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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nSonika Paudel represents Nepal and serves on the Board of Directors of the YFEED Foundation Nepal. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Agricultural and Extension Education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia. Her nomination was supported by the SAARC Youth Platform and was unanimously endorsed and formally ratified during an MGCY Secretariat meeting in New York on September 28, 2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The global launch of the working group will be marked by an in-person side event at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on October 9, 2026. The event will take place in connection with the meetings of the Third Committee, also known as the Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee, of the 81st United Nations General Assembly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the event, Sonika Paudel is scheduled to deliver an official statement on behalf of MGCY. Her address will highlight the climate crisis, glacier melt, and ecological imbalance affecting the Himalayan region, as well as the damage to lives, agriculture, and infrastructure caused by flash floods, landslides, and inundation in Nepal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mountain Youth Working Group will focus on strengthening youth participation in international policy forums, advancing climate justice and disaster-risk reduction, and connecting academic research with mountain agriculture and traditional and Indigenous knowledge. Its advocacy will include engagement with processes connected to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Convention on Biological Diversity, and other United Nations policy mechanisms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur mountains, which are a source of water for the world, are on the front line of the climate crisis,\u201d Sonika Paudel said in the official statement included in the release. She added that the new working group would bring the voices of young people and marginalized mountain communities to the United Nations. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEW YORK: Nepali youth leader Sonika Paudel has been appointed Global Coordinator and Global Focal Point of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1158,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"no","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_28862978113291940_720947087772779":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[{"account":"facebook_28862978113291940_720947087772779","service":"facebook","timestamp":1790713340,"status":"success"}],"rop_publish_now_status":"done","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[200,167,191,201,202,194,197,192,198,196,190,195,193,199],"class_list":["post-1157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diaspora","category-global","tag-climate-advocacy","tag-himalayan-climate-crisis","tag-mgcy","tag-mountain-communities","tag-mountain-ecosystems","tag-mountain-youth-working-group","tag-nepal","tag-nepal-youth-leader","tag-new-york-un-headquarters","tag-saarc-youth-platform","tag-sonika-paudel","tag-unga-81","tag-united-nations","tag-youth-leadership"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1157"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1162,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1157\/revisions\/1162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thechroniclesofnepal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/sonika-edited-1024x596.jpg\")
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