About the J8 Summit

About Junior 8

 

If you had the opportunity to tell world leaders what they should do to solve global problems, what would you say?

The Junior 8 Summit, or J8, is an annual forum where young people from around the world meet to share their concerns and recommendations on how to solve global issues with G8 leaders and the world community. The Summit is a parallel youth event to the annual Group of 8 (G8) Summit of world leaders. Participants at the J8 Summit discuss their own ideas but also serve as representatives of all young people worldwide. Participants have the opportunity to present their ideas, opinions and proposals to the G8 leaders on the topics that are part of the G8 agenda.

UNICEF will be focusing its efforts on giving a broad range of young people from around the world a voice on children's rights, development issues and global economic affairs around  the 2010 G20 Summit in Korea, given the larger number of nations represented at the G20 from both industrialised and developing countries.

UNICEF will therefore not be organising a Junior 8 Summit in July 2010, as it did in the past five years, but is instead planning to organise a young people’s summit in November 2010, in cooperation with the Korean Government.

At the same time, UNICEF is planning to provide other platforms for global youth participation and advocacy around the G8 Summit in Canada in July 2010, as well as at the high-level MDG review meeting in September 2010 in New York.

About the G8

The Group of 8, often referred to as the G8, is an unofficial forum of the leaders of eight major industrialized democracies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Each year, G8 leaders meet to discuss global issues of major concern. At the Summit, they try to reach consensus on policies and actions they will take to solve global problems.

The agenda often includes a focus on world economic issues, but other global issues such as climate change, human rights, emerging conflicts, terrorism and global health have also been discussed in the past.

The G8’s membership is limited, but since the leaders make decisions that have an impact on many other non-member countries, other governments, institutions and organizations participate as observers in the Summits. The European Union sends a representative each year and other national leaders are also invited to attend, such as leaders of the African Union.

Many other groups of officials, experts and others meet over the course of the year to follow up on the previous Summit and prepare for the next one. The annual G8 Summits are one part of a continuous process of discussion, planning and policymaking that includes leaders and citizens of countries worldwide.

About the G20

The Group of Twenty (the G20) is a forum for finance ministers and central bank governors from 20 economies: 19 countries plus the European Union. Recently summit meetings at the level of Heads of State have been introduced. As the Chair of the G-20 in 2010, Korea will host the G-20 Summit on 11-12 November 2010. 

The G-20 has become the main forum for international economic development, which promotes open and constructive discussion between industrial and emerging-market countries on key issues related to global economic stability. The G20 contributes to the strengthening of the international financial architecture and provides opportunities for dialogue on national policies, international co-operation, and international financial institutions.


logo_subfooter