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UN Youth Compass

Blue and green gradient with the text "UN YOUTH COMPASS"
Five young people seated at a table actively engaged in conversation

In a world facing complex, intersecting challenges — from the climate crisis to inequality, conflict, and the rapid evolution of technology — young people are not just inheriting the future. They are already shaping it.

With half the global population under 30 years old, their perspectives, energy and ideas are essential to building a better, more just and sustainable world. While youth continue to lead movements, influence culture change, and offer bold solutions, they often remain on the margins of policymaking and decision-making processes, finding their insights undervalued and pathways unclear.

The UN Youth Compass is designed to open those pathways — and keep them open.

A flagship initiative of the United Nations Youth Office, the UN Youth Compass helps young people navigate and shape policymaking and decisionmaking spaces — while also catalyzing institutional change to make those spaces more inclusive, diverse, and effective.

A flagship initiative of the United Nations Youth Office

The UN Youth Compass sits at the intersection of youth leadership, policy influence, and systemic transformation. It aims to make meaningful youth participation the norm, not the exception.

An ecosystem of opportunity

More than a project or platform, the Youth Compass is an evolving ecosystem.

A series of interconnected offerings:

  • Connects youth to real opportunities to engage in policymaking at global, intergovernmental, regional, and national levels;
  • Provides access to timely, relevant information, while also building the skillsets young people need in order to understand and influence policymaking;
  • Supports youth-led and youth-serving networks in mobilizing collective action;
  • Connects global, regional and local agendas to translate global commitments to regional and country-level action;
  • Strengthens institutional accountability by showcasing best practices to ensure youth participation is meaningful and not merely symbolic, both in intergovernmental processes as well as within the UN System;
  • Creates global spaces for collective advocacy and scaling of meaningful youth participation.

All of this is underpinned by a simple belief: when young people have the tools, knowledge, networks, and platforms to lead, everyone benefits.

Why the Compass and why now?

The United Nations and its Member States have repeatedly affirmed their commitment to integrating youth into decision-making, from the 2030 Agenda and Youth2030 strategy to the recently adopted Pact for the Future. Yet there remains a gap between promise and practice.

Despite growing momentum, many young people still face structural, digital, and informational barriers to participation. They are often treated as symbolic participants, rather than as partners with real agency and expertise.

The establishment of the UN Youth Office in 2023 represents a critical turning point: a moment to shift from ad hoc engagement to embedded, institutionalized systems for meaningful youth participation.

The UN Youth Compass is central to this mission. It aims to support a new generation of youth leaders to influence decisions that affect their lives and communities; help Governments, the UN system, and other stakeholders connect more meaningfully with young people; and promote cross-sector collaboration to strengthen the global ecosystem for youth engagement.

Who can get involved?

Everyone.

The Compass is a shared space — a space for co-creation, collaboration and change.

While centering youth and youth-led organizations, it is open to all actors working to strengthen youth participation, including:

Young people seeking to influence policy and access opportunities

Youth networks and youth-serving organizations looking to connect and scale impact

Governments seeking to collaborate with young constituents

UN entities and civil society aiming to promote intergenerational partnerships, dialogue, and progress

Researchers and innovators working to build an evidence base for meaningful youth participation

Group photo of more than 50 people of all ages, genders and ethnicities

The road ahead

The UN Youth Compass is not a fixed destination. It is a journey, a process, and a collective movement.

A compass doesn’t tell you where to go. It helps you chart your own path.

By building knowledge, connection, capacity, and accountability, the Compass seeks to transform how young people engage with policymaking — and how policymaking responds to young people.

As the Compass evolves, a robust monitoring, evaluation and learning framework will ensure it grows in ways that are grounded in evidence and guided by youth. By tracking both institutional change and individual impact, and embedding real-time feedback loops, the Compass will adapt continuously to meet the needs of young people and the systems they’re transforming.

The UN Youth Compass is about making youth participation not just possible, but powerful.

This work is generously made possible with support from the European Union.