In the first Arab edition of YEDx environmental dialogues, young people gathered in Cairo not simply to talk about climate change, pollution, and sustainability, but to explore a more complex question: How can their ideas become proposals that find their way into decision-making circles?
Almost every day, young people are confronted with a constant stream of news about heatwaves, air pollution, water scarcity, biodiversity loss, and a future being reshaped by the climate crisis.
Yet a significant gap remains between understanding a problem and being able to influence it.
Young people can speak out, publish content, organize campaigns, and call for change. But the harder question is: How can that voice reach the spaces where policies and decisions are made?
This was the idea behind Egypt’s first Youth Environmental Dialogue, YEDx Egypt, held in Cairo on August 12, coinciding with International Youth Day.
What Is YEDx?
YEDx stands for Youth Environmental Dialogues—locally led, youth-driven environmental dialogues designed to connect global environmental issues and policies with what is actually happening within communities.
The initiative goes beyond introducing young people to climate change, pollution, or sustainability. It seeks to help them understand how environmental policies are developed, where young people can participate, and how global issues can be translated into local action.
The experience revolves around four main areas: building young people’s capacity to understand environmental policies, connecting global discussions to local realities, bringing their perspectives into policy-making spaces, and building networks that connect young people working on environmental issues.
The model is based on youth leading the dialogue locally, while the Major Group for Children and Youth of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) provides support, guidance, and capacity building.
According to the event organizers, the Egyptian edition was the first Arab YEDx and the second worldwide after Botswana.
Young People Are Not the Audience
One of the clearest differences in the design of the event was the role young people played within it.
They were not an audience listening to experts discuss their future. They were at the center of the conversation.
This idea was evident from the opening session, when Huda El-Bakry, Secretary-General of the Arab Council for Childhood and Development, focused on a fundamental question:
How Can Youth Voices Become a Force for Long-Term Change?
Young people today have more platforms than ever to express their ideas and advocate for the issues that matter to them. But having a voice does not necessarily mean having access to spaces of influence.
This Is Where Institutions Come In
Their role is not to speak on behalf of young people, but to open channels for them and provide the expertise and networks needed to transform ideas, stories, and demands into proposals and policy papers that can be presented to decision-makers.
The idea is simple: A voice matters, but impact begins when that voice finds a path to action.
From Environment to Policy
This dimension was also central to the contribution of Dr. Mahmoud Fathallah, Director of the Department of Environmental Affairs and Meteorology at the League of Arab States.
Environmental action does not stop at having a good idea or identifying a real problem. It also requires understanding the path an idea must take before it can become a policy or decision.
How Does a Problem Become a Proposal?
How do proposals enter institutions? Where can civil society and young people participate?
These questions move the environmental conversation beyond general awareness toward a more advanced level: understanding the mechanisms of influence.
Five Issues, With Youth at the Heart of the Discussion
Rather than relying solely on general sessions, participants were divided into five workshops addressing issues that directly affect their lives and their future.
One group explored nature and climate resilience, focusing on coral reef protection and the importance of technology and data in monitoring these ecosystems.
Another addressed pollution and health, examining the impact of industrial areas and contaminated water sources, as well as environmental risks inside homes and in everyday products.
The sports and sustainability group discussed how sporting events and tournaments can become more sustainable—from reducing plastic use and recycling equipment to adopting less environmentally harmful alternatives.
In the youth participation and environmental education workshop, discussions focused on how environmental education can move beyond theoretical information toward knowledge that drives behavior, initiatives, and the capacity to influence.
Meanwhile, the AI and environment workshop explored a more contemporary dimension of the debate: how artificial intelligence can be used in agriculture, water management, and climate forecasting, while also addressing its environmental footprint and questions surrounding data, bias, and equitable access to technology.
What brought these discussions together was not a search for ready-made answers, but an attempt to approach one question from different angles:
What Can Young People Do?
Knowledge Alone Is Not Enough
Janna Rady, representing the Major Group for Children and Youth at UNEP, also connected the importance of the experience to what happens after the event ends.
The goal is not simply for participants to leave with new environmental knowledge, but to understand how they can enter broader spaces for participation, including processes linked to the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA).
Here, policy knowledge becomes a tool.
A young person who understands how the system works, where issues are discussed, and how proposals are presented is better equipped to turn environmental interest into meaningful participation.
And that may be the difference between a campaign that ends when its social media posts stop and a network or initiative capable of continuing its work.
Even waste became part of the story.
The initiative did not stop at discussions inside the meeting rooms. During the event, Egyptian company Bekia collected and recycled the waste generated throughout the day.
It was a small detail, but one that captured one of the event’s most important messages:
Sustainability becomes more convincing when it is not only discussed, but reflected in the way we organize what we do.
What Comes After YEDx?
This is the real test for any youth dialogue.
Not the number of attendees, the number of sessions, or the photos shared after the event.
But what continues afterward.
Will more young people join environmental networks?
Will some of the ideas turn into initiatives?
Will participants know how to access international spaces for engagement?
And will new voices emerge, capable of presenting proposals that are more closely connected to the realities of the Arab region?
This is what the next phase of YEDx Egypt is betting on, through continued capacity building and stronger connections among young people, institutions, and platforms working on environmental and development issues.
The dialogue was organized by the Arab Council for Childhood and Development and the Arab Network for NGOs, in cooperation with the UNEP Major Group for Children and Youth, with support from the Arab Gulf Programme for Development (AGFUND).
But the true value of the experience will not be determined by the names of the organizations behind it.
It will be determined by whether the young people who entered the room carrying questions about the environment leave knowing where they can act, how their voices can reach decision-makers, and what they can do next.
Because the journey from awareness to impact begins precisely there.
