Ten years ago, on a sailing trip off the Gaza Strip, I first learned about the European Youth Forum: I was a young sailor on the Peace Cruise, a project organised by the Scout Movement that changed the course of the life of many young people, including me. The European Youth Forum was a key partner in its realisation and it was a revelation to learn that a platform comprised of so many diverse organisations could drive innovative initiatives, advocates for youth at an institutional level and at the same time have a direct impact on the lives of so many young people in Europe and beyond. The Peace Cruise served as inspiration and influenced the direction of my participation as a young European citizen. It motivated me to get involved in new projects: firstly in my town and my university, then at a national level, as one of the initiators of the Italian Youth Council, and at the European level, as Chair of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe. In these roles I acted as team leader, with the task of motivating and coordinating the work of others, often in complex and challenging situations, while developing and refining my leadership skills.
Years after having sailed in the boat off Gaza, at the age of 30, I am now working for the secretariat of the European Youth Forum (YFJ). I know the YFJ from an inside perspective and I have a holistic view into how the organisation functions. I believe applying for the position of Secretary General is a natural next step in my commitment to the YFJ. As my career has progressed through professional and volunteer work, my values have come to match those of the European Youth Forum.
Reliable Support for Policy Deliver
At this stage of its organisational development, the YFJ is aiming “to deliver, strengthen and consolidate YFJ work by bringing the Member Organisations closer to the platform with the ultimate goal to increase the impact of YFJ advocacy and achieve greater participation, youth autonomy and sustainability of youth organisations” – as outlined by the current President in the motivation letter for his recent election. As Secretary General, I will work to support the implementation of these goals with a confident, efficient, motivated and professional secretariat, while ensuring that the political leadership is in the hands of the elected President and Bureau.
The secretariat should be led by a competent professional, one who possesses the ability to combine a range of skills: managerial, strategic planning, diplomacy, communications, initiative and flexibility. Such a variety of skills goes beyond the boundaries of a traditional managerial profile due to the organisational complexity of the European Youth Forum. The YFJ is a major Membership-based Civil Society Platform in Europe: even if the secretariat is based in Brussels, through its Member Organisations, the YFJ is practically present in every Member State of the Council of Europe. Members participate in the organisational development through a participative internal democracy and by electing a bureau with the clear political mandate to implement the work-plan adopted by the General Assembly. Within this organisational framework, the secretariat has the task of supporting this process from a professional level.
How can the Secretary General practically contribute to the organisational development?
I believe that the following guiding ideas, and the necessary competencies to implement them, are particularly relevant in this regards: managing people, managing competence, managing innovation and monitoring the impact of the organisation.
Managing people to deliver results
With its 25 employees, the YFJ secretariat has already reached a solid level of sustainability. The first and main support of the Secretary General to the mission of the European Youth Forum is to take responsibility for the daily management of a professional team which is capable of delivering results based on the political input of the Bureau.
This endeavour needs solid human resources management skills such as:
Managing people in a multicultural environment: The staff of the YFJ is composed of professionals from all over Europe. This requires cultural sensitivity to handle team work. As a YFJ staff member I have proven myself to be a good team player in such an environment. Further, for the World Bank, I supervised the multi-ethnic Project Implementation Unit (PIU) of the Kosovo Youth Grant based in Pristina, including a project officer based in the Serbian Enclave of North Mitrovica.
Managing people with different professional profiles: The YFJ is also an organisation with a variety of profiles ranging from policy and advocacy, to finances and administration. The PIU I supervised in Kosovo included a project co-ordinator, financial and procurement officers, outreach coordinators, a monitoring and evaluation expert, and an administrative assistant, for a total of 8 people employed in three different offices. I think this management experience will be very useful if selected as Secretary General.
Managing people in a multi-actor environment: The YFJ secretariat works in-between the Institutions and the Member Organisations. The Secretary General needs to have the capacity to support this connection at various levels. I have extensive expertise in linking up Civil Society Actors to Institutions coupled with an in-depth knowledge of the European Union, the Council of Europe and the UN. This was, for example, one of the main results delivered as the Chair of the Advisory Council and in my academic work. Moreover, in my assignment in Kosovo, i ensured the links between the PIU and the youth organisations in each municipality from one side and between the PIU, the World Bank, and European Agencies on the other side.
Managing the competence in a knowledge-based organisation
The European Youth Forum is widely recognised as the “European youth interlocutor” in public policy. The success of this recognition stands from the magic combination of the unique experience of each of the Member Organisations (MOs), of the competencies of the volunteers (delegates, Bureau members, working groups and seminar participants) and the professionals of the Secretariat. It is thanks to this mix that over the past decades the YFJ has built an extensive body of knowledge epitomised by the numerous positions papers, policies, publications and verbal communication.
As a learning organisation, for and by young people, it is especially important that the Secretary General ensures that the knowledge and expertise produced by all the actors involved is not lost or dispersed.
This requires efforts in various areas of management, including but not limited to:
The sector of human resources, strategic for the wealth of knowledge constituted by the human capital of the YFJ secretariat. This human capital is there to serve the MOs and to serve present and future young people in Europe. Today there is too much turn-over and short stay of the staff. Motivating the staff to stay committed to the organisation thanks to their contribution to the implementation of the YFJ vision mixed with enhanced possibilities for personal and professional development would be a cornerstone of my tenure as Secretary General.
The area of communications, not simply a support for the visibility of the organisation. I would like to contribute in this area with the competencies I have developed in the external relation throughout my professional experiences and voluntary commitment. In fact, as a knowledge producer the YFJ needs to fully integrate this area in its lobby and advocacy work. Moreover, I believe that such an integrated approach to communication management will not affects only the production of knowledge but will also strengthen partnerships and increase resources.
The research field, needed to preserve the historical memory of the organisation. As Secretary General I would like to contribute to this area with the research skills I developed during my PhD and co-ordinate the efforts to make the past knowledge easily accessible to both volunteers and staff alike, not only through publications but also through other tools. For example, training modules that could be tailored to the needs of the Members, making use of history to learn and grow stronger.
Managing the innovation in a creativity-driven organisation
The European Youth Forum is an organisation which has adapted and innovated throughout its thirty years of existence. Innovation has related to the policy areas, such as development co-operation or youth rights, as well as organisational development, such as the merging of the existing three European youth platforms into the current European Youth Forum (YFJ) or the last reform of the working structures, which aimed to more effectiveness in the participation of MOs to the work-plan implementation.
Constant innovation has been the success of this Platform and it must be cultivated for the future. For this reason, I truly believe that the next Secretary General should be a proven innovator in the youth field, able to understand a creativity-driven organisation, such as the European Youth Forum.
The future management will need to participate and contribute in order to maintain the creativity-driven trend which makes the European Youth Forum a place where people are happy and anxious to work: this includes providing the necessary professional support to solutions aimed at disclosing untapped resources within the membership and partners.
From past experience, I have learned that managing innovation is a complex process. In particular, setting up the Italian National Youth Council (FNG) was a unique opportunity to build a new organisation, since in Italy, the concept of National Youth Council had to be built from scratch. To give concrete example, lacking a strong institutional support in the start-up phase, we initiated a truly bottom-up process in organisational development starting from the membership and using the commitment of the volunteers. Moreover, we looked for partnerships other than the usual channels for policy development and fund-raising, for example we created alternative partnerships with think tanks and foundations. These seminal efforts built the basis for the current dynamism and recognition enabling FNG to better serve the needs of Italian youth organisations and young people.
As Secretary General of the European Youth Forum I will use the kind of competencies developed in this process to accompany the innovation of the organisation with the necessary managerial support.
Monitoring the impact for a result-oriented organisation
I believe that while the political direction of the organisation is in the Bureau's domain, the Secretariat must facilitate realistic options based on a balanced analysis of the planned actions and likely outcomes. This would keep the positive pathway between the Bureau and the Secretariat in order to best find realistic and workable solutions for the priorities outlined by Member Organisations.
To this end, the monitoring and evaluation system of the organisation would help in gathering both qualitative and quantitative data in order to better make informed decisions and set up benchmarks to further evaluate the impact of each of the actions of the Forum: As Secretary General I will strengthen such systems, thanks to the methodologies acquired in my academic and professional work. For example, in 2005 I coordinated, for the Confederation of Italian Industry, a research project that evaluated complex organisational and governance systems such as Mediterranean cities. During this research project I developed a tool for the benchmarking analysis which compared the performance of different cities in various public policy sectors. Applied to the European Youth Forum, a similar methodology could help compare the impact of the lobby and advocacy actions.
Impact-analysis would benefit not only the overall efficiency of the daily work of the Secretariat, but also give the opportunity to the membership better contribute and evaluate the tangible results of their commitment in the YFJ. Furthermore, it would enhance the credibility of the organisation towards the institutional partners and possibly increase the range and diversity of funding.
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These guiding ideas briefly outline some of the organisational challenges and implication of the secretariat support for the work of the Bureau and to the MOs. Delivering results in a knowledge-based and creativity-driven organisation cannot solely be the job of the Secretary General on their own. It must be planned and implemented by involving all stakeholders in the Secretariat.
If selected as Secretary General, I will consider it an endorsement to coordinate and execute against the vision of the European Youth Forum, having the professional competence and passion for the challenging and exciting endeavour that lies ahead. I do hope you feel the same.
Sincerely yours,
Giuseppe Porcaro
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