Please find below the session notes from the session on Day 2 (Wednesday, November 10, 2021) of the USAID YouthPower2 Symposium about Youth Excel's Youth-Led Approaches. 

Session Details

Positive Youth Development speaks to giving youth a voice and engaging young people in their development. However, many years after PYD became widely accepted in the international youth development world, we still see youth being tokenized and not feeling sufficiently empowered to make decisions on issues that affect them. Therein lies the question; how can we as a development program take practical action to see youth actively engaged and meaningfully participate in their development?

Youth-led approaches are one way we can make the shift to youth-led, adult-supported development approaches. In this session, we will share Youth Excel’s innovative framework and approaches to prioritizing youth leadership. Just over one year in, and having engaged with 70 local youth-led and youth-serving organizations in 10 countries, we will share what we have learned. We will also share works in putting decision-making power into the hands of young people, the impact of these approaches, and hear from young leaders on the net effect in their youth development work.