Youth, New Generation ICTs and Civic Engagement

Padma Prakash
IRIS Knowledge Foundation, Mumbai, India
Over the last decade ICTs and social media have more or less changed the contours of social
interactions in all countries of the world. If the democracy movements of the Middle East
prompted a new appreciation of the new social media and its potential, the many other
mobilisations that have followed in the Middle East and elsewhere have led to a more
nuanced understanding of the potential of new technology in initiating change.
For the first time the democracy movements showed how tech-savvy, politically and socially
sensitive youth could use new generation information technologies to transform
politicalscapes.
While the quick email had been used to garner quick support in mass mobilisations earlier, the
social medias reach and speed render it a most appropriate medium for rapid and
synchronized action. The anti-corruption events in India led by a social activist, Anna Hazare
in April 5 2011 extensively used social media for a short duration and Twitter accounts were
abuzz with chatter. Four days later when Hazare gave up the fast when the government agreed
to pass an anti-corruption bill in Parliament the movement died on social media. 1 While social
media did mobilise quick support for a cause affecting all especially the young, it did not lead
to sustained debate on the issue on the social media. Yet a small sample nation-wide survey of
youth 18-24 years conducted in December that year found that nearly 76 per cent of youth
believed that social media empowered them to bring change to the world we live in.
Most reliable and large scale studies on the use of social media by youth have come out of
developed regions where the spread of the new technology is far more widespread. An early
meta analysis of 38 studies looking at the impact of the internet on social and political
engagement2 could only conclude that it is not contributing to civic decline as was feared in
the early years but found small evidence that it would have a positive effect on civic
engagement.
The point however is that new media technologies and the social media present the potential
for expanding the engagement of youth in social and political space. Whether this potential is
being realized and will continue to be further expanded depends on a number of factors, some
of which are in the control of country governments, corporates and international bodies.
This paper explores the extent of current youth use of new technology and social media for
civic involvement and participation.
The paper is situated against the long years of global job drought that is severely affecting all
aspects of youth development. Any strategy to expand youth participation in civic issues will
only be sustainable in a situation where more jobs become available. Our premise is that
while historically unemployment has moved young people to take to the streets over a number
of issues including the immediate reform of the job market; and indeed educated youth have
led radical movements in the South, all but a few have survived to provide a space for youth
engagement. The overwhelming need to find decent livelihoods has debilitated and blunted
youth social consciousness.
If youth engagement in the social, political and economic space has to be sustained and over a
long term, then there has to be a sea change in the way young people view such involvement,
as a priority and not a matter of choice. This is unlikely to happen on empty stomachs and the
desperate search for decent livelihoods. The way may well lie in constructing a new

With research assistance from Aritra Chakrabarty, Nandini Bhattacharya, Rituparna Dutta,
IRIS Knowledge Foundation, Mumbai, India.
1 Kurup, Deepa (2011) How Web 2.0 responded to Hazare, The Hindu, April 11.
2 Boulianne, Shelley (2000) Does Internet Use Affect Engagement? A Meta-analysis of Research,
Political Communication. www.tandfonline.com/loi/upcp20

perspective that integrates the pursuit of employment with larger objective of contributing to
social and economic good and an involvement in participatory democracy. Youth must be
conceptualized in literature and policies as changemakers that will best function in the context
of appropriate jobs and decent livelihoods.
This paper addresses these broad questions: What has been the nature and extent of use of
ICTs and social media for youth involvement in social and political issues? What global and
regional strategies are needed to enable the more efficient use of new information technology
and the social media in order to expand and deepen youth civic engagement?
1.Worlds Youth
Two significant factors characterize todays global youth population: unemployment and
migration.
Twothirds of the global youth population is either unemployed, or is in the
informal sector, or neither in the labour force nor in education or training. 3 A
significant impact of this prolonged search for decent jobs is a dissatisfaction with
current systems, institutions and regimes, and a growing realization of their own
potential to make change.
The effects of long years of unemployment, scarring are particularly
prevalent in three regions: Developed Economies and European
Union, the Middle East and North Africa. In these regions youth
unemployment rates have continued to soar since 2008. Youth
unemployment increased by as much as 24.9 per cent in the
Developed Economies and European Union between 2008 and
2012.
In Europe, increasing proportion of employed youth are involved in
nonstandard jobs, including part-time work not out of choice but
compulsion. The arc of unemployment extends, as the Economist
points it, from southern Europe through north Africa and the Middle
East to South Asia. Also evident is a distrust of the political
systems and institutions that sometimes gets translated
intopolitical protests---such as the anti-austerity agitations in
Greece and Spain.
90 per cent of the worlds youth live in developing countries, over 45 per cent in the
Asia-Pacific region alone (20 per cent in South Asia and China to 18 per cent in
Southeast Asia and 17 per cent in East Asia).
Over half the population in the 22 countries of the Arab region is below 25 years.
Young people in developing countries are two-thirds more likely to be unemployed
than older people and the trend is rising. In 2012, youth unemployment rates were
highest in the Middle East and North Africa, at 28.3 per cent and 23.7 per cent,
respectively, and lowest in East Asia (9.5 per cent) and South Asia (9.3 per cent).
In these regions and in most poor countries, access to education is uneven favouring
the better-offs while vulnerable groups and women still do not have easy access to
education. Enrolment in technical and vocational education is particularly poor in
South and South West Asia being only 2 per cent of the total secondary enrolment.
There is a mismatch between education and labour market skills.
With the spread of new technology, jobs are on the move, and so are people,
especially young people. With increasing controls on migration the movement of
young people in search of jobs and better lives has become hazardous. Any
discussion on enabling and encouraging the participation of youth on the civic
agenda with the use of social media must take note of these factors.

3 World Bank (2013) World Youth Employment Report 2013.

2. Spread and Penetration of ICTs and Web.2 Technologies

In 2011 the Internet accounted for an estimated 3.4 percent of total GDP and one-fifth
of all growth in GDP for the G8 countries and five major economies Korea, Sweden,
Brazil, China, and India.4 The revenue of the global ICT sector was estimated to be $4
trillion, slated to sharply rise with radically new technologies such as cloud
computing.
Some three billion people are using the Internet today.5 Internet penetration is 78 per
cent or near saturation in developed countries. Even in developing countries one in
three people are using the Internet and one-third of households have Internet access.
A majority of Internet users, especially in developing countries are youth. The
number of Internet users worldwide has more than doubled since 2005---from 16
percent of the global population to 39 percent in 2013. In Sweden and Norway, the
two top-performing countries overall in the 2013 Web Index, almost 95 percent of
people are online.
The digital divide today appears to be primarily because of lack of affordability rather
than poor infrastructure. In most developing countries a basic broadband package
costs 65 per cent of the monthly per capita income. This income-driven divide also
exists even within middle income countries including the US.
A gender deficit exists in the access to the Internet. Except in some middle income
countries, far fewer women are subscribers to the Internet than men.
Fixed broadband connections are growing rapidly in developing countries but the
growth rate is slowing down in developed countries. More than half the 2.3 billion
global mobile broadband users are in developing countries. In Africa growth in
mobile broadband connections have risen from 2 per cent in 2010 to 20 per cent in
2014. Since the events of January 2011 in Egypt there has been an enormous rise in
broadband penetration in Arab countries --- from 0.1 per cent in 2005 to 2.9 per cent
in 2013. Technology has become cheaper and more sophisticated and users more
familiar with it.
Mobile Internet that is likely to see the sharpest growth. Cheap smartphones have
allowed countries to leapfrog the era of personal computers. Mobile broadband
subscriptions are growing by approximately 60 per cent every year and could reach to
5 billion in the next five years. This growth is going to be highest in developing
countries.6
Growth in mobile technology is also fuelling new services including mobile payments
and mobile app stores, producing new economic opportunities for young people
involved in the development of services such as mobile games.
With mobile outreach will come development dividends as well as economic growth.
The output of the virtual economy - the exchange of virtual goods and services - is
estimated to be in the region of US$ 3 billion and has the potential of creating many
new types of jobs in developing countries.7

4 [All data on the Internet and related is from the following source, unless otherwise stated is from this
report of the Broadband Commission or from the WebIndex 2013.]McKinsey Global Institute, 2011
cited in The State of Broadband 2012: Achieving Digital Inclusion for All: A Report by the Broadband
Commission, September 2012.
5 As above
6 The State of Broadband 2012: Achieving Digital Inclusion for All, International Telecommunication
Union; Economist October 27 2012, p4, Web index
7 Vila Lehdonvirta and Mirko Ernkist (2011) Knowledge Map of the Virtual
Economy: Converting the Virtual Economy into Development Potential , infoDev,

According to WebIndex 2013, of 61 countries under review the top ten are from the
global North along with Australia and New Zealand, while all the countries in the
bottom 10 are from the global South. The positive impacts of the digital economy
have not yet been felt in many places in the South. The growth of mobile internet in
the next five years or less is likely to change this scenario. 8
A whole new set of opportunities are opening up with Cloud computing. The latest
UNCTAD Information Economy Report 20139 focuses on the cloud economy10 and
developing countries and echoes predictions that cloud technology will be the most
disruptive technologies over the next two decades with major implications for
economies, societies and markets.
With the cloud the UNCTAD report the cloud is already impacting the social media
and driving traffic. In 2012 Google received two million search requests,
Facebook users shared around 700,000 content items and Twitter
sent out 100,000 tweets in a single minute. Much of this originated
from Europe and North America but the highest growth is predicted
to occur in the Middle East and Africa.

The social media, Web.2 technologies and the new technologies that will emerge, in the hands
of youth with adequate institutional and legislative support and investment have the potential
of transforming country economies and societies.

3. Youth Civic Engagement and Social Media and ICTs

Social capital in its narrowest definition constitutes horizontal relationships and social
networks. A broader definition generally accepted today also includes institutions including
governments, political entities, and legal systems. It is now well recognized that social
capital contributes to social development and economic growth. 11 Whether it is a matter of
people mobilizing against deforestation or organizing for the revival of a microeconomy after
a disaster or opposing a politically dictatorial regime, it is the consolidation of social capital
that turns the tide and makes an impact.
New information technology and the social media are today playing a critical role in the
formation and consolidation of social capital as never before. Youth action using social media
may be supportive, deliberative or collaborative. Supportive practices are those that allow
the sharing of information and messages using tools like twitter to retweet or using like
buttons on Facebook and so on. It may also be deliberative in which users have an opinion
and engage with the messages they receive. It may be collaborative where the outcomes are
said to be significant and a result of longer and closer interactions. It is now of course obvious
that every level of participation on the new social media in fact contributes to the process of
consolidation of social capital. The interface of youth, social media and the formation of
social capital is not confined to any one country or region but has become over the last five
years global. Social media through user driven content, for instance, played a critical role in
mobilizing people on political issues in as many as 80 per cent of the countries that the
WebIndex surveyed.

8 The Web Index measures the impact of the web on the worlds nations and peoples by looking at the
availability of infrastructure, Web usage and the impact of the Web on social, economic and political
indicators.
9 UNCTAD (2013) The Information Economy Report: The Cloud Economy and Developing
Countries.
10 Cloud computing enables users, through the Internet or other digital networks, to access a
scalable and elastic pool of data storage and computing resources, as and when required.
11 Grootaert, Christiaan (1998) Social Capital: The Missing Link? World Bank.

Civic engagement in youth tends to determine and define the civic attitudes ---the particular
set of habits and practices inculcated --- of a whole generation. While some of the attitudes
might change somewhat over a period, it is unlikely that they will be entirely abandoned. An
environment that is constantly telling you that your involvement will have no impact on the
nature of things is unlikely to produce an adult population that will see reason in civic
engagement. There is also growing evidence that the availability of new media of social
interaction has enabled young people to break away from the ennui of a previous decade of
disengagement from social and political issues and engage in civic action and raising voices
in protest, and challenging corrupt or inefficient systems and organsiations collectively does
make a difference.
In the current environment of an employment and opportunity drought, youth civic
engagement serves several purposes. For one, youth civic engagement in these early years
ensures a continued involvement in social and political issues throughout life. For another, by
mobilizing social capital such involvement also contributes to economic growth that directly
creates more jobs, and more opportunities for young innovators and entrepreneurs.
How exactly is the new information technology and media different from that of a previous
generation? In what way is it facilitating youth involvement in civic action?
There are a number of now familiar characteristics of the digital media that distinguish it from
earlier media. Briefly, the speed of information gathering and transmitting; volume of
information transmitted; several types of communicationone to many, one to one and so on;
shifts the focus of attention from geography to interests; merges the several kinds of media;
challenges traditional notions of gatekeepers; and attempts to overcome the distinction
between producers and users.12
Young people are using social media for rapid communication:
An earlier generation media such as emails revolutionized the speed with which one
could communicate. The Twitter and messaging are almost instantaneous
communication---almost the speed of thought. It is this that has made it possible for
social media to play a critical role in mobilizing people as for instance in the Occupy
movement or in the anti-corruption movements or in the massive protests prompted
by the rape of a young girl in Delhi,13 increasingly impacting on the ability of young
people to drive social change and promote human rights.
Rapid dissemination of user-driven content has also played a role in raising
awareness and mobilising people on political issues in 80 percent of the countries,
and on environmental issues in 66 percent of countries In about half of these
countries, the Web seems to have played a leading role in galvanising both political
and environmental action. 14
Social media is increasingly user-driven and youth are producing both the technologies
and the content:
This has meant structural changes in the way content is produced, stored and
disseminated and makes it possible to integrate cultural dimensions and localisation
as never before. One example is of open-source technologies which are often based
on peer-production and which are distributed freely with access to the end products
design.

12 Delli Carpini, Michael(2000) Youth, Civic Engagement and the New Information Environment
Departmental Papers, Annenberg School for Communication.
13 In December 16, 2012 a 23-year-old girl, was brutally gangraped in a public bus. The girl died 13
days later after a brave fight.. The rapists, one of whome was a minor were arrested and subsequently
sentenced. The incident brought thousands of people out on the streets in several cities in synchornised
protest organized throught the extensive use of Facbook posts and Twitter. Kumar, Amit ( ) Role of
Social Media in Mass-Movement: A Case Study of Delhi Gang-Rape, Seminar Paper, Ujire.
14 WebIndex Report 2013. https://thewebindex.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Exec%20Summary
%20and%20Ranking%20Table.pdf

The Voice of the Youth (VOTY) Network is a multimedia organization in the

Phillipines . Driven by youth, the goal of the VOTY Network is to foster a sense of
leadership and social entrepreneurship among youth through the innovative use of
technology and media. The Network uses the internet and email, text messaging to
cell phones, AM radio and face-to-face exchanges for sharing of information,
knowledge and resources among youth organisations.
MUST is the Mumbai University-based student run FM radio that has migrated to
using digital space and social media to provide a platform for youth expression and
education on rights, training local youth from disadvantaged communities a radio
jockeys and so also providing employment opportunities. With the growth of mobile
internet, the creation of apps is a growing area of employment for youth

Expertise and experience gained by youth on their extensive use of new media may well
equip them with a variety of skills that they would not otherwise have acquired:
Studies have found that youth involvement in online activities such as gaming and
sports provides a good basis for the engagement of digital social capital.
Lehdonvirta and Mirko, for example, estimate that more than 100,000 people in
countries such as China and India earn a living through online games and websites
disseminating micro-tasks,15 despite the fact these countries only have internet
penetration rates of 40.1percent and 11.4 percent, respectively (2011).
The skills gained in the pursuit of such interests are making it more likely for young
people to engage in civic and political issues that might challenge their expertise in
the use of new media in such areas as quick and accurate exchange and distribution of
material from a variety of sources, create open ended but secure channels of
information, and so on.16
An outstanding example of how young people are bringing added value to
government is demonstrated by the now well-known Map Kibera project funded by
the UN-Habitat Urban Youth Fund. Youth from the community are generating their
own video content. SMS tools and the Ushahidi crisis-mapping platform are used to
map local stories facilitating youth access to information for effective social action.
New media offers an opportunity to overcome control on the production and generation
of information. The production and regulation of content and the means of delivery are
not in the hands of governments and the private sector:
The new media challenges traditional definitions of information gatekeepers and
authoritative voices, and producers and consumers of information. Usergenerated content has started breaking down traditional hierarchies by making
traditional gatekeepers such as journalists and media houses, less relevant.
Young Reporters for Citizenship is an exciting youth-led project in Palestine that
is training youth in citizen journalism to run a Youth Observatory. It extensively
uses digital tools to advocate on local and national issues ranging from
unemployment to prisoners rights issues and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Handsets
are used to send SMS messages that are then transferred to Facebook or other
social media that do not need Internet connectivity.
Social media exchanges may be anonymous. This makes it attractive to voices that could
be muffled or suppressed by the state or other authorities. Youth are making use of the
anonymity that social media affords to make the invisible, visible and challenge
structures and systems:

15 Lehdonvirta and Mirko (2011) Vila Lehdonvirta and Mirko Ernkist (2011) Knowledge
Map of the Virtual Economy: Converting the Virtual Economy into Development
Potential , infoDev.
16 WebIndex 2013.

By providing anonymity, the Web offers a voice for marginalized people. This was
evident in the Arab Spring, and in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen. When the
Egyptian government blocked access to social networking sites, innovative internetsavvy young people used landline phones to access servers outside the country and
used these sites to mobilize world opinion.
Crucially, new media technologies have given opportunities as never before for
lateral communication and self-expression. As an Open Society Foundations
country report on Egypt points out the half a million Egyptians who clicked I am
attending the revolution on Facebook gave each other the feeling that I am not
alone. If I go out on the streets on 25 January, I am not going to be with 200 people; I
am going to be with thousands, or as it happened, with millions. 17 It is this that
gives young people who had never been involved in any sort of civic action the
confidence to participate in movements now.
ICT based tools are being used by young people to create alert systems and
monitoring programmes in conflict zones to defuse social and political tensions. One
such is Martus, a software tool by Benentech, a US-based non-profit that allows the
documenting of human rights and is helping human rights groups access information
necessary for their work. (http://martus.org).
New media is offering a space for employers and others to reach out to young people:
Increasingly, recognizing the huge virtual presence of young people, employers are
also using it to source potential employees. A survey commissioned by U.S. human
resources firm Kelly Services from October 2012 to January 2013 polling 122,000
people from around the world, found that, an average 41 per cent said they had
received job queries and information through the social media over the last year. This
included 74 per cent of those polled from Brazil; 39 per cent each from the US and
Canada.
Social media and other digital technologies are creating new models of commerce:
Driven by young people involved in free culture movements mostly, the changing
nature of copyright, has produced new models for monetization of content online
such as micropayments, freemium models, in which users are only required to pay
for premium features of a product and new forms of online advertising.
This has challenged the issue of copyright on the Web and several alternative means
of protecting ones creative products have evolved. While young people are in the
forefront of these new developments, they are also devicing different means of
marketing their products.
New information technologies, including social media are making it possible for youth to
reach out across sectors, communities and countries for potential exciting collaborations
that cross physical barriers. This will be even more possible with the advent of the
Cloud Economy and cloud computing. This makes it possible to share skills, experience
and resources for social projects that also can create employment opportunities.
New media from Twitter to Facebook to YouTube is also offering an alternative route for
the dissemination of authoritative and reliable information.
Traditionally the pathway was vertical from an authoritative source through
various stages and then to people at large. Today once information is on the social
media it gets shared horizontally. Youth are eager consumers of all kinds of
information that they then use whenever and wherever required. In this
Wikipedia and other such resource websites have been of immense value.

17 Abdulla, Rasha (2013) Mapping Digital Media: Egypt Country Report, Open Society Foundations.

With the penetration of mobile internet and cheap media plans, it is becoming possible
for disadvantaged vulnerable groups and communities to communicate, interact,
collaborate and mobilise.
Digital inclusion has been an issue for discussion for many years. While larger
numbers of younger people from disadvantaged sections are using the internet and the
social media, digital disadvantage continues to be evident. ICTs including and
especially social media make for ownership and appropriation of the communication
process ensuring language pertinence; development of local content and local
technologies.
The Global Action Project (G.A.P.) uses media technology as a catalyst for dialogue
and education among disadvantaged populations of inner city youth, most often
migrants, in New York, Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Berlin (Germany), and Pozna
(Poland), to show how social media production can be a positive factor connecting
young adults within the community engaging them creatively.
The Web index 2013 found that rights and priorities of women are not being
served well in a majority of the countries under survey. However, women are using
Web.2 technologies extensively in some countries. Women are more visible on
Twitter than are men and womens groups in many poor countries especially are
especially using them to educate and empower women.18
HarassMap in Egypt addresses a problem increasingly seen in many countries.
Through its surveys it has found harassment occurs at all levels and young women
suffer it in silence and accept blame as victims or risk the severe social consequences
of speaking out. The project makes reporting possible, prompt, secure and safe
through mobile phone communication and social networks.
In Bangladesh womens groups have promoted the use of mobile phones by women
in a variety of enterprises. Elsewhere in Sudan and Nigeria, ICTs are being directly
used by young women in microenterprises such as data entry, microindustries etc.

4. Towards Policy Recommendations

The last half decade has shown the high impact that new media can have on development
outcomes and the spread and strengthening of democracies, and securing of civil liberties and
human rights. That these have more often than not come through the initiative of young
people is a hard-learned truth. Notwithstanding the bleak jobless futures they face today, and
challenging the perceptions of youth as a socially high-risk category, young people have
utilised a technology and media at their disposal to initiate radical social and political change
of several kinds. More importantly these changes have given rise to a review and re-thinking
of concepts of development and growth. If such change is to be sustained and strengthened
then they have to be youth-led with adequate state support. Policy recommendations here are
under two broad heads: one, Creating enabling environments and two, Securing empowering
environments.
I Creating Enabling Environments for Youth Civic Engagements
1. Building Blocks for Collaboration:
The task of levelling the knowledge playing field, a prerequisite must rest on a
collaborative framework a sincere adherence to the concept. 19Youth movements
across the globe are putting this to action and evolving processes, tools and strategies
for collaborative work. Global institutions may well need to learn from the youth
movements here.

18 Bevolve (2012) An Exhaustive Study of Twitter Users Across the World.

19 YouthMovements: White Papers 2012. Prepared by TakingITGlobal.

Collaboration may be across regions, countries and within countries. It may be across
sectors and across generations. It may also be across public, private, and civil society
sectors. Mechanisms need to be evolved to operationalise these collaborations. Youth
movements across the globe can play a vital role in becoming the seeds of country-tocountry and region-to-region collaborations on various issues. Similarly, youth-led
incubators for social entrepreneurship can be set up to foster inter-country.
South-South cooperation has a long history. Given that developing regions of the
world all share many fundamentals - rising youth populations, unsatisfactory progress
towards attainment of the MDGs, unplanned, unsustainable and erratic growth and
technology leapfrogging with rapidly growing use of new generation ICTs by youth it is imperative that South-South connections be revitalized. As is evident in any of
the youth meets and conferences, young people are already doing this. It is now time
to institutionalise the partnerships at the policy level. 20
Public-private civil society partnerships can be a very effective vehicle in a variety of
sectors. Including employment generation for youth. Among the early examples is
InSTEDD was set up with funding from Google to track infectious diseases in the
Mekong valley of Cambodia and a lab building human capacity, creating social
impact, and achieving financial sustainability has also been set up. 21With the
availability of social media tools such projects, will also leverage social media
capabilities of youth for development.
Technologies like cloud computing will afford developing countries opportunities for
leapfrogging. This will be possible only with global collaborative practices in place.
2. Digital inclusion and infrastructure growth:
Access to broadband---via mobile and other devices should be available to all
especially to disadvantaged and vulnerable and remote populations. Only Morocco
has been able to achieve the target set in 2008 of achieving 50 per cent connectivity.
Cost of providing access to highspeed broadband can be brought down through
lowering costs of production, reforming tariff and tax regimens and various modes
such as country-country collaborations, PPPS etc.
Investment in ICT creates jobs directly, indirectly in the areas using ICT and
transformationally through new generation jobs and businesses.
Globally, efforts to expand gender coverage must be appropriately incentivized. Civil
society groups working in areas affecting women and with women must be provided
support to expand social media literacy.
3. IT literacy and basic technology education:
Addressing the transitions from school to employment is important in the planning of
resource development. Millions of youth end their formal education after 12 years of
schooling. Their concern is jobs. In most developing countries adequate skill
development facilities are unavailable. It is here that IT-literacy and basic
technological skills must be introduced. Currently, too few countries have launched
large-scale digital and media literacy programmes inside or outside of schools, even
though full integration of ICTs in education and training at all levels was one of
the key WSIS commitments. Only 56 percent of Web Index countries have allocated
significant resources to training programmes targeting men and women equally..
Free digital libraries, as have been created in some Latin American countries that also
provide training and allow access to the internet need to be widely and universally
established. In Mexico Telmexs digital public library programme has benefited 2.8

20 Several regional and sub regional platforms already exist best practices for exchange of resources,
technologies and skilled and super skilled populations. Multilateral agencies have also created such for
a for youth. While there is strength in a multiplicity of such spaces, they also need to collaborate and
mutually expand what they offer to youth interactions for civic engagement.

21 http://www.ictworks.org

million students, teachers and parents. The objective must be to empower consumers
and young people to take a creative and critical approach to online communication.
In most poor countries there are two critical gaps that must be bridged. One, the
skills deficit between what industry needs and what job seekers possess. Wideranging and net and mobile-based skill development programmes have to become the
norm. The second problem is the weak channels between job seekers and available
jobs. Commonplace as it sounds it is here that the wider use of social media can
make a big difference. Establishing and empowering youth-led social media based
employment exchanges is a solution. Such informal networks already exist, but need
to be expanded widely and across countries.
It is obvious that there is an uneven distribution of talent and skills across regions and
globally. Typically, technology resource personnel have been subject to the severest
immigration regulations everywhere. While there may be country security issues on
this score, youth exchanges for media technology, apps and content development
must be recognized as being outside these regulations everywhere. Such youth to
youth links, already existing in the virtual space must be reflected in the physical
space as well. Peer-to-peer learning is well-known to be the most productive.
4. Content creation, dissemination:
Of critical importance in channeling youth towards development-oriented activities is
the availability of appropriate is information content. In the recent past youth have
been the most effective producers of useable content on the social media. Effective
global standards and practices can be evolved, through the agency of youth to enable
the sourcing of youth-generated content for the social media to become the norm
rather than the exception. Virtual and physical platforms for sharing content and
develop software already exist and that bring together content developers, civil
society organisations, social entrepreneurs, manufacturers and government agencies
for developing and sharing content already exist. They need to be supported and
encouraged.
Every effort must be made to ensure that relevant and reliable information is available
on the Web and the social media. Government bodies and departments everywhere
must be mandated to ensure information dissemination. Country government and
agencies must invest and fund the creation of content in a big way.
Research and data gathering: Youth related data especially in developing countries
is hard to access. Youth using social media can be trained and supported to gather
such data, organize them, create databases with web-interfaces using new flexible
platforms like XBRL. With the development of a universal Youth development Index
the availability of data becomes urgent.
II Securing an Empowering Environment
1. Protecting Freedom of Expression:
The safeguarding of basic rights is essential to the growth and development of regions
and countries and this applies to all spheres of activity. Events over the last halfdecade have shown that young people recognize the value of democratic space and
will fight to secure and expand democratic rights. The rights of all to freedom of
expression, opinion, and association must be protected. Online and offline privacy of
users must be ensured and respected by all. Any kind of censorship of content is
anathema to the spread of Internet and will limit the utility of the social media in
achieving social good.
The role of the Web in achieving human rights must be widely discussed by
governments and civil society organisations so that broad policies are evolved. Legal
safeguards must be put in place and processes and structures for implementation
established. Young people can play a vital role in developing appropriate technologies
that will ensure the security of sensitive data without trampling on the freedoms of
developers.

Youth-led network of organizations must be set up to systematically and continuously

document and database best practices in the realm of social media for civic
engagement and social development globally and share and promote them.
2. Sustaining Democracy and Growth:
The task of democratic governments everywhere is to extend and establish the rule of
law to ensure equitable and sustainable economic growth. While youth can be a force
in triggering economic growth, a fundamental requirement is the fulfillment of basic
needs that must be ensured. While youth can and do power movements for
democracy, sustaining democracy is not easy. If the burgeoning population of young
people are to be engaged productively then country governments have to commit
themselves to ensuring the rule of law and securing and entrenching democracy in
their own country and globally.
In a rapidly globalizing world, that is growing youthful the only way to constructive and
sustainable development is through a collaborative framework involving the young. This is
especially true in the modernising context of the spread of the use of increasingly youthgenerated new generation ICTs, cloud computing and social media that have the potential of
bridging social, political, and geographical divides.