SLN III: Youth Conducting Research in Nepal

The world has realized the potential inherent in youth. Meaningful youth participation in development has been recognized as something indispensable. Any development project rests upon the foundation of a strong research, and is incomplete without monitoring and evaluation. The third Sharing and Learning Session (SLN III) on “In what ways has an including young people as participants and protagonists in research, monitoring or evaluation added value to our work?” hosted at GTZ Health Sector Support Programme and aimed at:

• Identifying work that relates to research and M&E involving young people.
• Identifying how youth have been involved in the process and its effect on the research and M&E?
• The challenges/successes faced whilst working with youth in research, monitoring and evaluation?
• The lesson learnt while involving youth in research and M&E?

The session started with a presentation on how youth were involved in the research titled “Assessment of Status of Youth in Nepal” jointly carried out by Ministry of Youth and Sports, Nepal Planning Commission, Save the Children and AYON. Following the presentation, the participants were divided into two groups. Group I comprised of the younger participants while the other group of adults. The most interesting part of this workshop was to see the perspectives on youth that each group presented. It is anticipated that the mapping exercise on “who is doing what” will create effective collaboration among agencies and decrease duplicity. The participants’ feedback on the SLN also reflected that the network building for future collaboration was one reason for attending the SLNs.

The findings based on experience that participants shared whilst working with youth in research, monitoring and evaluation included:

• While implementing youth related projects it is essential to involve young people as young people have better understanding of youth issues and youth open-up to youth more easily.
• Youth always look forward to working in a team, but it is also necessary that the job responsibility be clearly divided.
• Once hired young people might have expectations to be rehired as a staff. Therefore organizational policies should be made clear.
• Youth are highly mobile, and contracts for only a few working days which span a long period of time risk facing a turn over of young consultants.

Definitely, there is a long way to go in terms of involving youth as protagonists in research, monitoring and evaluation. But, with the learning that each of us have gathered, all future works will be made smoother. Like it is said “Learn from the mistakes of other, we do not live long enough to make them all ourselves”. I am sure the SLNs are serving as a forum to help us move more smoothly in achieving our organizational goals.

Please click here, to see the Draft SLN_III_Report 13-10-09.

Samrat Katwal, Youth Participation Officer