Guidelines for Debate: What is Youth Perspective?

The aim of the series guidelines for debate is to influence the formulation, implementation and evaluation of programs and policies through guidelines that foster the debate of ideas from a progressive approach. The collection features a cool exchange of data and theoretical and methodological tools for analysis and action aimed at emerging political generations.

The intent of this edition of Guidelines for Debate is to clarify discussion items around the so-called “youth perspective”, identifying what it is and where it comes from, while considering elements and tools used for analysis.

Today is the first time in history that most of the world’s population is young. However, this is not reflected in better performance of our Human Rights. From the 90’s onwards, civil society organizations, researchers, and some governments or cooperation agencies have shown the importance of improving the quality of life of young people as a way to improve developing countries. However, when we analyze initiatives aimed at young people, often times we face a problem: there is no “youth perspective” in them.

But what does it mean to include a ‘youth perspective’ in initiatives, actions, plans or programs for young people? If initiatives involve young people, that means there is a ‘youth perspective’ already? Conversely, why should institutions that focus on youth be in fact exclusive of children, women or other populations.

To understand the implementation of a ‘youth perspective’, we will review first what youth means and how it is configured, then explore the origin of these perspectives and approaches. This will, consequently, help us explain some concepts and applications of the “youth perspective” and its legal protection.

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