Kehkashan Basu, a 15 year old student at the Deira International School, Dubai attended the High Level Political Forum at the United Nations being the youngest delegate at this global conference on sustainable development. The 2015 High Level Political Forum or HLPF, as it’s commonly referred to, was a crucial congregation of governments, policy makers, civil society & stakeholders and sought to focus on reviewing the implementation of the post-2015 development agenda. The Forum, established by a decision in the outcome document of the 2012 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, seeks to play a decisive role in developing the implementation roadmap for the SDGs ( Sustainable Development Goals) by proposing that great importance be given to developing suitable indicators, as well as providing reliable data and statistics. An active member of the youth as well as the Women’s Major Groups, Kehkashan delivered two statements during the course of the HLPF at the UN in New York. In her first statement delivered on behalf of the children and youth constituency, she stressed that the realisation of the SDGs would require a time bound, transformative and universal approach. Kehkashan reiterated that there needed to be an equally high ambition with regards to defining and mobilising the means for their implementation. She called for finance to be a critical component and that it required substantial upscaling to meet the particular investment needs in all the areas that the SDGs cover. Reflecting the aspirations of the children and youth constituency, she said “Monitoring of the implementation process needs to well defined and a global review mechanism should be in place to evaluate performance on sustainable development, that is inclusive of all constituencies and rights holders and which addresses the unique needs of the children and youth constituency and is linked to regional and national-level accountability mechanisms.” Kehkashan also made an intervention on behalf of the Women’s Major Group where she spoke on developing a transformative integrated agenda and how to make institutions more responsive, societies more inclusive and UN fit to implement the post-2015 development agenda. Despite her young age , Kehkashan is no stranger to the UN , having spoken in New York on several occasions since 2013. She feels that age is no barrier to participation and young people must be actively involved in the sustainable development dialogue since their future is at stake. Kehkashan holds several eminent positions, such as the current Global Coordinator at UNEP’s Major Groups for Children and Youth , the Youth Ambassador at World Future Council and the Global Youth Ambassador at A World at School . On her return to the UAE, Kehkashan plans to hold a youth conference for members of her youth organisation, Green Hope , to convey the outcomes of the HLPF and involve more young people in the sustainable development dialogue. “We need to be the agents of change and define our own destiny” stresses Kehkashan , whose inspiring work on youth empowerment and advocacy have resulted in her winning the prestigious Diana Award and the Non-Resident Indian of the Year award.
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