UN-HABITAT challenged youth at the *Global Forum on Youth and ICT for
Development* in Geneva to come up with new information and communication
solutions to help young people in cities.

UN-HABITAT's workshop on Youth ICTs and Urbanization focused on how
information and communication technologies can help solve priority problems
of youth in cities. Half of the world's population currently live in
cities, and of these, one billion live in slums or informal
settlements. Around
50 per cent of the one billion urban poor are young and face huge problems
of unemployment, poverty and poor health. Youth also suffer more than
other age groups as victims and perpetrators of crime.

UN-HABITAT challenged youth to come up with novel solutions to address the
problems that they face in cities. As an example, the agency cited its
three day online forum, the Habitat JAM, which gathered ideas from over
70,000 young people around the world to ensure that their voices were heard
at 2006 World Urban Forum in Vancouver, which was attended by some 10,000
policy and decision makers.

In the lively exchange at the ICT workshop, it was suggested that access to
ICT should be recognized as a basic service by ensuring that all new housing
incorporates wiring for Internet connectivity, together with the electricity
and water supply. In poor countries where telecommunications infrastructure
is still under-developed, radio, television and mobile phones were
recognized as important tools of communication for youth to get their
messages out and to engage their local and national governments. Concern
was expressed by some that the Internet was eroding culture and traditional
skills, but there was general agreement that the technology offered huge
benefits as long as care was taken to introduce measures to minimise the
negative aspects if the Internet.

Important applications identified by the workshop included use of ICTs for
training so that youth can gain access to employment, and e-governance
applications that allow youth to network and collectively develop ideas
which they present to leaders to ensure that urban development and
management strategies take into account youth issues.

Indeed, the UN-HABITAT's One Stop Youth Centre programme is a good example
of encouraging youth in cities to contribute to city strategies. Under this
programme which is being piloted in Nairobi, Kenya, youth gather to talk
about problems that affect them such as unemployment, HIV infection and
crime, and collectively, they propose new strategies for addressing these
problems. This and other similar iniatives that ensure that the priorities
of youth are heard by politicians and policy makers are yielding results.
The city of Nairobi has recently established a separate Youth and Children
department while the government of Kenya has developed an National Youth
Policy. Similar models in slum areas are helping the young access community
development funds to improve their living conditions.