YECAP 2022

1. Ensure meaningful youth participation and convene youth dialogues for Sockholm50, COP 27 and development of national commitments under the Paris agreement Leading up to Stockholm50 YECAP engaged over 30 000 young people in national and regional consultations, including during YECAP Climate Week, YECAP UN conference, and YECAP Regional Dialogue. This raised awareness for Stockholm50, prepared youth to take part in global dialogues, as well as engaged them in local climate action. To facilitate more meaningful engagement and enhance understanding of youth about the COP processes, YECAP held a pre-COP27 briefing with young people from the region attending COP27. Both sharing avenues for Asia-Pacific youth engagement at COP27 and to do informal network-building across the region. YECAP also co-organized several events at the COP27. One session lunched the reports Voices of Youth: Realizing a Green Future for Asia and Climate Concern to Climate Action: The Role of Young Social Entrepreneurs at the SDG Pavilion. YECAP also organized side events at the first Children & Youth Pavilion. 2. Improved coordination among actors in the region who work with young peoples influence in climate change activities To conduct a mapping of youth organizations in the Asia Pacific region was a part of the agreement between Sida and YECAP for the pilot program. The mapping exercise was concluded in February 2023 and found 84 youth climate organizations in 28 countries in the Asian Pacific region. The mapping also determined what sort of work the organizations conducted, if they were by or for youth, which relevant SDG:s they are working with and whether they worked with marginalized youth. Sidas support also contributed to strengthen the collaboration between the organizations behind YECAP: UNFCCC Regional Collaboration Centre for Asia-Pacific, RCC Bangkok, UNICEF East Asia and Pacific, UNICEF South Asia, the British Council, YOUNGO, Movers Programme, the 2030 Youth Force and UNDP in Asia and the Pacific. This collaboration has opened new initiatives such as the Youth Advisory Group on Environmental and Climate Justice. The Youth Advisory Group on Environmental and Climate Justice is a result of the Asia Regional Dialogue formed by UN groups involved in YECAP. It is a group meant to coordinate efforts and increase collaboration between the supporting UN groups and support youth lead initiatives on climate action to accelerate climate and environmental and climate justice. Centring on the rights of young people, the group will play both a consultative and a facilitative role. YECAP has helped establish the first ever Thematic Working Group (TWG) on Youth and Climate Action and serves as the secretariat with support from CYMG to UNEP and UNEP. The TWG is set-up under the Asia-Pacific Interagency Network on Youth (APINY). The UN Youth Strategy aims to advance the global commitments FOR and WITH youth; the impact of strategic planning, funding, coherence, and coordination within the UN on youth work; and how global stewardship is strengthening accountability, ensuring that No Youth is Left Behind. 3. To Ensure focus to include marginalized youth in particular indigenous youth in the region to participate in climate change activities YECAP offer an Indigenous Fellowship Programme along their Fellowship program. Its a 6 month long regional youth-led programme in partnership with AIYP to trin young indigenous leaders in the region. The activities leading up to Stockholm50 were also able to include marginalized youth including women, indigenous, LGBTQI, and rural youth. The AGYLE programme aims to increase opportunities for young people, including from marginalized communities in Asia and the Pacific to influence the development, implementation, and monitoring of climate change policies. It also provides them with an opportunity to be more involved in international, regional, and national climate negotiations. 4. Contribute to formally establish the YECAP secretariat The YECAP secretariat has been established, which addressed some issues with inter-agency coordination. The secretariat has staff from UNDP, UNFCCC and UNICEF who helm the overall programmatic work of YECAP. The work is supported by a communications coordinator, and coordinator overlooking operations and M&E. Through regular weekly updates and communication on ongoing work as well as relevant areas of work, the International UN Volunteer modality has been utilised to strengthen the interagency coordination.

Overarching Objective: The overarching objective is to ensure that young people, especially those from more disadvantaged backgrounds, in Asia and the Pacific are meaningfully engaged and empowered to act at regional, national and local levels, to limit average global temperature rise below 1.5C. To achieve this, the intervention will focus on how to meaningfully involve and empower youth, non-governmental actors (e.g. civil society organizations) and regional institutions through capacity development, facilitating safe spaces for south - south collaboration, enable peer to peer learning and mentoring opportunities, with a particular focus on indigenous youth. The Specific Objective for the grant period: (April 2022- June 2023) - "The establishment of inclusive and participatory Youth Empowerment in Climate Actions Platform (YECAP)", to access information and networks, leading to increased knowledge and awareness around climate change, in view of Stockholm50 and motivating them to take action. YECAP platform was convened in February 2021. YECAP has reached out to 12 000 youth climate leaders in Asia Pacific and carried out activities including workshops and regional youth consultations to support young climate leaders. YECAP has also supported national governments in the region in engaging and prioritizing youth empowerment in NDC processes over the past year in Vietnam, Malaysia, Pakistan, Iran, Maldives, Cook Islands, Niue and Tonga. As early signs of impact of this engagement UNDP Viet Nam and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) created Youth4climate platform to engage youth in the implementation of Viet Nam's Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement. The One-year grant will build on the work so far, but it will also add new focus and expand YECAP's work in particular on the avenues on empowering marginalised groups such as Indigenous youth, at risk youth groups. In order to achieve the overarching goal as well as the specific goal, YECAP has identified four outputs, to enable follow-up. YECAP's four Outputs and Activities Output 1 - Increasing knowledge and awareness among young people around climate change, motivating them to take action Activity 1.1: The YECAP Fellowship Programme Output 2 - Increasing the availability and impact of support services and learning platforms Activity 2.1: Indigenous Youth Network Capacity Building Output 3 - Improved Youth engagement at national, regional, and global policy dialogues and programmes including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Activity 3.1: The YECAP Academy for Global Youth Leadership Empowerment (AGYLE) programme in Asia-Pacific Activity Activity 3.2: Convening Youth Dialogues for Stockholm50, COP27 and Beyond Improved coordination and collaboration across youth climate action stakeholders and organisations in the region Activity Output 4 - Improved coordination and collaboration across youth climate action stakeholders and organisations in the region Activity 4.1: Regional youth climate action stakeholders mapping and evaluation of 1 year grant According to the Agreement and activity 4.1, a final evaluation will be carried out. The final evaluation will assess the projects progress against the specific objective and the four expected outputs (from April to December 2022). Meanwhile it will also evaluate the impacts of initial activities that were implemented during the inception phase from February 2021 to April 2022 as well. The evaluation will assess the relevance, coherence, effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of the project. It will also assess the extent to which the project has adopted human rights-based and gender responsive approaches, identify lessons learnt and provide recommendations to expand and enhance project activities and ensure the sustainability of results. The focus of the Evaluation is to: Support accountability and facilitate learning and knowledge sharing, Inform the project stakeholders, including young people and donors about the results, consolidate results and lessons learnt and provide forward-looking recommendations. The result from the evaluation will guide the design of the future project strategy for YECAP. Sida will support the establishment of the YECAP Platform, but Sida will not necessarily support the YECAP project after the one-year grant. According to the Agreement and as part of activity 4.1, a mapping exercise of youth organizations/relevant stakeholders in the Asia Pacific region, involved in climate actions will be done. This results from the mapping exercise and the final evaluation will be reported back to Sida and the results from the mapping exercise will be relevant for Sida in the future analysis how Sida should work with youth and in particular in the area of climate change.