Hi, everybody. Welcome to this week's broadcast.
And I'm delighted to welcome as my guest, Valeria Longo.
Lozano Valeria. Welcome to the cast. Thank you.
Thank you for having me here. It's my great pleasure. And for those of you who don't know Valeria,
Valeria is just completing her Winfield Hofmann Trust sponsored graduate course at Worcester in
Global Governance and Governance and Diplomacy at the Department of International Development.
Thank you for filling me in on that. And before we get into what you've been doing and what you might be doing next there, you're from Mexico.
Tell us about where you studied before you arrived in Oxford.
That's a great question. So hello, everyone. My name is Valeria.
I'm 22 and I actually began my work in social justice through the specific lens of gender equality.
And I began when I was 16. So when I was back in Mexico, I went to a Catholic private school where I made amazing friendships.
But also I feel like there was a lot of, like, status quo that I had to deal with.
And it was an amazing experience growing up in Mexico.
But of course, I feel like as someone that grew up with a lot of interactions on the Internet,
I was always intrigued and interested in why there were certain conversations that were more difficult to have in my home country and in my hometown,
and that really inspired me to look to have an education abroad.
So I was really interested in international relations when I was really young, specifically sustainable development focussed on young women and girls.
And I decided to go to the University of Texas at Austin.
Right. All majoring in international relations and Latin American studies.
I mean, I'm incredibly passionate about international relations,
but I think that complementing this perspective with the realities in Latin America and the realities of historically marginalised groups,
I think that really allowed me to widen my understanding of what's happening out there.
And I finished my undergrad studies in three years, and it was just in 2022 and the pandemic was ending, you know,
and because I had graduated one year early, I had this wide young people called Quarter Life crisis aerosols.
My friends and I were asking ourselves, What's next for us? What should you doing?
And after much thinking, I decided that it was really important to continue with my education now that I continue to have the opportunity.
So I decided to apply for Oxford, and I found this amazing global governance, and I thought it was a perfect fit.
But then and I think I have discussed this with you before. My first question was, Well, how am I going to go all the way to Oxford?
Who is going to help me get there, financially speaking?
And that's when I heard about the Ph.D. And there'll be some people listening who don't really know about it and feel.
Hofmann trust. It transforms the lives of many people.
And, you know, I'm a great supporter. Tell us very briefly about it.
Well, I think what involvement trust is one of those I would like to go to almost like a jewel that you don't know except someone you discover.
It's like, why is no one talking about that? Good way to describe it.
And the first thing that ignited my curiosity about the trust is how important
the social impact is and also how important the community aspect of it is.
And I feel like that was a main thing that I was looking for because I knew that going to a master's degree in the UK would
be a completely different experience because the international student body in Oxford is just much more international.
Huge, isn't it? Exactly. So I just knew that I wanted to have a community that I could rely on and that once I stepped foot on at Oxford,
I would have like people that I would know and that I could have a conversation with.
I think what provided for me when I first arrived to Oxford was not only like an eye opening experience of
knowing the type of impactful work that people are doing and that it's possible for other people to do,
but also to understand how that social impact activities that people are really executing
in the world have a academic aspect to it and what that means for a university like Oxford.
So it was just an incredibly exciting experience to be looking forward to be part of when I was applying.
And then when I actually got the scholarship,
it was just something that I knew it was going to change my experience here because it's a small community.
How many scholars are there every year? 28 and 30.
Do I think it's a small cohort? You immediately become part of the Tea family as well as then.
Being part of college life. And WHCA scholars are situated in a number of colleges right across the university.
Yeah, I mean, I think I have had the opportunity to know other colleges precisely because of my W friends.
Yeah, but also, I think being able to have that international community that you're really close with.
Yeah, I think that has also really as an Irish person really helped me form my understandings of social impact in other places in the world,
which I think it's something that,
I mean we have access to online, but like actually getting to hear those stories from the people that experience them,
I think that's something that really changes your life.
So not only do you get a great address book and friendships and the Friendship Network all over the world,
but you get the opportunity to test things in real time and to hear about real experiences.
But let's move on to the global governance work that you've been doing because we've talked about this before.
I'm from Wales. One of the really inspired pieces of legislation that applies in Wales but not elsewhere in the UK is the future generations.
I know it's something that you as a young leader really care passionately about.
Yes, I actually I think that was also one of the reasons why I was kind of like so
insistent when myself in coming to Oxford because I actually wrote my capstone,
which is like a small dissertation when I was an undergrad about Wales and commissioner for future generations.
I think when I look back because now I have already submitted my dissertation and I'm just like waiting, waiting to hear back.
When I think back of the work that I did when I was an undergrad and now the work that I have done in Oxford,
it feels really fulfilling to be able to relate those two things because when I was an undergrad I was doing this research on why are countries and,
and governments like that of Wales have been doing for future generations.
And now I'm looking beyond the country level aspect and asking these bigger questions when it comes to the global governance level,
which of course my degree here in Oxford has really for me to think about it in different ways.
So pausing there because there's so much we we can talk about, can you give us an example of the kind of initiatives that you've been thinking about?
So when I worked with the information, we created this report called Our Future Agenda, and it had several pillars to it.
We talked about education, we talked about environment, we talk about the future of work.
We also talked about the future of multilateralism.
And I remember, of course, my generation and just future generations are incredibly interested in the climate crisis.
And when we were working on this document, we were asking ourselves,
how can we redefine or rethink the social contract for young generations now that COVID is happening?
Right. And something that came up when we were writing this report was realising that although all these governments
were not only promising that they were going to do better when it came to climate change and renewables,
but also, you know, making these big promises and and saying that we're going to do better whenever COVID happened, of course,
the economy had a huge breakdown and instead of complying with those promises,
they started reinvesting on fossil fuels and all these different things.
And it was so interesting doing research for this report, because the more that we research,
the more more that we realise that it really didn't make a lot of sense.
It was kind of like a Band-Aid to the bigger problem, because if we look at research,
we see that young people are less interested in less likely on engaging in those industries.
So what we did with this report is that we proposed this idea of a Green New Deal,
which was inspired on some policy work that was happening in the US.
And basically our entire claim is it research shows that the next generation of workers are less likely to want to engage with those industries.
Then why are we trying to revamp the economy through those industries that us young workers are less likely to be involved with?
And that goes to really important points, doesn't it?
About short termism? Yes. Yes, because this is why anticipating the needs of future generations is so fundamentally challenging because politics all
over the world and the way that the political system and political leadership works is that it's all about short term.
Yes. Decision making. I mean, how do we learn how to be short termist?
What I after thinking for many, many months and what I should be writing my dissertation on,
I decided to look at the philosophical aspect of your two generations because it was interesting to me
how when I talk to decision makers or just people that work in the UN or in different governments,
they were all interested in working future generations. But it appeared to me that it wasn't clear what was the end.
Goal. And when I say the end goal is if we were to try to imagine the future that we want for ourselves and our children and our grandchildren,
everyone had a different understanding and vision for it.
So what I tried to do for my dissertation was put into context for different frameworks for philosophy.
I looked at utilitarianism, rawlsian justice, intergenerational equity,
environmental justice, and I was just trying to learn and unlearn what this meant.
I was like, Are we trying to maximise the amount of people that we're saving in the future or
are we trying to provide an environment that is liveable for future generations?
So where did you end up? Because those are all in a completely foreseeable outcomes, but we need to make some tough choices that.
I think the biggest takeaway was realising that this question that I had put forward,
which is what does the future that we want looks like or what should it look like according to us as present generations,
is not even a question that is being asked right now in the multilateral system.
I think the main priority, if we look at because I focussed on the U.N. documents when I was writing my
dissertation and we look at the work of the U.N. up until the last two or three years,
it has been focussed on making sure that humanity continues to live on.
It has a lot of focus on our quality of life in the future.
It has not focussed on the environment that we need to have a liveable life.
It has simply focussed on us as a human race and making sure that we continue to exist.
And I deeply believe from the work that I have done and from talking to other experts, that we are at a point,
given the climate crisis, where we need to rethink whether that is our ultimate goal,
just to make sure that we live on or whether we should be thinking about what
makes life worth living and why should that look like for the future of humanity.
And as a future leader, what's your view?
I think I'm kind of biased because I have said before that I started working as an activist when I was 16.
So definitely I think I side more to the grassroots approach to this.
And I think there is so much value in questioning the work we're doing from the environmental justice perspective, because at the end of the day,
I truly believe personally that without a liveable and durable environment, then there is a lot to question about whether our life is worth living.
And I think that after writing my dissertation,
I kept realising that we are all so proud of thinking of people centred approaches, which makes sense, right?
Because of after the very difficult history we have had in recent years, it makes sense that we want to put people in the centre,
but I think that we are a point where we need to question ourselves whether we can continue to afford putting people at the centre.
So I think that reassessing things from an environmental justice perspective should be highly considered by decision makers.
Why don't policymakers and politicians listen more to young leaders and future generations?
Why do you think that is? I think there are two levels to it. The first one is, of course, tokenism, which is that in many cultures,
the idea that older people or people with more experience are wiser and hence they have the last decision.
That is something that is just part of certain cultures. In others it just comes down to for certain politicians or decision makers,
it looks good to have us in the picture as young decision makers or young leaders.
But like when it really comes down to negotiation, we kind of like get put on the side.
And I think the second aspect to it is how structurally young people are disadvantaged.
And I know we want to talk about this in our conversation, but in the work that I have done for the Y20,
because I work as a white 20 delegate for Mexico, I think I have had really interesting conversations about structural change,
specifically when it comes, for example, to reducing the age of voters,
because in many countries it ranges from being 21 years old or 18 years old and 18 is normally like the common starting age for voting.
But if we look at research from the OECD, most senior members would agree that the ideal voting age should be 16.
It pushes us to start asking questions. And why is that not the rule already?
And I also think and I think this has been one of the other big takeaways from engaging in the Y20, which is the Y20 is happening in India this year.
And in India they have this concept of self evolution, which I had never heard about,
which I think is so interesting from the intergenerational justice perspective.
And basically what they say is there's this concept that self evolution is this idea that older people in,
in decision making spaces need to like actively.
Start giving the decision, making opportunities to younger people.
And apparently from the work that I have been doing, this has been like a very kind of like big conversation that has been happening in South Asia.
And I think it's so interesting because I have had conversations with other people that tell me, well, 16 is too young.
And I'm like, Well, yeah, but if you look at it, there is no limits on when you stop voting.
And we can also move the focus on the other side, which is not really what I do.
I'm not really asking questions on when should people voting.
But I think we need to also understand that young people are engaging more and more in politics.
Yes, because voting age isn't the only consideration, but it's a really important and powerful one.
So you mentioned zero in 120 in a couple of times.
And so it's one of the reasons that I was determined to invite you along to the podcast.
But tell us what it is and what you were doing on behalf of Mexico.
So the Y20, which is a youth drug from the G20,
it's basically the side of the organisation that works precisely on understanding
what are the interests of young people in the G20 member countries and my country,
Mexico, as part of the G20. And there was an open call this year to participate as a delegate.
And I went through the national call, which was conducted by the Office of Foreign Relations and other entities in the Mexican government,
and I am very happy to share that I was selected. Yeah, which I'm very thankful for it.
And I work as a delegate for the track of shared future governance and democracy.
And the work that I do in the Y20 is focussed on, as I said before,
asking these very difficult questions on what governance and democracy mean for our young people.
So,
so give us a flavour of the kind of things that you were considering as you went off to India and I know had a really interesting and exciting time.
But tell us because there'll be a lot of people listening in who won't necessarily know too much about the detail of Y20.
How did it work and what were you considering?
So we had a pre-summit which happened in March, and so we're meeting in August in VR in India, where we're having our final summit.
And what we hope to achieve from that summit is to write a communique.
And this communique has policy recommendations that are then shared with the Sherpas and the decision makers at the G20 level.
Basically, the entire idea is that we put forward, as young people from the G20 member states, all of our priorities.
And this year there were certain tracks that were defined as priority tracks for young people.
One of them is the one where I'm participating Shared Future. There's another one focus on health.
There's another one focus on peace. There's another one focus on the future of work.
And last but not least, obviously we have climate change. And when I was in, we went to the union territory of Ladakh in India.
And one of the things that I realised is how different our understanding of both governance and democracy,
which is to try to work on, is throughout the world view of the Member states.
In the G20, we had delegates in our track who were sharing how democracy works differently in their countries and, you know,
asking why would we support the certain way of doing democracy when that's not really how it works in the countries.
In my track, we also work on looking at community governance and what that means, which is it's not only grassroots approach to youth governance,
but also thinking of youth advisory councils and indigenous understandings of governance, which also.
So isn't it? Yes, it's really difficult truly to have these negotiations with what I would say are incredible young leaders around the world,
not because they are difficult people to deal with, but because we have so little space in this communique to express what we want.
And also we're also so conscious that the G20 summit has so many priorities and so many things going on
that we also need to be very precise and specific on what our main message is for the decision makers.
So you've still got to finalise the messages.
Yes, we're still working on. Yeah, yeah. But I guess two questions.
One, do you feel as a group of participants in 120 that you were heard?
That's a great question. I think most of us acknowledge that the spaces we have is already a privileged
space in the sense where we already are one step closer to the decision makers.
Yeah. However, as I mentioned before, we are very self aware of both tokenism and the structural disadvantages that exist,
and I think there has been a lot of work done on reducing tokenism, which I think it's a.
But the main work that I,
valerius and individual have been putting forward as a Y 20 delegate has been on the idea of having youth representative for the future,
which would be a Y20 delegation that is part of the G20.
Okay. So basically what I'm putting forward is idea that structurally we exist as this kind of like parallel entity that is coexisting with the G20,
but not really being either part of the negotiations or even like listening to what the negotiations are saying about our input.
And that really puts us behind in our work because on the next year when different delegates come into the work,
we have no feedback on what we did the previous year.
We have no idea what were the priorities or tables that the decision makers were keen of helping us conduct.
And we also really don't understand how impactful our communicate is and how it could be even more impactful.
So the bigger question and the bigger challenge ahead for us now that we continue our work in the Y20 this year,
is how can we ensure that this idea is not lost in words as evidently it has happened before?
Because what we are putting forward is not only obviously working and speaking on behalf of young
generations that are looking for better work opportunities and better climate crisis action,
but also having this long,
long term perspective of what should Sherpas and decision makers in the G20 be prioritising for future generations in the next couple of decades?
That's great. And how optimistic do you feel? I think there's so many people that have great not only will to make it happen, but also interest.
And I think a lot of it comes from people being genuinely interested in making things good and making really valuable change in multilateralism.
I think there is a strong possibility of it happening because as I said before, I think we are now looking at a different approach,
an approach that looks beyond just putting the best looking or best sounding words on the communique,
but actually an approach that taps into the existing interest in the short term that can make it realistic for us to start working in the long term.
Global governance is incredibly important.
Climate change and the climate crisis is really going to drive all sorts of very profound climate and global challenges, whether it's migration,
whether it's equity, you know, how optimistic do do you feel not just about the G20, but, you know, us as a global community?
I think the work that is being conducted right now is, in my opinion,
historical in the sense that we have never before seen the UN and international institutions talk so vividly and so often about future generations.
However, in my opinion, this is given to how impactful and realistic the climate crisis is,
and I think we should not be waiting for it to get worse in order to be more, you know, proactive about this, about this topic.
I think I'm optimistic about the future in the sense where I think that both young people and
just people who simply care about the environment and about having a better future for everyone,
I think they're taking it with a lot of seriousness. However, I think that we need to ask our decision makers specifically national and
international decision making spaces to put it at the priority of their agenda.
And I think that's what we are lacking right now.
The U.N. is set to have a summit of the future next year and also to write a declaration for future generations,
which is set to be a landmark achievement in multilateralism, which is great.
But I think that it should not. Too often we have seen that multilateralism is reactive, and right now we cannot afford that reactivity.
We need to be really proactive and to implement a lot of strategic foresight to what's about to happen in the future.
So sum it up optimistic as long as we're protected.
Yeah, great. And it sounds like an incredible experience.
Why 20 and being on the w t course here at Oxford.
What's next. I am I am trying as someone who is just basically out of the graduate level studies
and someone who is really passionate about the social justice work that I do.
I'm trying to figure out how I can stay true to the work that I have already conducted and stay impactful,
because I think we need to protect young leaders and young people who have already been conducting such impactful
work and make sure that we create pathways for pipelines for them to continue doing that impactful work.
Because one of the aspects that we have talked about a lot when it comes to the future of work is how we don't perceive young leaders as experts.
We live in a society that values we leave at the end of the day.
And what I would say is an ageing society and a society that values looking at
your résumé and knowing how many years of experience you have been doing A,
B or C, and well, I think that that is true to that.
And we need to make sure that our decision makers and our experts have some sort of tangible experience in the field work.
I think more and more we are understanding that age is not necessarily the main
thing that we should be looking at when it comes to giving space for for expertise.
So basically, I'm really trying really hard to find opportunities that allow me to continue my work as an
intergenerational justice expert and also continue to expand on other interests of mine,
such as gender equality, sustainable development and environmental governance.
Hopefully this will lead to me working in some sort of NGO,
international institution or development bank that allows me to have a better
understanding of how we can connect grassroots initiatives with decision makers.
It sounds like a great ambition. Thank you. Let's see.
I wish you well, as we all do in Worcester.
But if you had one wish to change, you know the way that governance works.
But if I had the power to grant your wish, what would you wish for?
That's a great question. I think that too often, from my experience,
I have seen decision makers take decisions based on and we have talked about it so much
in this focus on immediate needs or immediate crises which are so important to handle.
And I acknowledge that.
But I think when we're responding to this immediate needs or this immediate crises, we do so without really assessing the long term impact.
And I think that if I could change anything in global governance and multilateralism would be kind of
this natural bias that we have in just like looking at things immediately at this short term way.
But I think that the future of humanity as a whole is looking beyond immediacy and looking more into what the future holds for us.
And speaking on behalf of past generations, not that we're over yet, but generations who currently leaders we know.
And the Climate Emergency is a great example of that. We don't have all the answers.
So that was why I was keen to talk to you. Good luck.
Thank you for participating in the broadcast.
But Valeria, really good luck and I really support your ambition for future generations to be actively involved.
My view is that without that support,
we're not going to tackle the very issues that you're raising that really demands different ways of thinking, different perspectives.
And last but not least, the end of short termism.
So, yes. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the invitation.