Youth Panel on Rural Development (NO0062)

What problem does the commitment address? Young people often have little opportunity to voice their opinions and influence their own situation and tomorrow’s rural regional development policy

What is the commitment? Through co-creation processes, gatherings, research and questionnaire surveys, the panel will deliver ten recommendations to the government on rural regional development policy in the future in spring 2021. The aim is to ensure broad participation throughout the entire process, including the use of statutory youth councils; cf. section 5-12 of the Local Government Act. The participants will gather knowledge about young people’s needs in their region.

How will the commitment contribute to solving the problem? Potential to have a huge impact for young people in rural areas.

How is this commitment relevant to the OGP’s fundamental values? Strengthening democracy by ensuring the local populations the opportunity to influence the development of government policy.

Milestones Start date End date Milestone 1: Council created – completed 18 October 2019 17 January 2020 Milestone 2: First gathering hosted by the Prime Minister in Oslo – completed 17 January 2020 Milestone 3: Second gathering 24–26 April 2020 on the knowledge base – completed 17 January 2020 26 April 2020 Milestone 4: Third gathering 16–18 October 2020 on insight and hypotheses – completed 26 April 2020 18 October 2020 12 Milestone 5: Fourth gathering 12–14 March 2021 on testing and validation – completed 18 October 2020 14 March 2021 Milestone 6: Deliver ten recommendations and a final report to the government in spring 2021 – completed 26 April 2021 Milestone 7: The Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation (KMD) has sent the recommendations to all the ministries and the subordinate agencies in KMD, all the municipal and county authorities, and the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS) to assess further follow-up. July 2021 (?) Milestone 8: The Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation follows up the responses from the ministries, municipal authorities and county authorities

Commitment 3B. Youth panel on rural development

· Verifiable: Yes

· Relevant: Civic participation

· Potential impact: Minor

· Completion: Complete

· Did it open government? Marginal

This new commitment was included in the amended action plan under the responsibility of the KDD and the Centre of Competence on Rural Development. The commitment aimed to create a Youth Panel that would meet regularly and deliver recommendations to the national government on rural regional development policy through a targeted co-creation process based on data collection on youth needs in rural regions. The recommendations were expected to be presented in April 2021, following five panel meetings. Once presented to KDD, KDD was expected to disseminate these recommendations to relevant public authorities and follow up on responses to recommendations. Although the commitment deals with a relevant topic in Norwegian society and, according to interviewees, [24] activities have been completed with the establishment of a panel of 10 appointed youth from each county (except Oslo) between 15 and 23 years of age, [25] the commitment has resulted in only marginal changes in part because of the commitment’s design, which did not include dedicated mechanisms to ensure that the recommendations would be implemented or that formal bodies with regulatory power to drive regular participation would be established. Interviewed representatives of the implementing agencies confirmed that the 10 recommendations the panel produced were disseminated to the relevant ministries and local bodies, but they received limited response. The recommendations included improving access to work and educational opportunities, better mobility and internet access, and better mental health services, among other ideas. The representative from KDD confirmed that the agency had no formal task to follow up on the advice with concrete activities and that the panel is no longer active because the policy process has ended. [26]