bank in Ukraine launched a National Essay Competition for youth on corruption in the higher education area. We are looking forward to know the opinion of the young people on corruption and their ways to fight it. |
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