By Vestnik Kavkaza
The notion of “the youth government” appeared in the middle 1990s. Since that time the youth policy underwent serious changes, but young people who want to be officials in the future still take part in the youth governments.
Rcently the 5th Congress of youth governments was held in Moscow. Maxim Ostanin, co-chair of the Association of Governments, said that “our task is to work not only at regional level but also at the municipal one. Secondly - this is the most precious thing in the Association - this is our team, the people who are scattered across the country. Today, the Association of Youth Governments includes guys from the territories, from the Kaliningrad region to Kamchatka and Sakhalin, and this is probably the most valuable thing that we can invite the best young managers to work at, not only at regional level, but also with the federal team. Today we are trying to work effectively with the key development institutions appearing in our country. We are actively starting to work with Open Government, the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, etc.
At the same time Ostanin thinks that “a reset should take place in our mood. We need to shape the image of a manager of the new generation and, most importantly, match this image. Today we have to solve problems in our territory and take on the country's problems like our own personal ones.”
Addressing to young people Sergei Belokonev, head of Rosmolodezh, stated: “I wish that you who want to take part in government understand and are able to build interaction with the public, to form a certain mood, to analyze, to perceive, to work properly and to organize public authorities. This is really important. This is the key, the underlying query. Power today is associated not only with the Prime Minister and the President. We would like to hope that this project, the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, will help the country as a whole to carry out the modernization of the solution to this problem.”
Boris Yakemenko, member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, sees the main goal of the youth governments in innovative solutions which “they offer to solve traditional problems, so that they would find such solutions to problems that people who have long been in power cannot find, because they do not see them. Because a lot of people today, including those in power, live according to the principle of "a no-win situation is a position, the output of which we do not like." This problem should primarily be posed by every member of the youth government to himself, and then it will not just be dubbed, but a real update of the government, the next generation, which should be, according to tradition, better than the last, and it will be better.”
Andrey Polosin, deputy director of the department for the formation of "Open Government", told aboult there projects which would be implemented this year - provision and organization of the system of social control in the subjects of the Russian Federation; the work of the expert open public discussion of public policies and strategies of the Federal Agency for Youth Policy, which will make it possible to install new themes of work for young people; support for project initiatives.
Obviously it touches on the NCFD as well. Timur Mejidov, organizer of the youth policy of the Republic of Dagestan, told Vestnik Kavkaza, “The Youth Government of the Republic of Dagestan was organized two years ago, but it only started to function seriously this year. We recently hosted the second strategy session on the composition of the youth government, on new project managers - a team of ministers, development of new projects. We are carrying out public projects. Later the team will implement the ideas of social projects and projects in the field of economics… We have a new president, Ramazan Abdullatipov, and the youth keep pace with the "adult" policy.”
