Leading a way to a gender-equal world through a new approach to meaningful youth engagement
Summary
Women Deliver committed in 2022 to working with partners in the gender equality and health sectors to create a new approach to meaningful youth engagement that centers marginalized youth advocates as designers, experts, and leaders, alongside traditional decision-makers and powerholders, in all gender equality and health advocacy spaces, convenings, and formal mechanisms. The new approach will target the world’s most pressing issues for youth related to health and sexual and reproductive health and rights, climate action, and economic justice and rights.
Approach
Women Deliver commits to working with partners in the gender equality and health sectors to create a new rights-based equity-centered approach to meaningful youth engagement that centers marginalized youth advocates as designers, experts, and leaders, alongside traditional decision-makers and powerholders, in all gender equality and health advocacy spaces, convenings, and formal mechanisms. This new approach to youth leadership and influencing is essential to addressing the world’s most pressing issues: health and sexual and reproductive health and rights, climate action, and economic justice and rights.
This commitment will be implemented by:
Articulating this new approach to marginalized youth leadership and influencing, ensuring this approach fulfills their vision within gender equality spaces
Producing tools and resources to create pressure for the adoption of this new approach to youth leadership and influence within gender equality advocacy spaces
Convening intergenerational youth-led dialogues between marginalized youth and partner organizations, decision-makers, donors, multilateral organizations, and governments at the WD2023 conference to mobilize support for this new approach and to hold these actors accountable to their existing youth-focused commitments
Modeling this new approach through Women Deliver’s Young Leaders Program, especially in the recruitment of the next class of Young Leaders, and throughout Women Deliver’s Policy & Advocacy initiatives.
Shifting the global approach to marginalized youth leadership and influencing will likely face resistance from traditional power holders, thereby requiring diverse allies across sectors for this commitment to be successful. Recruitment of partners for this commitment will take place as part of the mobilization for WD2023, which will serve as a platform for the launch of this new approach. Women Deliver brings its convening power, its coalition and partnership approach, its advocacy and youth engagement expert staff, and the network of over 1000 Young Leaders and Alumni to this commitment.
Action Plan
September 2022: Announcement of Commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Convening and begin recruitment of partners
October – December 2022: Work with partners and marginalized youth advocates to articulate this new approach to youth leadership and begin to document this approach for publication at WD2023. Hold initial dialogues on adaptations for the Women Deliver Young Leaders Program, including for the new class of Young Leaders
January – March 2023: Identifying key decision-makers to engage in intergenerational dialogues at WD2023, and begin planning for these dialogues. Finalizing publications for launch at WD2023. Leading capacity-sharing and strengthening workshops for youth advocates attending WD2023. Refining adaptations for the new class of Young Leaders, and preparing for announcements about the new class at WD2023
April – June 2023: Leading capacity-sharing and strengthening workshops for youth advocates attending WD2023. Finalizing plans for intergenerational dialogues at WD2023. Preparing to launch new publications at WD2023 on this new approach to youth leadership and influencing, as well as Young Leader Program announcements.
July 2023: At WD2023, launch publication articulating this new approach; hold intergenerational youth-led dialogues on youth leadership and influencing; support girls and youth in holding decision-makers and influencers accountable to youth-focused commitments; and announce updates to the Young Leaders Program.
August – December 2023: Continue dissemination of publications launched at WD2023. Support youth in ongoing accountability and next steps from intergenerational dialogues and build on the key demands from youth for leadership and influencing at additional policy windows, including UNGA, the Summit of the Future, and the Global Forum for Adolescents. Recruitment for new class of Young Leaders open.
January – March 2023: New class of Young Leaders launch. Continuing new approach to meaningful youth engagement advocacy at upcoming policy windows, including CSW.
Background
Young people are at the forefront of driving social change. Yet the current approach to meaningful youth engagement within gender equality advocacy spaces often stops at youth participation and consultation but seldom reaches the level of true youth leadership, ownership- and decision-making. Furthermore, youth are often incorrectly viewed as undifferentiated and homogenous and those from privileged groups are prioritized to engage in influencing gender equality and health policy.
The status quo devalues marginalized youth with intersectional vulnerabilities and multiple marginalizing identities such as adolescent girls, non-binary people, youth with differing abilities and youth from marginalized minority groups; all of whom are often disproportionately impacted by inequitable gender and health policies.
A new gender lens is needed to ensure that young people are at the “driver’s seat” in decision making of their future health outcomes and of that of their planet. Meaningfully youth engagement in shaping global gender equality and health policy created for and alongside the most marginalized youth has the great potential to spur the creation of more equitable health systems, climate mitigation agendas, and economic inclusion opportunities that can more effectively meet the needs of all populations.
Progress Update
In September 2022, Women Deliver committed to working with partners in the gender equality and health sectors to delineate a new approach to youth engagement. This approach, called equitable youth engagement and co-leadership (EYECL) , centers marginalized youth advocates as designers, experts, and leaders, alongside traditional decision makers and powerholders, in all gender equality and health advocacy spaces, convenings, and formal mechanisms. Women Deliver partnered with youth advocates, including Women Deliver Young Leaders, WD2023 Youth Planning Committee members, and external youth advisors, to fine tune and articulate its new approach to youth engagement and model its policy in a highly collaborative, co-creative process of knowledge production, facilitated by Book Sprints over 8 virtual sessions in 2023. This new approach, codified in a publication, was launched at WD2023 in July 2023 through a concurrent event where co-authors and decision-makers discussed intergenerational partnership and how decision-makers can incorporate this approach into their work. This new approach was also featured at the Global Forum for Adolescents (GFA) in October 2023, and youth advocates were trained on how to use this approach in their work during a session at the GFA.
On April 15, 2024, Women Deliver launched its latest initiative with adolescents and youth, the Emerging Leaders for Change program (ELP) designed to support young advocates for SRHR and gender equality by providing them with the resources, platforms, connections, and training they need to make change happen. Through the ELP, we invest in advocates aged 15-29 to help them initiate their advocacy journey. The goal is to foster an enduring ecosystem to advance bodily autonomy, uniting Emerging Leaders, Young Leader Alumni, and youth advocates. These youth leaders advocate for change at all levels. They hold governments accountable, demanding gender-just approaches for issues like sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and climate justice.
Partnership Opportunities
Women Deliver is seeking partners to join in this commitment who have expertise in youth leadership and influencing in the gender equality and health sector. This includes both partners working at the global level, as well as partners embedded in regional or national contexts who can advise on how this global approach can be adapted to specific geographies. In addition, Women Deliver is seeking youth advocates to lead in the creation of this new approach and to partner in advocating for this new approach at WD2023.
Serving marginalized youth, including adolescent girls, will require additional financial resources, and thus Women Deliver is seeking funding and implementing partners to support this commitment, especially those with deep national and subnational networks to recruit a diverse set of youth for the new class of Young Leaders., Women Deliver offers its partners convening space at WD2023, which begins in January 2023 with the Global Dialogue and Regional Convenings, to advance this commitment. Convening space can take many formats and modalities, such as a side event, a concurrent event, speaking roles, or pre-conferences.