The Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development was formalized in 2010 to gather UN entities whose work is relevant to youth and facilitate collaboration and among the UN entities to improve the effectiveness of activities on youth development.
After a lengthy period of information gathering to determine the priorities of youth development, the UN System-wide Action Plan on Youth (Youth-SWAP) was formed, focusing on five areas; employment and entrepreneurship, protection of rights and civic engagement, political inclusion, education, including comprehensive sexuality education, and health.
Youth-SWAP is intended to provide guidance to the UN system as a whole, serving as a “roadmap” in its work on youth development by promoting programs undertaken jointly by UN entities and highlighting successful initiatives in order to encourage future partnerships.
The Network and Youth-SWAP are guided by the framework of the World Programme of Action for Youth, the 20th anniversary of which is marked this year by the First Global Forum on Youth Policies, from 20 to 30 October in Baku, Azerbaijan. The Forum is a global initiative from a coalition of UN entities which is intended to influence policies on the ground in order to trigger plans for youth development at the regional and country level.
For the release of the first report of the implementation of Youth-SWAP, a new website was launched on 16 October to promote the United Nations youth agenda and provide a focal point for future inter-agency activities. Youth-SWAP will find and enhance synergies among UN entities to encourage joint programmatic work on youth development.
Visit the Youth-SWAP website here.