Middle East/ Northern Africa
07.01.2019

Young Leaders of UNDP develop a new National Youth Policy

Just some days before Christmas we were invited to facilitate one day at the regional forum of UNDP’s Youth Leadership Programme (YLP4) “Innovating for Sustainable Impact” in Tunis.

Just some days before Christmas we were invited to facilitate one day at the regional forum of UNDP’s Youth Leadership Programme (YLP4) “Innovating for Sustainable Impact” in Tunis. For 130 participants, youth-activists, youth-serving organizations and policy-makers from Middle East and Northern Africa, we developed a tailor-made simulation game: National Youth Policy for Shebania.
Together with our partner organization from Egypt (Nadi El Mohake) we designed, implemented and evaluated the simulation game. The chairman of Nadi El Mohake, Mr. Kazem Hemeida and Andreas Muckenfuß (CRISP) travelled to Tunis in order to implement the same simulation game parallel on two floors. According to the feedback we’ve received from the participants, as well as from the organizers, the simulation game exercise was a huge success and we managed to achieve the most relevant objectives:

  1. Expanding knowledge of youth-serving organizations to better support youth-led initiatives and change-makers at the national level, by deepening their knowledge of design thinking and familiarizing them with additional social innovation methodologies and technologies
  2. Validating a comprehensive and innovative impact assessment tool that has been developed to ensure longevity and sustainability of YLP activities and initiatives.
  3. Providing a space for youth, youth-serving organizations and other stakeholders to engage with policy makers from the region.
  4. Building trust between young people, youth leadership stakeholders and local and national policy makers and advocates through interactive activities.


Of course the sheer number of participants was a challenge, but we were very well organized and even the loss of our luggage did not stop is from conducting an insightful and memorable simulation game.
Many thanks to the co-facilitators from UNDP and all participants, especially the policy-makers, to actually accept the invitation to become someone else for one day. The results of the simulation games were also quite interesting and become a basis for the further activities of UNDP and the Young Leaders.