Latin America and Caribbean Youth Dialogue Outcomes

During the afternoon of 11 May, the Private Sector Mechanism hosted the second in a series of Youth dialogues. The event had 56 participants including youth, private sector, and Member State representatives. A key component of the event was to bring forward specific policy recommendations that could be taken into the upcoming CFS negotiations on the Policy Recommendations on Promoting Youth Engagement and Employment in Agriculture and Food Systems.

Coming out of the Latin America and Caribbean Dialogue the highlighted recommendations were:

1. Support agricultural education programs from primary school to post-university training,
   including agronomy, finance, entrepreneurship, leadership, and communication.
2. Promoting inclusiveness and open dialogue on agriculture across different civil society groups
   and private and public sectors to inform policies on youth and agriculture.
3. Accelerate infrastructural development in the rural areas, including improving internet
   connectivity and broadband access.
4. Promoting public-private sector partnerships focusing on initiatives to engage youth in
   agriculture.
5. Facilitate access to credit for youth with specific flexible loan options offered by financial
   institutions to young individuals or companies led by young people.
6. Enabling young people’s engagement in the decision-making process on agricultural policies
   by creating quota systems that allow for guaranteed participation of young people in making
   decisions.
7. Build capacity of young people, primarily focusing on women and vulnerable groups.

The next set of CFS negotiations are currently taking place from 4 – 6 July in Rome.