LONDON, UK – The International Coffee Organization (ICO) is partnering with the Young Ambassador Society, which manages the 2021 Youth20 Summit (Y20), the official engagement group of the G20 aimed at enabling young people to express their visions and ideas to the Heads of State and Government of the G20. The partnership aims to highlight how the coffee sector can generate employment and income opportunities for young women and men around the world, and how the ICO, its Member countries and coffee sector stakeholders can set a virtuous example to achieve sustainability and prosperity through public-private partnerships.
The 2021 Youth20 Summit will be held in Milan and Bergamo (Italy) from 19 to 23 July this year in preparation for the G20 Heads of State and Government Summit, which will take place in Rome on 30 and 31 October 2021. The Priorities of the Y20 Agenda include three macro themes: innovation, digitalization and the future of work; sustainability, climate and energy; and inclusion and equal opportunities.
Working together with the Young Ambassadors Society, the ICO is contributing to the organization of the Y20 Coffee Day, a full day of the Y20 Summit in which the stakeholders of the global coffee value chain will demonstrate their commitments to: sustainability, innovation and attention to the younger generations; the promotion of coffee culture and the coffee chain as a virtuous model of sustainability, innovation and job generation; and, finally, the holding of exchanges and events that bring together the ICO, coffee stakeholders and the Y20 network.
The ICO will facilitate the engagement of ICO members, coffee stakeholders and experts from the public and the private sector, especially those engaged in the Coffee Public-Private Task Force, on the importance of learning from and empowering future generations.
During the Y20 Summit, the ICO aims to showcase the global coffee sector as an interesting sustainable development model for responsible agribusiness development, which holds many exciting opportunities for young people. The event will offer opportunities to share best practices on the selected macro themes relevant to young women and men who are farmers in rural areas, employees of the coffee industry, managers, baristas and coffee consumers urban areas.
The Y20 Summit is an opportunity to highlight to world leaders the social and economic importance of the youth in the coffee sector and the challenges faced by 25 million coffee farmes worldwide that struggle to overcome the impact of the pandemic and pursue a living income and achieve prosperity as outlined in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The ICO is dedicated to nurturing the coffee sectors future generations. On International Coffee Day 2020, the ICO launched the ‘Coffee’s Next Generation’ campaign, a global initiative targeting talented and motivated young people and entrepreneurs in the coffee sector and supporting recovery from the covid-19 pandemic.
The ICO believes that young women and men are critical agents of change, with a capacity to generate both innovative and sustainable solutions for the coffee sector. Investing in youth is a pillar to building back a better, more equitable and prosperous society and promoting the coffee sector as a positive sustainable, inclusive and resilient model of how responsible investment in agribusiness creates unique opportunities for young people to build a prosperous future.
