„World We Want!“

The "WorldWeWant.de" online dialogue, initiated at the end of January 2013 by the BMZ and UNICEF Germany and jointly implemented with the Development Policy Forum, addresses young people between the ages of 12 and 18. The objective was to discover how young people would design the world of tomorrow they want to live in. WorldWeWant.de gave teenagers an opportunity to respond to questions regarding their expectations for the future, and to post and discuss their own thoughts in 11 forums. At the end of the online phase, a jury comprising representatives from UNICEF Germany and the BMZ and young people selected those among the 520 contributors who were most involved in the conversation on WorldWeWant.de, and whose contributions were outstanding in content.

The 17 finalists were invited to Berlin in May to present the results of the online consultation at the "What kind of world do you want to live in?" dialogue forum together with UNICEF ambassador and model Eva Padberg to German Federal Development Minister Dirk Niebel. The young people spent two days preparing in an internal workshop where they practiced public speaking and assertiveness, processed the large number of contributions from WorldWeWant.de, prepared presentations for the dialogue forum and drafted questions for the Minister. They also elected representatives from the group to present the results at the UN General Assembly in September in New York.

The 17 young people were also invited by Prof Horst Köhler to come to the Gasometer in Berlin in June, where Köhler presented the recommendations to the General-Secretary of the United Nation’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Person’s on the post-2015 Development Agenda, and had an opportunity to discuss the results of the consultation with Prof Köhler in a sidebar to the event.

In August, the young people met again at the BMZ in Bonn to prepare the demands of the more than 500 participants in the online consultation to be presented in New York.

In September, Kira Lena (18) and Kim Ly (16) travelled to New York as part of the official German delegation to the UN General Assembly, where they represented the voice of German youth. The two met with other youth delegates at the "International Youth Voices on Post-2015" side event, amongst them young people from Mexico, Kenia, UK and Turkmenistan.

WorldWeWant.de is part of a worldwide consultation about the United Nations’ new development goals, aimed at integrating the voice of youth into the post-MDG debate.