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Young Cities Virtual Policy Roundtable and Youth Campaign Showcase: Strengthening Youth-Led Social Cohesion Efforts and Collaborations in Pakistan

Publication Date:

20/08/2000

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Event Reports

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CommunityHIVEinclusivityKarachiLahoreLocalPolicy RoundtableYoung CitiesYouthYouth Leadership Fellowship

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Summary

On 30 – 31 July, 2024, Young Cities held an online Policy Roundtable and a Youth Campaign Showcase to mark the culmination of its Youth Leadership Fellowship in Pakistan. The virtual events convened 84 stakeholders from across the country – including youth peacebuilders, local and national government representatives and civil society actors – to amplify the insights, leadership and achievements of the programme’s Youth Fellows and encourage cross-city partnerships. The events were organised in partnership with HIVE Pakistan.

The Young Cities Fellowship supported six teams of young people over two years to engage their communities in promoting peace and social cohesion. It builds on five years of youth engagement work in Pakistan through Young Cities’ youth capacity-building model, the Youth Innovation Lab.

The online Policy Roundtable was a crucial component of the programme, as it was the first time Young Cities brought together stakeholders from Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad. This facilitated a space for cross-city and national-local learning on shared policy priorities and strategies to enhance youth-government collaboration on social cohesion challenges. The virtual Campaign Showcase that followed gathered a broader audience and provided a platform to present the six youth-led community initiatives launched in Lahore and Karachi through the programme. Both events spotlighted and spurred necessary discussion among a diverse group of local actors across Pakistan on youth-led peacebuilding approaches and their potential for sustainable impact in cities.

The Roundtable was attended by 34 participants and featured framing remarks by Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan, Chairman of the Pakistan Prime Minister’s Youth Programme, and Mangla Sharma, Board Member of the Pakistan Hindu Council and former Member of the Provincial Sindh Assembly. This was followed by a facilitated discussion on coordination and implementation challenges that hinder collaborative local-national and grassroots efforts, as well as identifying commonalities and differences between social challenges in each city. Several good practices and opportunities for youth-government engagement were identified based on the Fellows’ experiences during the programme.

The Showcase engaged 50 participants and featured three-panel discussions with the Youth Fellows, exploring themes such as strategies for fostering youth civic inclusion and action and building resilience among religious minorities and other vulnerable groups. Each panel was followed by a spotlight presentation highlighting the resources and activities developed by each team for various target audiences in their cities. The event closed with a Q&A session, with Youth Fellows sharing insights on adapting their community engagement work to different contexts in Pakistan, challenges related to engaging marginalised groups and key takeaways for participatory project design.

The virtual events addressed three key themes:

1. Opportunities and good practices for effective youth-government engagement

While there are widespread challenges related to local coordination, implementation, and resourcing when addressing social cohesion issues, participants explored several cases where promising steps have been taken towards youth-government collaboration and youth empowerment in Lahore and Karachi. It was noted that assumptions regarding the attitudes and agendas of each side hinder attempts to build meaningful partnerships between youth and government leaders, and success can be found in working across party lines, ideologies and intersectional issue sets. Existing national- and provincial-level youth engagement efforts were also highlighted as opportunities that can be scaled with improved awareness and sustained political support across administrations.

2. Practical approaches to igniting youth civic inclusion and action

Youth-led community initiatives have proven effective in building young people’s civic awareness, critical thinking skills and understanding of political processes. Creative approaches, incorporating scenario-based exercises, gamified activities and engagement with local political leaders have showed success, indicating the need for greater government investment in interactive civic education resources and experiences for students. Youth Fellows noted that initiatives should build on existing educational structures and curricula to avoid duplicating and hindering efforts, and that products should be developed sustainably with diverse audiences in mind. 

3. Addressing locally-sensitive issues through multi-stakeholder and arts-based approaches

Community-led efforts that leveraged connections with influential and diverse stakeholders and drew on creative peacebuilding approaches reached a wider set of community members, including those deemed ‘harder to reach’. These strategies were used by four youth-led groups to impact complex issues including religious discrimination against minorities in political systems and the media, community tensions in localities like Lyari, Karachi, and the lack of digital literacy among madrassa students vulnerable to online hate speech.

Key Challenges Facing Youth and Impeding Youth Engagement Efforts in Pakistan

The Roundtable provided a platform to discuss emerging and longstanding challenges that impact youth populations, and subsequently their communities, in Lahore and Karachi. Rana Khan, Chairman of Pakistan Prime Minister’s Youth Program, underscored that Pakistan’s youth constituency is a key priority for the national government, noting: “Pakistan is amongst the countries where youth make up around 65% of the total population”. He noted that while “youth are a big asset and play a positive role in the country, they could also pose a challenge”. The national government has responded to potential youth bulge grievances by investing in a youth skill development programme, a laptop scheme, internship programmes in Punjab and the Prime Minister’s Youth Loan Program. Nonetheless, participants raised several challenges at the local level in both cities, particularly in relation to coordination of implementation efforts, resourcing gaps and an increasingly restrictive civil society space.

In Karachi, there is particular concern around the lack of coordination among stakeholders and approaching social issues without considering intersectionality or innovation. Drawing from his team’s community engagement experience, Anzal Abbas Jaffari, Team Lead, Bagh e Sakina, noted: “All issues are interconnected. Health is related to education, education is connected to climate, climate is related to youth, and so on… We have seen legislation, but how do we resolve implementation issues? How can we better gather feedback from young people, and people who have experienced these problems head on?”

Mangla Sharma, former Member of the Provincial Sindh Assembly, agreed and shared that structural challenges hinder sustainability as “there is no impact of policies once a new government is in power every five years and focused on a new agenda. And innovation is lacking among policymakers to meet community needs.” As the financial hub of the country, she stressed that Karachi draws large levels of migration, and thousands of children will be turning 18 while “the city is overburdened and resources are scarce”. Her insights from Sindh Province underscored the urgency of investing in the well-being and future of a growing youth population, not only in Karachi, but across the country.

Issues raised during Young Cities’ city roundtables in Lahore and Karachi in April 2024 were also echoed in this cross-city discussion, specifically in the contexts of youth political inclusion and representation and investment in safer public spaces for recreational and cultural activities. Fellows from both Lahore and Karachi expressed concern about the difficult bureaucratic processes for registering as a non-governmental entity and engaging effectively with government stakeholders. They also discussed a lack of diverse youth representation in public office and limited opportunities to engage in meaningful internships in the National Assembly or Senate, where youth can learn how to engage with different stakeholders. Participants from Karachi shared that, compared to Lahore, their city lacked civic spaces due to poor resourcing and political will.

Notably, participants also raised concerns about the threats facing activists and civil society actors working on interfaith and religious minority issues. Participants from Lahore shared several experiences of increasing censorship and restrictions when holding events in religious spaces due to growing political instability and influence of Islamist political groups. One participant shared, “there is a stereotype that people working on these issues have some Western agenda. We needed extensive permissions to carry out our local activities. Karachi, in this case, might be more open due to its diversity, so maybe it’s comparatively easier to work there.”

Participants from both cities noted that this is a broader issue, not only in Sindh, but in the country, given the growing popularity of certain political parties and threats that have escalated to impact even high-profile figures, such as the Chief Justice of Pakistan.

Key Themes

1. Opportunities and Good Practice for Effective Youth-Government Engagement

Muzammil Akber, Speak Karachi, noted that his team’s trust-building with decision-makers was rooted in clearly communicating expectations and details on the involvement of other political actors participating in their activities.There was also discussion on formulating targeted, multi-stakeholder advocacy plans and leveraging crises to push for change. Participants cited the provincial governments’ adoption of a sexual health curriculum and the Zainab Alert Bill, as successful outcomes of these approaches.

Several government-led platforms and initiatives were also discussed as promising steps towards empowering youth. This included targeted efforts by the Prime Minister’s Youth Program to increase skilled labour in the country through its training module and a laptop scheme set to distribute 150,000 laptops this year. Charman Rana Khan also highlighted his involvement in developing the Youth Policy in Punjab and encouraged youth to engage through platforms such as the National Youth Council, National Volunteer Corps and Boy Scouts. Mangla Sharma, Former MPA, Sindh Assembly, also spoke about the MQM party’s commitment to improve education in Karachi and the Governor of Sindh’s development of IT initiatives for young people – spotlighting existing opportunities that can be built on to meet young people’s needs.

Youth is a big asset for us and it’s playing a positive role in Pakistan … Under the premiership of former Prime Minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, we began supporting key policies under the Department of Youth in Punjab. Now we are also empowering youth through our largest skill development programme. If we play our cards right, we can support up to 1.2 million people in skilled labour.

Rana Mashhood Ahmad Khan, Chairman, Prime Minister’s Youth Programme

2. Practical Approaches to Igniting Youth Civic Inclusion and Action

Throughout the Showcase, participants explored community-led solutions driven by youth and their potential to be scaled through government and cross-sector support. Fellows from youth-led organisations, Bagh-e-Sakina and Speak Karachi, specifically spoke about the need to galvanise young people to take civic and political action in their cities.

The teams developed creative models for organising large scale civic engagement initiatives and tools, including mock parliaments and interactive apps, intended to inform and inspire.

Bagh e Sakina took care to ensure their initiative did not burden the system. Instead, they collaborated with public and private schools to add value to their existing educational strategies and goals. One team member, Anzal Abbas Jaffari, shared: “Our children’s activity book, mobile app, facilitators’ guide and trainings not only added value to the system but also ensured the products could be used sustainably.”

Across the eight schools it engaged, Bagh e Sakina saw a 60% improvement in students’ and teachers’ understanding of concepts such as critical thinking, tolerance and civic engagement. Notably, there was significant demand for their activity books, which incorporated a range of scenario-based and peer-to-peer activities that were specific to Pakistan’s context and applicable to students’ day to day lives. Several school libraries requested the resource, indicating the need for greater public investment in creative civic engagement resources for students. Ifrah Faheem, Bagh e Sakina, shared, “We wanted concepts to be implemented into students’ lives, expanding their imagination and personalising it to their needs by gamifying topics that built their analytical and civic engagement skills.” The team is working to launch a mobile app version and create an Urdu and Sindhi language book to cater to the needs of their diverse stakeholders.

Speak Karachi also went beyond theoretical learning styles to build young peoples’ understanding of local political processes. Drawing on the momentum created by the national election in February 2024, the team leveraged its political network to facilitate direct interaction between youth and local government officials, both new and veteran. They also organised thematic youth committees and mock parliament debates where young people crafted and debated their own policies on local governance issues and security challenges, for example. Muzammil Akber, Speak Karachi, emphasised, “Karachi is a very big city so we helped them understand how different governance and political systems work at different levels and how they can interact with them within their jurisdictions.”

Our initiative was multi-layered and we used different models to ensure we added value to the system, rather than burden it further.

Anzal Abbas Jaffari, Founder, Bagh e Sakina

3. Addressing Locally-Sensitive Issues through Multi-Stakeholder
and Arts-Based Approaches

Fellows from both cities advocated for tapping into influential audiences and arts-based initiatives to bring marginalised groups into critical discussions and re-shape community perceptions. Diverse Democracy Initiative and Team Alohomora employed these strategies when challenging discrimination against religious minorities in the media and political systems.

Both teams also found that their initiatives gained credibility and showed potential to affect structural change when they engaged with institutional entities,including the Punjab Women’s Protection Authority, university administrations and large civil society organisations such as the Digital Rights Foundation and Initiatives for Sustainable Development. As youth actors, their value-add stemmed from being able to offer tailored resources that addressed gaps faced by key groups, such as an Ethical Guidebook for Journalists, developed by Team Alohomora through consultations with communities and subject matter experts.

Additionally, storytelling proved to be a powerful and inclusive medium that effectively engaged minority groups, political actors, and communities with low literacy levels. Noshaba Sattar, Diverse Democracy Initiative, who led the production of three films and targeted screenings for minority groups, local activists and government leaders, shared, “Films are a powerful catalyst for change. Our film Fikr o Nazr provided a platform for marginalised voices to be heard, sharing their experiences, struggles and aspirations. We created a space for empathy, understanding and connection.”

Similarly, Naila Naz, Mehrdar Art & Production, who worked in the inner city of Lyari, Karachi, added, “In Lyari, people aren’t as educated on the consumption of social media is high, as they mainly use platforms like TikTok that promote visual storytelling. Filmmaking allowed us to connect with their perspectives as well as of people living outside the area.” This creative initiative also allowed them to incorporate topics like countering hate into their filmmaking workshops. Shoaib Raza, Naeemian Squad, underscored similar successes of this approach with religiously conservative audiences in madrassa school systems, who often do not have access or positive perceptions of media, film and arts-based social cohesion efforts. 

However, for these strategies to be successful, the Youth Fellows pointed out that it is necessary to reframe assumptions around more vulnerable groups being ‘harder to reach’. Instead, needs analyses should identify the access and opportunity gaps they face, so that tailored platforms can be developed to give groups more agency and exposure. To do this effectively, it is essential to work with groups embedded within the community.

Mehrdar Art & Production and Naeemian Squad are prime examples of this. Naila Naz shared they were best placed to do this work because their team had been working in the community for more than ten years and understood their needs and interests. She added, “While the people of Lyari have their own identity and come from difficult socio-economic backgrounds, deeming them ‘harder to reach’, they are the most curious and open to learning new ideas. They just don’t have the platforms to share their creativity.”

Naeemian Squad, a team that has worked and studied in madrassa institutions, emphasised that many peace and development actors do not work with youth from their educational background. Shoaib Raza said, “Our target was to elevate their presence in peacebuilding efforts, as their content does not reach broader audiences. Despite the challenges within and outside of the community, we wanted to provide them a platform to contribute to inter-faith harmony and peace.”

Our team’s advice is to not necessarily think of certain communities as harder to reach. Create a community, develop interventions that push for policy change and ensure you get community buy in from day one. Not engaging with marginalised communities can lead to extremism in many ways.

Nail Naz, Project Coordinator, Mehrdar Art & Production

Next Steps

While Young Cities has now concluded its programme in Pakistan, it will continue to engage local stakeholders in the region through Strong Cities Network’s South Asia Regional Hub to scope opportunities to strengthen youth-government ties and social cohesion efforts.

Following the Roundtable, a Joint Declaration was circulated among youth and government stakeholders to signify a commitment to advancing greater youth inclusion in policymaking and engaging in collaborative community initiatives. The Declaration has so far received 36 signatures across Lahore and Karachi. Stakeholders in both cities have been encouraged to share actions they take to implement this declaration with Young Cities to build on good practices in this area.

Additional Resources

• Enhancing Cooperation Between Youth and Local Policymakers in Pakistan: Young Roundtables in Lahore and Karachi, Young Cities, May 2024
• Young Cities in Pakistan (Video)
• Young Cities: A Practical Guide to Youth Capacity Building for Countering Hate and Extremism, Young Cities, August 2022
• Young Cities Global Booklet, Young Cities, August 2022

Partners

Contact Information

For more information on this event and the Young Cities programme, please contact Kelsey Bjornsgaard, Director of Practice, Strong Cities Network, at [email protected].

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