Youth advisory structures to European missions around the world, more youth focal points on staff, and €100 million ($99 million) worth of initiatives targeting young people — those are among the measures in the European Commission’s first Youth Action Plan in External Action, released in early October, that is so far winning rare praise from civil society.
The commission announced the 19-page plan as an “operational roadmap for engaging young people in EU external action” that “will improve the way we work for and with young people worldwide.”
Funding will come mainly from the EU’s 2021-2027 development budget. According to a press release, a Youth and Women in Democracy Initiative, worth €40 million, is intended to support young activists in “institutional oversight, anti-corruption, citizen election observation, democratic reform advocacy, civil education, promotion of the right to vote, freedom of association and assembly and human rights.”
A pilot Youth Empowerment Fund, worth €10 million, will provide direct financial support to youth-led initiatives in aid-receiving countries, particularly those related to the environment, climate change and youth inclusion.
And the Africa-Europe Youth Academy will be launched with €50 million. The EU commissioner responsible for development policy, Jutta Urpilainen, told journalists that the academy “will offer formal and informal opportunities for young people to connect, exchange, and improve their leadership skills in Africa and, of course, with the European Union.”
The plan also includes a commitment to ensure 80% of EU delegations around the world have a youth focal point by 2024 — up from around 60% currently — and to review and update the EU’s Guidelines on Children and Armed Conflict.
So far, NGOs in Brussels, which are often the first to criticize the commission’s plans, are impressed.
Johanna Caminati Engström, policy and advocacy officer at Plan International EU, told Devex by email that the action plan was a “very positive surprise,” praising the commission for understanding that “political direction is crucial but youth organisations also need resources.”
Engström added that the action plan also did well not to see youth participation in a purely “extractive manner.”
“Yes, our institutions must ask young people for input but their work does not end there. They also need to be accountable and transparent as to what is done with said inputs and feed back to young people,” Engström wrote. “It is an ongoing process, not a tick-the-box exercise. The [action plan] seems to envision participation in the right terms.”
Lisa Goerlitz, head of the Brussels office for Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung, called the action plan “a great step in the right direction.” Goerlitz welcomed in particular the recognition of sexual and reproductive health and rights, including sexuality education, as a prerequisite for youth empowerment. And she called for the plan to be “fully incorporated into the programming of new EU actions in partner countries, influencing both the current and future programming cycle.”
That might prove tricky however.
The priority areas in aid-receiving countries for the EU’s 2021-2027 budgetary period have already been negotiated and, for the most part, signed. Rather, the commission noted that the evaluation of the Youth Action Plan's implementation will “provide insights to feed into the next programming period,” i.e. from 2027 onwards.
Asked by Devex why the commission has given itself until 2027 to put in place youth advisory structures to advise EU delegations, a commission spokesperson replied that in addition to a general Youth Sounding Board to advise Urpilainen, more than 20 youth advisory structures have already “been set up or are being set up at country level.
“The creation, functionality and sustainability of these youth advisory structures require a process that takes some time if we really want to put in place inclusive and transparent structures for meaningful youth engagement,” the spokesperson wrote by email.
The commission is now working on guidelines for EU delegations and will conduct training sessions for staff abroad on how to create youth advisory structures in November.
Beyond Brussels the plan was met with greater circumspection.
Elsa Zekeng, a scientist and entrepreneur, based in London, who took part in the commission’s Young Leaders program in 2016, told Devex that she will be watching closely to see which organizations are able to apply for the latest initiatives, the nature of the application process, and whether there are any preset criteria.
“In my experience, some of these processes and pre-set criteria can be exclusionary,” Zekeng wrote. “It is my hope that this is not the case therefore making it available for all to apply.”
Gabrielle De Vliegher, a program manager for the Dutch NGO SPARK, in Burundi, told Devex that while she likes the action plan’s three pillars of engaging, empowering, and connecting young people, she was curious how these will be implemented.
“In really poor countries like Burundi, before youth can be engaged they need to be trained and coached to have the capacity to be engaged,” De Vliegher wrote. “Before they can use their voice in such a platform, they need to be empowered to find it.”