GEO Youth Community of Practice
Concept
The proposal aims to strengthen and institutionalize youth engagement within the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) by clearly defining and expanding youths’ role across GEO. The Enabler will rejuvenate the GEO Youth Community of Practice (CoP) to create an inclusive, global platform that fosters meaningful interaction between young professionals and GEO’s decision-making structures. By embedding youth governance and co-production into GEO activities, this initiative ensures that youth perspectives shape GEO’s transformative Earth Intelligence solutions, enhancing global sustainability efforts.
There is a longstanding demand for GEO to move beyond participatory youth engagement. Since its inception in 2021, the GEO Youth CoP has explored the needs of the community and identified potential areas for development. Youth in the GEO community have requested formal positions in the GEO governance structure and “engagement beyond representation.” Additionally, a key component identified in the Post-2025 Strategy, and raised at the 2023 Cape Town Youth Declaration, was the necessity of incorporating diverse voices (including Indigenous knowledge, geographical diversity, and youth) to successfully build an interdisciplinary Work Programme. These insights highlight that youth in the GEO community are invested in gaining structured representation within GEO, are unsatisfied with participatory engagement alone, and are already aware of Earth Intelligence’s potential as a solution to global challenges.
These insights highlight the massive untapped potential for GEO and GEO Youth to mutually benefit from critical, deliberate engagement with one another. GEO-YOUTH is an essential step toward realizing, rather than merely acknowledging, this potential. It also addresses the disparity between the youth engagement goals outlined in the Post-2025 Strategy and the current Strategic Implementation Plan.
The approach of GEO-YOUTH will directly respond to GEO’s Post-2025 Strategy, which calls for increased youth participation in developing Earth Intelligence and recognizes young people as catalysts for sustainable development. GEO-YOUTH will enhance GEO’s existing participatory youth engagement and forge pathways to youth representation, ensuring GEO youth are equipped with the skills, networks, and resources to maximize their potential to contribute to the EO community.
The GEO Youth CoP will transform into an active, global network that promotes the co-production of EO services, fosters knowledge exchange, and empowers youth as central contributors to GEO’s objectives and Work Programme activities. It will proactively engage the youth community across other Focus Areas within the GEO Work Programme, such as GEO Land Degradation Neutrality, GEO Indigenous Alliance, as well as regional GEOs, to fully leverage existing resources.
Objectives
As digital natives, youth bring fresh, innovative perspectives and advanced technical skills. Their academic backgrounds are often more current and aligned with today’s technological landscape, making their expertise particularly relevant and adaptable to modern challenges. GEO-YOUTH will facilitate formal representation of youth within GEO governance structures and the active participation of youth in GEO Work Programme activities, ensuring that their contributions are integral to GEO decision-making, strategic planning, and programmatic implementation. This initiative aims to establish mechanisms that promote equitable, interdisciplinary youth collaboration across GEO’s Work Programme.
Specific objectives include: