Tizai Mauto, PhD Candidate in Design and Planning, attended by invitation the Youth 21-Building for Change Global Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, March 15-18. The purpose was to find ways of bringing young people closer to the United Nations governing processes, in addition to looking at methods and models of youth engagement and participation in all important matters of governance.

The meeting followed the recent decision of the United Nations Secretary-General to prioritize youth in his second term, notably his decision to appoint a Special Advisor on Youth, seen as an indication of the increased importance of the leadership role of youth in our rapidly urbanizing world. The meeting was jointly organized by UN-HABITAT and the United Nations Development Program, both members of the UN Inter-Agency on Youth Development.

On March 20, Tizai presented his comprehensive literature review paper, “Ethnographic Methods in Design and Planning: Usefulness and Application in the Study of Informal Urban Economies,” during a seminar at the University of Zimbabwe Department of Rural and Urban Planning in Harare, Zimbabwe. The methods paper along with his theory-based paper “Livelihood Assets in the Context of Informal Urban Economies” will be published in forthcoming University of Zimbabwe Rural and Urban Planning Occasional Papers.

Also, on March 21-22, Tizai attended the Euromoney Zimbabwe Investment Conference at the Harare International Conference Center, where he was invited to participate on the Small to Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) and Micro-finance Panel where issues of youth employment and financing of youth economic programs were discussed. The Conference featured a wide variety of Zimbabwean and international panelists discussing financing Zimbabwe’s economy, SMEs, Banking and Capital Markets, Infrastructure, ICT, Agribusiness and Mining.