Background
Young people are already developing and delivering solutions across agriculture and food systems, including climate-smart farming, water management, food waste reduction, regenerative agriculture, rural entrepreneurship, adaptation and resilience.
Despite this, many young innovators remain disconnected from the systems that determine whether solutions scale. Access to decision-makers, investors, implementation partners, policy processes and international networks remains limited.
The COP31 Presidency Youth Climate Champion (PYCC) has an opportunity to help address this gap by creating pathways that connect young innovators with the people, institutions and opportunities that can accelerate their impact. Climate Week 4 in Baku provides an opportunity to bring together young innovators and strategic partners at an early stage in this work to test the concept, identify priorities and begin building the coalition required to support implementation.
Objective
The session will convene young farmers, innovators, entrepreneurs and food systems leaders alongside key institutional partners to test and co-create a compelling narrative that positions young people as leaders, innovators and implementation partners in the transformation of food systems.
The objective is to produce the foundations of a shared narrative that can inform:
- PYCC communications
- COP31 engagement
- Media and storytelling activities
- Future advocacy
Agenda
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Duration
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Segment
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5 min
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Welcome and Framing
Set context. Explain the session's objective to gather insights to co-design of PYCC's global narrative about youth leadership in food systems
Sally Higgins, COP31 Presidency Youth Climate Champion
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5 min
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Presentation
Connecting youth narratives to global mechanisms shaping food systems.
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30 min
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Small group discussions
Identifying dominant narratives about youth and agriculture. Participants explore positive stories as well as stereotypes, misconceptions and gaps.
Participants craft and test 4-5 messages. Groups identify which resonate, which don't and what language feels authentic.
Facilitator:
Present the session desired outputs, and provide context/example of narrative/key messages format.
Guiding Questions:
- Do you identify any dominant narratives around youth and agriculture? Are these key messages reflective of young people's actions, reality and priorities?
- What future focused story should we be telling about youth in food systems?
- What values should anchor this narrative? For example, justice, innovation, culture, resilience, and community?
- What narrative shift would change how society sees youth in agriculture?
- How can narratives highlight the complexity of decisions that young farmers make under climate stress, rather than oversimplifying their role
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10 min
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Reflections
Participants present key recommendations, identify how they would like to stay involved, and what contribution they can make to strengthen the narrative over the coming months.
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5 min
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Looking Ahead: The Road to COP31
Concluding reflections and next steps
Sally Higgins, COP31 Presidency Youth Climate Champion
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This event will take place as part of the Implementation Forum.
More information will follow.