At the Global Youth (GYBN) Strategic Meeting on UN CBD - Berlin City, Germany

I was privileged to attend the GYBN Youth Strategic Meeting in Berlin City, Germany from 21^st of August to 27^th August as a Youth Facilitator and representing South Asian Young People. GYBN stands for Global Youth Biodiversity Network and is a unique network of individuals and youth organizations from all over the world whose common goal is to halt the loss of biodiversity.

The urgent need to setup a global organization to provide a common platform for youth active on Biodiversity has long been felt at various international youth conferences. In October 2010 youth delegates from various countries came together at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD COP10) in Nagoya, Japan, to establish the Global Youth for Biodiversity Network

GYBN’s mission is to connect youth organisations and individuals by providing them with a place to exchange knowledge, contacts and ideas to preserve biological diversity on our planet. It strengthens and supports youth efforts to promote and protect biodiversity and helps to raise awareness for the intrinsic value of biological diversity.

GYBN is also the international coordination platform for youth participation in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and is committed to bring the opinions and positions of youth into the negotiations.

GYBN offers youth organization and individuals a platform to discuss with youth around the world on several topics. The working groups enable you to actively take part in GYBN. Practical issues, communication and administration, policy issues and international positions of GYBN are also dealt with in several working groups.

The conference achieved the following goals:

Building the network: Space to present the experiences and best practice examples of the participant’s organizations

Creating the structure of gybn, as a sustainable network

Personal exchange

Focus CBD COP 11:

-          Workshops on main issues for example:

-          Establishment of targets and financial mechanisms for the mobilization of sufficient resources for the protection of biological diversity

-          The status of the Nagoya-Protocol on Access and Benefit-sharing

-          The implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011 – 2020 and progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets

-          The Implementation of the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity

-          Marine and costal biodiversity

-          Biodiversity and Climate change  

-          World café for exchanging knowledge as well as experiences

-          Working groups on PR and media as well as actions during the COP 11

 Getting in action:

-          First public action in Berlin, organized and designed by the participants

-          Defining next steps and responsibilities

-          Creating the common “Berlin Declaration” as a base for the gybn actions to come