Partnering with 12 other youth leading and serving organizations who work in different sectors of development, on the August 17, 2020 we launched a Tanzanian Youth Manifesto a voice from over 2209 online consultations from 30 regions in Tanzania. The main priority for the manifesto is being:

• Youth and Education: Education for all
• Youth and Health: Our Health Matters
• Youth and Livelihood: Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!
• Youth and Leadership: Include us!
• Youth and Information: Give us access!

A group of 350 young people came together from different backgrounds and regions in Tanzania, young women and people with disabilities inclusive to be part, to learn and understand the Manifesto and the Young people’s position and opportunities to the next Five Year Development Plan III.

Not only was it the launching but also an opportunity for young people provided with capacity building for intense 3 days training based on their field of interest and work;

1. Youth Candidates and Aspirants
2. Voter’s Education & Election Observation
3. Young Reporters
4. Youth CSOs & Youth Influencers

We believe that by bringing together the young candidates, journalists, influencers, CSOs, the government and developing partners will give us the advocacy tools we need to fuel our agenda for the next 5 years.

The theme of this year’s IYD “Youth Engagement for Global Action” focuses to see how young people are engaged in the local, national and global levels as an advantage to national and multilateral institutions and processes, as well as the impact they have on how their representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced.

On this day, we partnered with other youth led organizations to commemorate this day. Virtually and Physically, our representatives, Goodluck and Godfrida highlighted on the enormous work that we do for the youth in providing awareness and information on the economic rights and opportunities from the international level streamlined to the national and local level especially on the 10% Local Government Empowerment Fund to Youth, Women and People with Disabilities (4-4-2) respectively.

Objectives of these commemorations include;

• To stimulate the positivity of youth to gain more courage and rethink of new strategies to move forward after the pandemic.
• To raise youth voices on cross-cutting issues that needs to be addressed
• To share experience and ideas among youths who are doing transformative initiatives which address social challenges amid COVID-19 pandemic.
• Reflecting youth engagement and involvement in global actions.

The public dialogue was held on August 12^th, 2020 Mikocheni, Dar es Salaam from 09:00am to 01:30pm, bringing together 167 people from different youth groups, people living with disabilities (PLWDs), CSOs and universities with focusing on Youth Civic Pacification, Youth Skills and Economic Empowerment, Health and Peace Building.

Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) is a tool that enhances the achievement of fundamental socio-economic rights and capabilities. It is devoted to creating the right to social accountability and realization of social and economic rights through effective management of public resources by responsible parties who will provide justification and explanations for resource allocation and performance.

In an effort to advocate for the adoption of SAM in government institutions, UNA Tanzania, being a member of Policy Forum, took part in the management meeting with the Local Government Training Institute (LGTI) to collaborate with them in adopting SAM as part of their short-and long-term course programmes. This collaboration will allow many stakeholders including councilors to be trained at the institution, thus filling the knowledge gap that exists about SAM in government institutions.

Through this integration and collaboration, we believe that poverty reduction, greater equity and democratization can be reached by progressively enhancing the capability of government institutions to influence ‘bottom-up’ accountability through more effective monitoring of the social accountability.

Specifically, United Nations Association of Tanzania advocates for facilitating the integration of Sustainable Development Goals in their Regional and District Strategic Plans so that when the country reports on the progress it integrates the data and information from Local Government Authorities. Furthermore, SAM can be used to help government to effectively report on the implementation of the SDGs.

The Universal Periodic Review (UPR) is a unique Human Rights analysis that is conducted by all UN Member States. It provides an in-depth review of member states’ Human Rights records and their compliance to international regulations. Established in 2006, its aim is to improve the Human Rights situation worldwide and address all violations whenever and wherever they occur. The UPR process is conducted every four years, with the next review scheduled for 2021.

The UPR mechanism is subdivided into three-stages: the review of the human rights situation of the State under Review; implementation of the recommendations received and the voluntary pledges made; and reporting at the next review on the implementation of those recommendations and pledges regarding the human rights situation in the country. Within this process, NGOs play an important role by conducting national consultations and preparing detailed reports that compile information on the country’s human rights status during the four-and-a-half-year period since the last review was carried out. It is at this stage where follow up is done to determine whether state parties implemented all recommendations that were accepted in 2016.

According to the United Nations OHCHR schedule, Tanzania will be reviewed in October 2021. Meaning, NGOs and the Government are required to develop reports that will be submitted for the actual review in Geneva in 2021. NGOs are to submit their report before March 2021.

As the 2021 actual review draws close, NGOs, government, and other human rights stakeholders in Tanzania are currently preparing for the third review of our country; overseen by 3 parties, Tanzania Human Rights Coalition, Legal Human Rights Center and Save the Children. And, as the first step, this tripartite collaboration conducted a 2-day refresher course in which UNA Tanzania participated in. The objective of this training was to refresh minds and impart knowledge to respective NGOs to ensure full participation in the data collection, report writing and submission processes and participation in the actual review in Geneva.

In advocating for Youth access to the Empowerment funds for groups of Women, Youth and Persons With Disabilities (4-4-2), we had an educative radio session with TBC FM – a local radio station that reaches youth in all 26 regions of Tanzania. During this session, we talked about the promises made to youth in the Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP II), while sharing strategic opportunities with youth in economic development especially on the 10% loans by the Local Government Councils. The response from youth was very positive, having over 100 respondents enquiring more about the prerequisites and their eligibility in attaining this loan.

For 3 years now, UNA Tanzania has been a liaison between young people and the government through providing information and awareness on the Empowerment Funds as an economic right for young people to have from the government and improve their economic situations. To date, we have reached over 3000+ young people that have benefited from the funds, 21 clusters in 8 regions in Tanzania.

UNA Tanzania aims to amplify young people’s voices and share the challenges with the policy makers not only for the funds but to make sure young people are part and are engaged in making sure they are not left behind in decision making and the Sustainable Development as a whole.