The Hyderabad YES regional Forum was concluded with a valedictory closing ceremony that included thousands of youths from the region in addition to the 1200 persons who had attended the five day event. Ismail Serageldin gave the closing statement on behalf of the conference and read “The Hyderabad Blueprint” adopted by the participating delegations.
This forum was a midpoint between the launch of the YES campaign at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in September of 2002, and the upcoming YES meeting in Mexico in 2004. The movement, for which Serageldin had been chairman of the organizing committee, and now serves on its campaign committee, has grown tremendously in the last two years. Serageldin commended on the enormous energy that pervades the movement and the inspiration that working with youth brings.
Ismail Serageldin was very active in the forum. He made the opening presentation to launch the ministerial segment of the proceedings, chaired the drafting committee that prepared the statement, moderated the ministerial debate that led to its adoption, chaired the special session on women’s issues, and made a plenary presentation on the issues of water and sanitation and youth employment, in addition to a press conference and the closing valedictory presentation.