Participation Of Youth In Local Governance

Abstract

Every human being aspires for a better quality and standard of life. Therefore, human beings newline have formed the entity of the State to provide justice and basic amenities to all. However, most newline of the states, particularly the developing countries, have failed to deliver basic facilities to newline underprivileged communities. This is evident from the World Bank estimate in 2013 that over newline ten percent or 760 million people in the world are living under extreme poverty. India is home newline to the highest number of extremely poor people. It has been observed by international agencies newline like the United Nations, the World Bank and OECD countries that poor governance or lack of newline good governance by many developing countries is the reason for their underdevelopment. newline Therefore, international agencies have been supporting such countries to adopt good newline governance. Two key parameters of good governance are Participation of its citizens and newline Decentralization or Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI). newline India has brought in PRI through the 73 rd and 74 th Constitutional amendments. PRI or local newline governance has been implemented at three levels the highest at the District level, the newline intermediate at the Block level (Panchayat Samiti) and the lowest at the Gram Panchayat level. newline Every state has to conduct periodic elections, devolution of power, provide financial assistance newline through the State Finance Commission, and empower women, SCs, STs and OBCs through newline affirmative action reservation. Though the Panchayat has started showing early results, it is still newline far from the expected development. There have been several challenges in PRI like, the newline reluctance of state-level political leaders, and bureaucrats to share power with the PRI, lack of newline cooperation of government officials with elected PRI members with low literacy, and a low newline level of participation of people, among others. newline There is need for active participation of citizens, particularly the youth, to ensure development newline in the local area, leading to sustainable development. Youth, particularly educated youth in the newline age group of 18-35 years, have great potential to contribute for the development. India has been newline blessed with a demographic dividend having two-thirds of population below 35 years of age. newline They have performed well in many sectors like sports, media, business and others. However, newline youth participation in political activities is gradually reducing across the globe. The political newline participation in many developed and democratic countries like the USA, the UK and the newline XIIEuropean Union is going down. However, the participation is increasing in civic activities like newline social media, protests and voluntary activities in environment and social work. newline Throughout the last decade, it has been observed that there has been an insistent and growing newline concern about the seemingly global decline of youth in the political process (Bermudez, 2012). newline Some of the studies conducted to understand youth participation, which focused on the quantity newline of youth participation. However, there is need to focus on the quality of participation (Kara, newline 2007). Although the local educated youth leaders are trusted by villagers and are able to carry newline out the work at the Gram Panchayat level successfully. There is a need to conduct a study on newline youth participation at the local governance level and come up with a comprehensive model for newline youth participation in local governance. Therefore, this study, Participation of Youth in newline Local Governance: A Study in the States of Odisha and Maharashtra , is proposed to newline understand the purpose and nature of youth participation, and the challenges and opportunities newline for improving further. The study explores to find responses to the following research questions newline