Map Your Context and System
Once you’ve considered how you plan to integrate youth voices into all phases of your program cycle, you’re ready to do some context and system mapping.
Programs centered on participants’ needs and tailored to a specific context are more impactful and sustainable. Using both human-centered design and systems thinking approaches to understand the context your program will operate in makes it possible to adapt your design to work within the existing environment while meeting the real needs of your participants.
There are many tools and techniques for mapping your context as it relates to young people. Here are a few particularly useful resources:
- The Target Group Analysis Tool from the DIY Toolkit is a specific framework to guide you in better defining who you are trying to reach with your interventions;
- The People and Connections Map (DIY Toolkit) can clarify relationships between stakeholders in a community to better understand context;
- The YPAR (Youth Participatory Action Research) Hub’s Mapping section includes lesson plans to guide young people through community mapping, issues and root causes, and issue and asset mapping;
- For a more thorough approach, the YouthPower Youth Assessments 101 Brief offers guidance organized around the main stages of a youth assessment, and the comprehensive Guide to Cross-Sectoral Youth Assessments from EQUIP3 details design and implementation of a youth assessment (Section 4 digs into learning about youth perceptions and experiences);
- The Additional Help for ADS 201 offers suggested approaches for integrating inclusive development across the program cycle at USAID Missions, including through analysis and strategic planning;
- The USAID Local Systems Framework provides an approach to effective mapping of systems affecting youth engagement.
Making use of available data resources on youth is another key to understanding the environment where your program will be implemented. This can include broader demographic information, as well as more specific assessments or studies.
- UNFPA’s Demographic Dividend website provides context on demographic trends and lets you explore key data over time by country;
- USAID’s International Data & Economic Analysis offers helpful statistics by geographic and other lenses;
- The UN Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth curates #YouthStats across a number of key issue areas;
- The Commonwealth’s Global Youth Development Index offers analysis on the situation of young people (ages 15-29) in the areas of education, employment and opportunity, health and well-being, equality and inclusion, political and civic participation and peace and security;
- The International Youth Foundation’s Global Youth Wellbeing Index offers decision-makers a way of identifying and understanding opportunities for critical youth investments in the areas of gender equality, economic opportunity, education, health, citizen participation, safety and security, and information and communication technology;
- Is there a cross-sectoral youth assessment for your country? Check out this list to see the YouthPower assessments that are available;
- The YP2LE Youth Civic Engagement Country Snapshots Dashboard aims to help individuals working with young people better understand youth perceptions, behaviors, and motivations related to youth civic engagement and potential opportunities to address related gaps in youth-specific interventions.
