Youth councils excluded from digital municipal meetings in Finland

At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, many municipalities in Finland did not invite youth councils to municipal meetings when they were transferred to an online setting. Nuva Ry, the union of local youth councils in Finland, was contacted by so many youth councils that it had to take drastic measures to solve the problem.
“It was a big problem to get youths to have the same position as they had before the crisis.” (Nette Rimpioja, Nuva Ry, Finland).
Nuva Ry published a statement on its website explaining that the municipalities must ensure that youth councils were invited to online meetings:
“Despite the state of emergency, the activities of the youth councils should not be suspended, even temporarily. On the contrary, in a state of emergency, we all have to work together and young people are needed for decision-making more than ever
Despite the exceptional circumstances, municipalities must guarantee youth councils the opportunity to influence municipal decision-making in accordance with Section 26 of the Municipal Act, and municipalities have no right to ignore young people in decision making, even if the meetings are held remotely. (...) The Association of Finnish Youth Councils recommends the following measures to youth councils and municipalities:
1) Youth council meetings are organised as remote meetings
2) The representatives of the youth council will be included in possible remote meetings of the municipal boards, the municipal board and the municipal council with the right to speak and attend as before
3) Remote events are organised in the municipality to reach young people"
Nuva Ry also contacted the municipalities that had actively excluded young people from their meetings. Several municipalities stated they were very busy and that they were organising a transformation from physical to online meetings”. With the assistance of Nuva Ry, the problem was resolved, and the youth councils were invited to digital municipal meetings.
However, several problems remained because of a lack of technical skills among the politicians. Even though everyone was affected by this problem, not the youth representatives, the youth councils were negatively impacted. According to a survey conducted by Nuva Ry in 2021, 59% of young people thought that the exceptional circum­stances caused by the Covid-19 pandemic had a negative or very negative effect on the activities of their youth council and the participation of young people in their municipality.
Key learning: Even when statutory structures are in place to ensure child and youth participation, these can be side-stepped or forgotten during a crisis. When this happens, national youth organisations can play a key role in supporting local youth activists to demand their rights to participate and ensure that decision makers continue to make use of the existing structures.
Go to content