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With the indubitable merit to have opened the eyes of the development community to the forgotten majority, the youth population, which composes the most of the people of the world’s least-developed countries, the WYCs series has the honour of having coined the term Youth-led Development, which appears now in UN resolutions and EU documents and further more realities.
The main question that the Youth Congresses seek to answer is: "What are the most effective ways to use the incredible talent, energy and idealism of young people, in the effort to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals?"
Aiming to answer that question, the WYCs to date have showed the global community what an amazing asset young people are, and how capable they are of delivering practical solutions to our daunting global challenges. When entrusted and empowered with responsibility, they deliver change and community improvement in the most cost-effective, creative and fun ways imaginable.
It is in this vein that the term Youth Led Development was coined in the first WYC, and the subsequent congresses has had the main objective of getting it mainstreamed and funded by every major development ministry and NGO. To this end, and not to lose the focus on our true objectives, we keep monitoring and evaluating the YCs' outcomes, and the timeline clearly shows how each congress represents a step towards the concretization of an objective. Even if putting in the first place motivation and commitment, in a world where 80% of media stories present them in a negative light, the congresses are to celebrate and promote the outstanding achievements of youth themselves - and society at large. Far from just sitting around and drafting paper Declarations, we invite young people to rejoice in the inspiration derived from he exchange of project experience while getting their hands dirty on real work!
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