By Simone Galimberti*
International Youth Day is an awareness day designated by the United Nations on 12 August. The purpose of the day is to draw attention to specific cultural and legal issues surrounding youth. The first IYD was observed on 12 August 2000.
KATHMANDU, Nepal | 13 August 2025, (IDN) — This year’s International Youth Day (IYD) was marked by a worldwide celebration— as usual.
But I have mixed feelings about it. I am not entirely sure if we should celebrate it. I know it does not sound good, but frankly speaking, there is not much happening worldwide that focuses on the development and prosperity of youths.
The United Nations, as always, has some good intentions. There is a newly established UN Youth Office, and this is undoubtedly a positive thing, but it is far from what youths deserve.
Youths need real opportunities for self-empowerment. I believe that this can only happen through serious, profound and holistic changes in the ways politics work around the world.
Two ways to advance a vision
I see two ways to advance a vision in which youths can assume a more central and leading role in the political arenas.
Both are difficult and offer narrow paths. Yet it is not impossible to put in place a vision in which young people can make a difference.
The first one is more traditional: traditional political mechanisms should give space to young people. How to do so?
Imagine a quota within the legislative exclusively for young people in a way which also allows youths from marginalised communities to be also represented.
Another bold initiative could be an entirely new chamber composed only of young people aged 25 and under, a chamber with absolute power.
Placing youth at the centre of decision-making
Because ultimately youths should be at the centre of decision-making and not on the sidelines, the age limit would allow more senior youths to be mainstreamed in the existing chambers, even though with a formal quota.
We could imagine a less bold initiative in which young people sit in a separate chamber that, although lacking binding veto powers, could offer scrutiny and insights.
This would resemble the so-called “Voice” that the Albanese government in Australia had proposed to give recognition and agency to indigenous First Nations, but was ultimately rejected through referendum.
That would have been a constitutional body able only to recommend and provide insights and views on particular legislation. All these options are aligned with existing ways of doing politics. They only require some ingenuity and a bold commitment from the political classes.
These ideas could also be applied at the local level within the assemblies of local bodies like municipalities. It is at ground level where the second pathway emerges.
This option is centred on deliberative practices in which citizens’ assemblies would be created in each local government.
Normally, the membership selection of these assemblies happens by applying some statistical methodologies that, in the end, would lead to localised lotteries among smaller samples of local citizens.
Ways can be devised so that at least 35% of participants in these assemblies are young people. The threshold of their participation could also be increased to 50% of the total number of participants.
Ensure inclusion and equity principles
Also, in this case, it would be essential to ensure inclusion and equity principles are fully embedded so that also youths from less privileged backgrounds can participate.
Deliberative assemblies can also be organised at national levels, and around the world, there have already been some examples of such practice, even though all have been centred on single themes in which national citizens’ assemblies were created for an ad hoc purpose.
I do admit that this second path is more difficult and daunting to envision, but deliberative democracy is getting traction around the world. It is something that is slowly and progressively being mainstreamed.
Also, participatory budgets, another form of deliberative democracy, is gaining ground worldwide, even at school levels where students have a real say on some components of the budget.
Evidence is emerging that such ways of promoting civic engagement have a profound positive impact on young people. Offering youths real pathways for decision-making matters and can make a significant impact on their lives.
The theme of this year’s International Youth Day was localising the SDGs. Objectively speaking, the agenda of localising the SDGs is a total missed opportunity. Localising the SDGs means finding ways to help not only with the monitoring of the SDGs locally, but also offers venues for citizens to participate through planning and possibly even through decision making.
Localising for new forms of citizens’ engagement
Instead, investing and promoting localising the SDGs is not even a requirement for national governments, who are supposed to report back on their efforts to achieve the sustainable goals through national Voluntary National Reviews. This exercise is not even mandatory.
There has been an increasing number of cities involved in localising the SDGs, but again, most of them do not genuinely involve and engage the citizenry.
What they do instead is recalibrate local policy actions to the SDGs in ways that are detached from local communities. This approach is not far-reaching, nor is it empowering or innovative.
Localising the SDGs instead could be the purpose for which new forms of citizens’ engagement are pursued, platforms and mechanisms where young people should have a strong presence.
Agenda 2030 is, in a way, a compass that allows governments to form partnerships across the society. If you are familiar with UN documents, you often read of the need for new forms of participatory governance, often referred to as “whole of society” approach.
What does such jargon mean in practice?
In simple terms: finding practical ways to truly engage people, starting from the youth, but the premise is that real engagement must lead to real decision making, otherwise it is all meaningless.
The two pathways envisioned are structured approaches to be achieved holistically, but the process of turning around policymaking can start even with the simplest ideas, like SDGs Forums led by citizens and facilitated by youths. These can lead to powerful changes where young people have a real say.
Yet what counts the most is a genuine commitment to real civic engagement where youths have real agency. Otherwise, even these simple ideas that are meant to represent a first stepping stone towards real youths’ decision making, will be offer nothing different from the tokenistic approaches so far used in occasions where, like today, youths are supposed to be celebrated.
Instead, it is time to take the youths seriously.
*Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centred policymaking and a stronger and better United Nations. [IDN-InDepthNews]
Image: Local youth actions are not isolated activities; they are integral to broader efforts to achieve national development plans and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) © Dardan Rushiti/ UNDP Kosovo.
