Hello everyone!
 

On behalf of the Children and Youth Major Group of UNEP, we are pleased to make this announcement to young people and youth organisations world-wide and invite you to be part of unprecedented youth mobilisation as we head toward the upcoming United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA 5.2), UNEP@50 and Stockholm+50. 
 

The United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) brings together representatives of the 193 Member States of the UN, major groups and stakeholders to agree on policies to address the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. 

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• The next session UNEA-5.2 takes place in hybrid format in Nairobi from 28 February – 2 March 2022, with the overall theme of “Strengthening Actions for Nature to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals”. This highlights the pivotal role nature plays in our lives and in social, economic and environmental sustainable development. 

• The preparatory meeting for UNEA - the Open-Ended Meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (OECPR-5.2) will take place from 21 - 25 February 2022.

• Immediately after UNEA-5.2, the Assembly will hold a Special Session of the Assembly on 3 - 4 March 2022, which is devoted to the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the creation of UN Environment Programme in 1972 (UNEP@50).

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We will be sharing further details soon about the global YEA which will take place in hybrid format as well in the weekend before OECPR and weekend before UNEA, and spots for funded participation for UNEA and global UNEA on these (keep eyes open for that announcement soon!!). 

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With this, we would like to invite young people to engage in the youth preparatory process for UNEA! We invite your organisation / group / you as an individual to host decentralised Youth Environment Assemblies (YEAs) in the form of virtual consultations on community, national, sub regional or regional level with funding support provided for the same! This is an opportunity to help decentralize these processes, advocate on a local level and build the capacity of young people worldwide. 

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Local YEAs as per draft guidance document developed by YEA working group in 2020 are events / consultations organised and run by youth for youth, with focus on on empowering youth action around environmental governance and conservation - on the communities, national and regional levels - in the international context of the environmental and UNEA negotiations and processes. Their main objective is to educate, build knowledge and understanding among the national and regional youth on environmental governance and conservation and sustainable development.  We also encourage you to read the draft LYEA Guidance document developed by the YEA working group about LYEAs. 

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Funding available! 

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The following table provides details of the various scopes (i.e. types) of YEAs you can host with the indication of the average budget provided for each. Please note that within the current  budget, budgetary support can be provided for upto:

• 20 total of Community and National/Subnational YEAs

• 4 total of Regional/Sub-regional YEAs. 

The column on suggested running time is a suggestion, and more is possible depending on the capacity and arrangement from the organisers. 

All YEAs must be hosted before 25th March 2022, and we encourage you to host them before 18th February 2022 (within roughly two months from now) so they can also feed into global YEA and UNEA. To further support the planning of the YEAs from a thematic perspective, we will make available a policy guidance on topics and themes in early January !