The theme of International Youth Day 2020,“YouthEngagement for Global Action” seeks to highlight the ways in which theengagement of young people at the local, national and global levels isenriching national and multilateral institutions and processes, as well as drawlessons on how their representation and engagement in formal institutionalpolitics can be significantly enhanced.

Enabling the engagement of youth in formal politicalmechanisms does increase the fairness of political processes by reducingdemocratic deficits, contributes to better and more sustainable policies, andalso has symbolic importance that can further contribute to restore trust inpublic institutions, especially among youth. Moreover, the vast majority ofchallenges humanity currently faces, such as the COVID-19 outbreak and climatechange require concerted global action and the meaningful engagement andparticipation of young people to be addressed effectively.

The aim of IYD 2020 is to shed light on the need to enablethe engagement of youth by making local, national and global institutions moreinclusive for the purpose of strengthening their capacity (and relevance) toachieve global action. 

This year’s IYD seeks to put the spotlight on youthengagement through the following three interconnected streams:

Engagement at the local/community level

Engagement at the national level(formulation of laws,policies, and their implementation)

Engagement at the global level.

The commemoration of IYD 2020 will take the form of apodcast-style discussion led by youth for youth. This will involve discussionson the selected theme between young participants that are engaged in politicalprocesses at the local, national, and global levels,including for instancerepresentatives from youth constituencies linked to the UN-system, youngparliamentarians and UN Youth Delegates. Creative elements,such as spoken wordartists, will also be utilized to break up the substantive discussions.Finally, a range of online products will be created and widely disseminated astools for independently organized commemorations around the globe. IYD 2020will be convened by UN DESA in partnership with the IANYD Youth Caucus andCreate2030

https://www.un.org/development/desa/youth/iyd2020.html