The Arctic Council is the leading intergovernmental forum that promotes cooperation, coordination and interaction between the Arctic states, indigenous communities and other inhabitants of there in connection with common issues, in particular in connection with the problems of sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
The Arctic Council (AC) was established on September 19, 1996 in Ottawa (Canada) by eight Arctic states such as Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Norway, Russia, USA, Finland and Sweden.
The supreme body of the Arctic Council is a ministerial meeting (usually at the level of foreign ministers) which is held every two years.
The AC was established on the basis of the so-called Rovaniemi process (the Finnish city in which the development of international cooperation for the protection of the Arctic environment was launched). Therefore, the activities of the Council are dominated by issues of environmental cooperation.
Youth cooperation issues are reflected in the Strategic Plan of the Arctic Council for 2021-2030: as part of the implementation of the strategic goal of Sustainable Social Development, the Arctic Council intends to "encourage constructive engagement with young people across the Arctic in a way that can support the work of the Council as well as expand opportunities for Arctic youth".
The relevance of the youth relations’ development is also indicated in the declarations of the Ministerial sessions of the Arctic Council: in the Iqaluit Declaration adopted in 2015 following the Ninth Ministerial Session of the Arctic Council as well as in the Reykjavik Declaration adopted in 2021 following the results of the Twelfth Ministerial Session of the Arctic Council.
The launching platform for enhancing international youth cooperation within the framework of the Arctic Council on the Russian side was the International Youth Forum "Arctic Expedition" organized by the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs in 2015. It was attended by students, graduate students and young scientists from Russia and other countries of the Arctic Council whose area is related to the research of the Arctic Region.
Since 2016 the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs has been holding the International Youth Educational Forum "Arctic. Made in Russia".
In 2020 the Project Office for International Youth Cooperation in the direction "Russia – the Arctic Council" was created. The founders were the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs and the Department of Youth Policy of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
In 2022 the Youth Arctic Delphic Games were held for the first time.
In March 2022 the Western countries that are the members of the Arctic Council (namely Denmark, Iceland, Canada, Norway, USA, Finland, Sweden) decided to freeze their participation in the council. Russia consistently continues the implementation of initiated projects with an emphasis on the Russian Regions designed to promote sustainable socio-economic development of the Russian Arctic zone including implementation of projects aimed at promoting contacts between young people (statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation).
Sources: the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation and the collection "30 years of state youth policy of the Russian Federation" (30 years of state youth policy of the Russian Federation / MIREA – Russian Technological University. – M., 2022. – 340 p.)
