9TH ASIA-EUROPE YOUNG LEADERS SYMPOSIUM

In November I went to the People’s Republic of China for the IFM – SEI to represent them at that Inaugural Conference for Young Political Leaders in Asia and Europe. Around 100 delegates attended from the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) countries, that’s all the EU countries plus Brunei, Cambodia, PR o China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Burma (officially Myanmar), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. This conference was the first to start a dialogue between Europe and Asian youth in further work and developing an Asian-Europe Youth Forum and developing work around the Millennium Development Goals (cheek out Global Village, www.globalvillage.org.uk for MDG) and the UN World Programme of Action for Youth. The meeting was organised by the All China Youth Federation, European Youth Forum, Asia- Europe Federation and the Tianjin Youth Federation.

Eventually we produced a declaration that all organisations will be able to use to build a stronger framework for working with our European and Asian friends and to take to the ASEM leaders. However the meeting of young people was also important to express our commitment to globalising human rights and democracy and rule of law and it is an important step forward that these things are stressed by all. The event did have its problems, the way in which people fed into the final declaration was not good and the gender imbalance of the chairs was not acceptable. It did however produce a document that progressive moments can at least work with and although not strong enough will be a start to further cooperation with Asia-Europe Meeting countries.