The Youth Cafe strategy has always been to facilitate increased impact and expanded global, regional and country-level action to address the needs, build the agency and advance the rights of young people in all their diversity around the world, and to ensure their engagement and participation in the implementation, review and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as well as other relevant global agendas and frameworks.
Engagement, Participation and Advocacy - Amplify youth voices for the promotion of a peaceful, just and sustainable world
Connect: Enhance how the The Youth Cafe reaches out, communicates with, listens to and responds to young people, including through a strategic use of its convening capacity and partnerships with tech and communications companies for expansion of large-scale, multi-media outreach and campaigns relevant to young people.
Amplify: Partner with young people who globally, nationally or locally advocate for the values of The Youth Cafe to amplify and reinforce their voices and increase the reach and impact of global youth movements they are building, including in the context of major UN Summits such as the HLPF under the General Assembly, the Secretary-General’s Climate Summit, the 75th anniversary of the UN in 2020, etc.
2. Informed and Healthy Foundations - Support young people’s greater access to quality education and health services
Advocate for quality education: Engage partners to ensure universal access to develop and deliver quality and inclusive education for young people that is learner-centered, adopt a lifelong learning approach, which is relevant to their lives and the socio-economic and environmental needs of their communities, promote sustainable lifestyles and sustainable development.
Ensure accessible and youth-responsive health services and healthy environments: Incorporate an approach that is inclusive of young people in The Youth Cafe's support to strengthening national health systems, and promote efforts to provide universal health coverage while addressing social determinants of young people’s health and wellbeing.
3. Economic Empowerment through Decent Work - Support young people’s greater access to decent work and productive employment
Advocate for a balanced approach: Engage partners to advocate for a balanced approach to stimulate the youth labor demand and prompt improvements in skill development systems, with the objective of easing the school-to-work transition and reducing the youth NEET71 rate, particularly among young women and disadvantaged youth.
Guide and support: Support partners in their efforts to create youth-enabling employment and self-employment ecosystems and to develop and operationalize strategies that prioritize the improvement of both the quantity and quality of jobs for young people through, e.g. public and private investments, economic and labor market policies, skill development, transition to the formal economy, social protection, youth rights at work, and active youth engagement.
4. Youth and Human Rights – Protect and promote the rights of young people and support their civic and political engagement
Protect and promote young people’s human rights: Prioritize advocacy, policy development and programming to safeguard the human rights of young people and prevent and address widespread and grave human rights violations experienced by young people and ensure a strengthened focus on young people experiencing intersecting forms of discrimination and abuse, as well as young people’s access to justice;
Promote participation in political and public affairs: Leverage the capacity of The Youth Cafe to promote young people’s right to participate in public affairs, including in political and civic processes, platforms and institutions at all levels, such as elections, constitution-making processes, political parties and parliaments.
5. Peace and Resilience Building – Support young people as catalysts for Peace and Security & Humanitarian Action
Promote an enabling environment: Recognize young people’s important and positive contribution to peace and security, prevention of violence, disaster risk reduction, humanitarian and climate action, and foster and protect an environment conducive to young people’s actions (including through reintegration, recovery and resilience activities for youth affected by conflict);
Reinforce capacity: Reinforce the capacity of youth-led organizations involved in peace, security, humanitarian and climate action to increase the impact of their work and their organizational sustainability, as well as reinforce capacity of institutional actors to work with young people.