The Baltic Sea Youth Dialogue Engagement Roadmap with recommendations for a safe and secure region 

On 21-25 November 2022, twenty young people from around the region were invited to Hamburg, Germany, to participate in the ninth edition of the Baltic Sea Youth Dialogue (BSYD): Baltic Sea Youth Dialogue 2022: Civil Security Edition – Your Engagement in a Safe and Secure Baltic Sea Region that specifically focused on societal security topics and international and transboundary cooperation on civil protection.  

Throughout one week, all youth participants with a professional background in civil security and related areas held a fruitful dialogue and generated a large variety of ideas on security in the Baltic Sea Region and mutual engagement between youth and other stakeholders in the region. They took input and their own experience into consideration to prepare concrete and topical goals for youth engagement by 2030. They also developed clear steps that need to be taken to contribute to a safe and secure Baltic Sea Region.  

As a result, the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) prepared the BSYD Engagement Roadmap 2022 that represents the participating youth, their peers and the various security-related fields that come with their backgrounds and interest. 

„The Roadmap is important because it comes from the youth directly – they are presenting their ideas and actions to reach out to stakeholders in the region. Also, they are not any youth but young experts, the future actors in the field of societal security,” emphasised Franziska Seufert from the CBSS, the co-organiser of the event. 

The BSYD Engagement Roadmap puts forward the key questions about meaningful youth participation discussed during the BSYD 2022. It focuses on the young experts’ specific 2030 goals for a safe and secure BSR, giving concrete ideas stemming from individual steps and actions to be taken in order to facilitate the journey to reach these goals and to further the overall aim of mutually fostering an intergenerational dialogue. 

This Roadmap can be used as inspiration or a guiding document to take action, be engaged and develop youth-driven ideas in the region. “The Roadmap will be disseminated among the practitioners and educational networks, as well as to policy makers. Everyone can easily get engaged by taking inspiration from the Checklist for Engagement Steps included in the publication. The youth then hopes for the goals to be discussed with relevant stakeholder groups, whom they are ready to engage with and support the process of reaching those goals which they are already working towards from their end. The connection and collaboration between youth and other actors are often the missing component,” said Franziska. 

The youth suggestions will be shared further within the CBSS and among its stakeholders in the Baltic Sea Region. They will also be considered at upcoming youth events such as the Baltic Sea Region Youth Forum (BSRYF) to be launched on 19 April 2023, the CBSS Youth Ministerial to be held in May 2023 or Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum – in August 2023.