Why a Rio+20 Global Youth Music Contest?
The problem of environmental degradation continues to increase throughout the world. Like urban pollution; health problems caused by lack of effective waste management; forests exploitation causing the loss of biodiversity, and climate change that is now considered as one of the greatest threats of our time, the consequences affect people from all social classes. Scientists have proven that extreme weather events resulting from destruction of our environment are increasingly attributed to human activity, especially emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2. Many actors nowadays address these urgent problems including Individuals, Civil Society, Governments, Businesses but also Children and Youth.
To ensure the survival of our planet, we need to ask ourselves at what level are children and youth informed? Do they have a voice? Can they contribute? How can they influence decision-making? These are challenging questions for youth who consider a safe future as an important global common to be saved and shared in order to achieve a sustainable world for all. Today the young generation is affected by unsustainable development patterns and slow decision-making processes despite the fact that the United Nations, in its Agenda 21, acknowledges the important role children and youth could play to achieve sustainable development and encourages all stakeholders to facilitate their participation in international decision-making. Thus, a new generation of children and youth is seeking to encourage our world leaders with constructive ideas to agree on practical global solutions for sustainable development at the Rio+20 United Nations Conference for Sustainable Development. The conference will focus on how the implementation of sustainable development could be improved around the world.
In this context the Rio+20 Global Youth Music Contest is organized to inspire, engage and mobilize young people to support sustainable development through music as an universal language that facilitate dialogue, bring global people together and strengthen effective global governance as well as the work of the United Nations system. So, in order to provide Rio+20 UN Conference with important added value, participating youth are encouraged to use the Rio+20 Global Youth Music Contest to communicate to a global audience, innovative and specific ideas regarding the way the world organizes environmental protection, sustainable development and international cooperation.
