Disclaimer:
Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.
Title
Please provide a name for your action learning plan.
Anticipatory Governance Report on Youth: Examining the future trends of youth during Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) to address development challenges, including a focus on priority areas for Vietnam country office in climate and environment, governance and access to justice and inclusive growth*
*the exact scope is subject to change following foresight activities and CO needs
Challenge statement
Challenge type: If you are working on multiple challenges, please indicate if this is your "big bet" or "exploratory" challenge.
Please note: we ask you to only submit a maximum of 3 challenges - 1x Big Bet, 2x Exploratory. Each challenge must be submitted individually.
BIG BET
Challenge statement: What is your challenge? (Please answer in specific terms: "Our challenge is that...”.)
Our challenge is that UNDP Viet Nam CO lacks a coherent narrative and evidence-based understanding of the challenges that Vietnamese Youth face, especially in the context of 4.0 industry. We have recently observed an increase in the number of projects rolled out by UNDP that target youth as primary beneficiaries, yet, these are fragmented with loosening linkage among units, therefore it can not address those challenges more systematically.
Background: What is the history of your challenge? What is causing or driving it? Who is involved? How does the current situation look like? What undesired effects does it produce?
The VN Country Office is formulating a high level narrative introducing our key advocacy messages to our government partners and the youth portfolio is expected to generate insights that would feed into this narrative. Viet Nam AccLab is expected by Senior Management to contribute to the “Youth portfolio” in generating insights and providing advice for UNDP. Viet Nam Lab plan to do an anticipatory/foresight report on Vietnamese Youth developmental trends, challenges and innovation opportunities.
Youth in Viet Nam include 21 million people (23% of the Vietnamese population), aged between 16 and 30 years old. Yet, there is a lack of youth participation, voices and interest in public policy space. Many policies are designed and implemented without consulting and taking into account the needs of this group. This can result in unexpected and undesirable impact of policies on our youth target group.
Development challenges, such as inequalities that exist at the country level also persist among youth cohorts. Gaps in educational access result in inequalities in skills attainment, access to economic opportunities, political participation among others. Within this group, there exists significant heterogeneity in gender, ethnicity, location, income which requires further nuanced considerations.
Furthermore, the youth cohort of today are living in a world that continues to rapidly change. This will bring a new set of challenges and opportunities, from adapting to the future of work with the presence of greater digital technology, to facing increasing climate-change related disasters. These uncertainties require closer examination to ensure that youth can achieve their full potential.
Quantitative evidence: What (official) data sources do you have on this challenge that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge? You can add text, a link, or a picture.
In a survey conducted by the UN Vietnam in 2020, over a quarter (27%) of youth cited the protection of human rights and addressing human social and economic inequality to be the most important area of concern. This is followed by environmental issues (16%) and job prospects and skills development (14%). In a question concerning barriers to youth in realizing their full potential, 12% cited climate change as the most pressing issue.
Qualitative evidence: What weak signals have you recently spotted that characterizes its urgency? Please provide qualitative information that better exemplifies the importance and urgency of this frontier challenge. You can add text, a link, or a picture.
Findings from the Youth4Climate Action 20202 and 2021 highlight some of the challenges facing youth. In terms of public policies needed, youth groups report experiencing bottlenecks in skills development, access to technology, financial sustainability and cooperation with stakeholders. Regarding youth participation, Vietnamese youth face barriers in understanding regional, national and international climate policy. Youth groups also want more spaces and opportunities to voice their opinions and participate in policy making processes.
Access to appropriate skills development is related to a major trend impacting youth - the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). The Fourth Industrial revolution is transforming the world of work and creating new opportunities and challenges for Viet Nam Youth. According to a report by the Asian Development Bank, some of the skills that will be in high demand in the future include digital literacy, problem-solving, creativity, teamwork, and communication. The report also suggests that Viet Nam should invest more in education and training systems to equip its young workforce with these skills [more data on the gap of youth in these skills].
Other issues that youth cohort faces include climate change, social inequality, digital divide, and civic engagement. A special report by UNDP highlights how Vietnamese youth are taking action to address climate change and its impacts on their lives and communities. The report also calls for more support and recognition for youth-led initiatives and innovations.
Another significant challenge affecting Vietnamese youth is inequalities between ethnic minority groups and the majority population in terms of access to quality education, health care, employment, and social services. UNICEF reports that ethnic minority children are more likely to drop out of school, live in poverty, suffer from malnutrition, and experience discrimination than their peers from other groups. UNICEF also advocates for more inclusive policies and programs that can ensure equal opportunities for all children regardless of their ethnicity.
The issues facing youth are not limited to these challenges. Our sense making activities will shed further light on this.
Value proposition: What added value or unique value proposition is your Accelerator Lab bringing to solving this challenge? Why is it your Lab that needs to work on this challenge and not other actors within UNDP, other stakeholders in the country respectively? Why is it worth investing resources to this challenge?
As UNDP R&D Innovation unit, the Accelerator Lab works in the space of Viet Nam innovation ecosystem to find trends, experiment with novel solutions, advocate for evidence-based policy making and mobilize communities to tackle sustainable development problems. Naturally this space has youth as a natural participant and many Lab activities involve youth as a primary beneficiary.
We propose to utilize the Lab’s sensemaking and foresight capabilities to examine the opportunities and challenges that the youth cohort face at the current time and crucially in the future. We plan to identify gaps in the research through conducting a systematic analysis, utilizing varied sources of information, incorporating diverse perspectives including those of ‘unusual suspects’. With the Lab’s competitive advantage in the area of innovation at the UNDP, we also hope to identify how innovation can be utilized as a key tool in addressing development challenges for youth cohort.
Short “tweet” summary: We would like to tweet what you are working on, can you summarize your challenge in a maximum of 280 characters?
Vietnamese youth face unique challenges in the context of 4.0 industry. AccLab is working to generate insights and provide systematic evidences to decision-makers to help Youth achieve their full potential. Learn more about our efforts to support youth in Viet Nam
Partners
Who are your top 5 partners for this challenge? Please submit from MOST to LEAST important and state Name, Sector and a brief description of the (intended) collaboration.
Please state the name of the Parter:
National Economic University (NEU) - Planning Faculty and CSIE
FPT AI Center
National Innovation Center
Foreign Trade University (FTU)
NATEC
What sector does our partner belong to?
Government (&related)
Please provide a brief description of the collaboration.
NEU an FTU are university partners for research and engaging with Youth. FPT AI Center is a private sector partner to understand the technological trends. NIC and NATEC are innovation related governmental bodies for policy advocacy. These were mostly new partners before AccLab joining. By now. we have developed a good working relationship with these partners (FTU, NEU, NIC, NATEC) that is strategic to build on. FPT AI Center is the new unusual partner
Is this a new and unusual partner for UNDP?
No
Learning questions
Learning question: What is your learning question for this challenge? What do you need to know or understand to work on your challenge statement?
What are future trends and challenges that will impact youth in the next 10—20 years (e.g: climate impacts, shift in the economic structure, future of jobs etc), by mobilising the tools of anticipatory governance/ horizon scanning.
To what stage(s) in the learning cycle does your learning question relate?
Sense, Explore
Usage of methods: Relating to your choice above, how will you use your methods & tools for this learning question? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
We will use sensemaking to carry out comprehensive research on this topic. Horizon scanning and foresight will enable us to identify weak signals when it comes to issues facing youth that may become important in the future. Collective intelligence allows us to learn from different voices, especially among youth groups.
Existing data gaps: Relating to your choice above, what existing gaps in data or information do these new sources of data addressing? What value do these add in answering your learning question?
Further research is needed in anticipating future trends and challenges that Viet Nam Youth might face in the next 10-30 years:
The above repots give a snapshot of our current understanding of some development challenges that Viet Nam Youth might face in the near future. Yet we acknowledge that this is still very early stage, and there are a lot that we don’t know about the future trends and world of tomorrow that Youth will face in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).
4IR is transforming the world of work and creating new opportunities and challenges for Viet Nam Youth. According to a report by the Asian Development Bank, some of the skills that will be in high demand in the future include digital literacy, problem-solving, creativity, teamwork, and communication. The report also suggests that Viet Nam should invest more in education and training systems to equip its young workforce with these skills [more data on the gap of youth in these skills].
However, 4IR is not the only factor that affects Viet Nam Youth. They also face other issues such as climate change, social inequality, digital divide, and civic engagement. A special report by UNDP highlights how Vietnamese youth are taking action to address climate change and its impacts on their lives and communities. The report also calls for more support and recognition for youth-led initiatives and innovations.
Another challenge that Viet Nam Youth face is the gap between ethnic minority groups and the majority population in terms of access to quality education, health care, employment, and social services. UNICEF reports that ethnic minority children are more likely to drop out of school, live in poverty, suffer from malnutrition, and experience discrimination than their peers from other groups. UNICEF also advocates for more inclusive policies and programs that can ensure equal opportunities for all children regardless of their ethnicity.
Viet Nam Youth have a lot of potential to contribute to the development of their country in the context of 4IR but they also need more support and empowerment from various stakeholders to overcome the challenges they will face in this transition.
Closing
Early leads to grow: Think about the possible grow phase for this challenge - who might benefit from your work on this challenge or who might be the champions in your country that you should inform or collaborate with early on to help you grow this challenge?
The findings from our proposed sensemaking and exploratory activities can provide support to the programme work of the country office. Our report will also help to identify and anticipate future issues relating to youth.
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10Reduced innequalities
11Sustainable cities and communities
13Climate action
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