We live in a world where there are more people 30 years old and under than over the age of 30. That is pretty significant and hard to ignore. A little over 10 years ago, some smart people at USAID decided if we were going to continue to do development work, we needed to change the way we thought about youth. The YouthPower mechanism was born out of that push for change. 

I have been lucky enough to be a part of this change effort since 2015. First through YouthPower Learning (YPL), which was USAID’s flagship youth project, and, then through YouthPower2: Learning and Evaluation (YP2LE). Helping implement these two activities for almost a decade has given me the opportunity to work with youth across so many regions, countries, and populations. I see the evolution that has taken place in this sector, shifting our perspectives on youth from service recipients to partners in development. 

When launched, YPL’s mandate was to generate, curate, and disseminate knowledge about how to strengthen youth development outcomes through the Positive Youth Development (PYD) approach. The activity generated a myriad of research, resources, and webinars on PYD. YP2LE has bolstered that foundation by adding to the evidence, but also by focusing more on building a community among youth champions that know how to work with youth as partners. 

With YP2LE, we spent time focusing on practical toolkits that will help implementers design and carry out activities that engage youth in meaningful ways, such as the Integrating Mental Health and Psychosocial Support into Youth Programming Toolkit and its companion the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support for Marginalized and Underrepresented Groups Toolkit as well as the Positive Youth Development Starter Toolkit,  the Youth Center Toolkit, and the Youth and Gender Analysis Toolkit. Additionally, we created the PYD Lab podcast, which was voted as one of the top 12 podcasts on Youth Empowerment and Engagement by the Youth Engagement Network. And, we created a mentorship initiative to connect young changemakers to content, resources, and networks to enhance their leadership skills and professional growth. 

In addition, we invested in our YouthLead Network. We established our Youth Advisory Group so that young changemakers played a vital role in advising us on designing activities with meaningful youth engagement and provided important contributions to our decision-making, design, research, and dissemination. We welcomed 50+ YouthLead Ambassadors to help raise awareness about the benefits of the YouthLead platform. (By far our most popular program, the last application process had over 3,000 applicants from 115 countries!) And working with USAID, we hosted the Digital Youth Council, 12 young leaders focused on issues related to digital platforms and safety, and interested in reducing digital harm for children and youth. 

We also wanted to be sure youth were visible in the YP2LE Learning Network. We added a youth co-champion to each of our communities of practice. We engaged youth to help design and to present at our webinars and our symposiums. And we created platforms through our Instagram Live events and podcast, where we highlighted their work, opinions, and recommendations.  

As I look back at everything we did in the past ten years, I feel a sense of accomplishment. There is still more to be done, but since I started this work in 2015, I believe that, together, we have made progress. Youth have the agency to ask for what they feel they deserve. They know what they have to offer, and are not afraid to create their own movements, projects, and organizations if they are invited to the table. Or perhaps they have always been asking, and we are now learning how to listen.