Young people are mobilising more than ever before for democracy. Hopes are high that the young can act as a democratic catalyst to turn back the powerful wave of authoritarianism across the world. But is this really possible? This report examines what is driving young people to mobilise, how powerful their engagement is, and what kinds of political participation they are developing. Much is written about youth participation; this report gives the word to young people from around the world to let them speak on these issues. They correct some of the conventional wisdom about youth political participation and reveal the complex dynamics of young people’s role in and for democracy today.

The issue has become vitally important. The year 2025 witnessed a surge in youth-led protests, mainly associated with Generation Z, and many revolts have continued into 2026. The large-scale mobilisation of young people has reignited debates on political representation, participation, resilience, and democratic renewal. Common patterns emerge across countries that have witnessed youth-led mobilisations over the past year, despite the diversity of the contexts. Limited economic opportunities, persistent inequalities, restrictions on civic freedoms and expression, and entrenched political elitism all contribute to mounting frustration among young people.

Despite much comment and analysis, the critical question remains insufficiently explored: are current political systems, institutions, and governance models open and responsive to youth participation?

There might be no single answer as to whether increased youth political participation directly strengthens and sustains democracies. But one principle stands firm: inclusive democracy depends on broad societal engagement, including from the largest age cohort globally – young people.^[i] Yet political representation of the younger generation remains disproportionately low, and not just because of increasing disillusionment with politics among young people. Despite the youth’s demographic strength, political systems are often closed, exclusionary, and at times openly resistant to meaningful youth participation.

Entering political spaces can be extremely challenging for young people, who face a range of structural and cultural barriers. These include the high costs, both monetary and non-monetary, of running for office; age-related eligibility restrictions; closed or unfair electoral processes; gender inequality; and sociopolitical environments that are often unsupportive of or discouraging to youth leadership.^[ii] These intersecting obstacles significantly reduce young people’s motivation and the appeal of formal political engagement.[iii]

This report dissects the different ways in which young civic and political actors are responding to these challenges. It offers an unprecedented range of case studies from all world regions, undertaken by young experts close to these debates. The report challenges the view of young people as a homogeneous group of disillusioned and disengaged citizens. It points instead to a variety of forms of youth-led political participation and explores the implications of these strategies for democratic change. Young people emerge as a democratic catalyst, but not necessarily in the ways often assumed to be the case.

The power of data: the Global Youth Participation Index

This report flows from a new index designed to highlight trends in youth participation. Recognising the essential value of research and data for driving change for youth participation, the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD) launched the first-ever Global Youth Participation Index (GYPI) in 2025. The GYPI tracks and compares data on youth participation from 141 countries across four dimensions: political affairs, the socioeconomic context, elections, and civic space. According to the index, low scores, particularly on the political affairs dimension, are not limited to regions where democracy is new or fragile but are a global phenomenon.^[iv]

The GYPI does not show uniform disengagement, which is often assumed to be the main feature of young people’s attitudes to politics. Rather, the trends are nuanced and varied across contexts. In many places, apparent disengagement from traditional forms of politics has been challenged by other forms of participation whose democratic potential has been ignored or undermined.

Across these alternative forms, many turn to informal spaces, particularly social media and other digital platforms, to express their views, organise, and mobilise. Online engagement has significantly expanded the opportunities for youth participation, but it also poses considerable risks and threats. Digital spaces are not safe from the rapid spread of radical, extremist, and populist narratives, many of which deliberately target young people’s vulnerabilities.

All of this is happening in the context of rapidly shrinking and even closing civic space. Another important finding of the GYPI is that civic space tends to be more open to youth participation than do political affairs or elections. Research also shows that young people have been experiencing a move from apathy to antipathy, as the young seem to be increasingly embracing illiberal preferences and hostility towards democratic institutions whose structures and performance are no longer deemed adequate to respond to young citizens’ needs.[v]

Lessons and insights

To complement the GYPI with qualitative research, the EPD commissioned case studies from members of our Young Researchers’ Network. Their 12 chapters provide a rich breadth and depth of information and examples that shed new light on youth participation.^[vi]

The following studies weave together research and policy findings on youth engagement. They lay out recommendations to promote and sustain a meaningful and transformative approach to youth participation in both formal and informal decision-making. The case studies offer diverse, thought-provoking, and timely reflections on the challenges and opportunities of youth engagement in different contexts. From the studies, five key messages and insights emerge.

First, all contributions point to the need to move beyond the simple question of whether young people engage, and instead to focus on how youth engagement takes place and why it assumes particular forms. This shift in perspective allows for a more nuanced understanding of the drivers, modalities, and motivations that underlie youth participation.

Second, the contributions suggest a mixed picture with regard to the claim that young people prefer informal forms of engagement over mainstream political participation. While some authors do highlight this tendency, others reveal an increasing willingness among young people to challenge thestatus quo by seeking to transform political channels and institutional structures from within.

Third, several of the challenges identified in the contributions operate at the macro level, whereas others are rooted in the micro-context of specific national settings. This duality underscores the importance of engaging simultaneously with broad, structural trends and specific local realities.

Fourth, the case studies demonstrate that the role of a specific regime – or the broader political context under analysis – is more significant in explaining variations in outcomes than are the differences between young people and other segments of the population. In other words, contextual political factors often outweigh generational divides in shaping patterns of engagement.

Last but not least, an in-depth reading of the contributions highlights a paradox. On the one hand, survey data indicates that a growing number of young people are drawn towards illiberal values, parties, and/or regimes. On the other hand, illiberal regimes often impose such restrictions on youth engagement that they push young people towards more radical positions in defence of fundamental liberal rights. These two dynamics coexist and interact, dispelling an overly simplistic narrative that portrays young people as moving inexorably and uniformly closer to authoritarianism.

Case studies

The report presents the following 12 case studies, which explore the diverse layers and angles of youth participation.

Dércio Tsandzana analyses Mozambique’s #PovoNoPoder movement and its online engagement to challenge the narrative of the country’s young people as passive, instead portraying them as closely involved outside the traditional political system. However, Tsandzana also highlights the contradictions and non-linear evolution of this youth engagement, bringing to the fore the valuable contributions of young Mozambicans through digital activism.

Mehmet İlhanlı discusses how the securitisation of young people in Türkiye, which intensified after the 2013 Gezi Park protests, has constrained and reshaped their political engagement. According to İlhanlı, young people are the demographic most affected by the country’s democratic decline, as they are being excluded, stigmatised, and securitised. Despite young people’s efforts to seek alternative spaces for political expression and activism, their continued stigmatisation by the government will have a profound negative impact on Türkiye’s democratisation.

Obaa Akua Konadu-Osei writes about the cost of politics in Ghana, with a particular focus on the intersection between youth and gender as well as the way in which access to financial resources creates a barrier to parliamentary aspirations. The case study highlights the fundamental challenges young Ghanaians face in fully entering democratic channels, even when they are highly engaged and mobilised in the country’s political landscape. Such obstacles, according to Konadu-Osei, are similar for women and youth, implying a need to rethink political-party funding to give young people fairer access to the political system.

Ajda Hedžet investigates the Free El Hiblu 3 campaign to explore how young migrant men claim their voice from the margins of systems that often silence them. The case highlights the limits of institutional recognition, the criminalisation of young migrants, and the digital struggle for justice. It illustrates how political agency and demands for justice are enacted outside formal institutions. The campaign underscores that Europe’s migration governance is both a site of contestation and a front line for democratic renewal.

Olga Paredes Brítez carries out a comparative analysis of municipal youth policies in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Asunción (Paraguay). Both municipalities have adopted a vision of young people as “adults in the making” – an adult-centric approach that hinders the recognition and empowerment of young people as full political subjects. The case study provides an additional layer of analysis through the perspective of municipal-level youth engagement and discusses the decentralisation and municipalisation processes in the two countries.

Oripha Chimwara explores the impact of Zimbabwe’s quota system of reserved parliamentary seats for young candidates in creating positive ripple effects for youth engagement in the country. Chimwara also analyses the obstacles to young Zimbabweans’ political participation that remain despite this positive step: administrative hurdles, the cost of politics, and a pervasive patronage system.

Mark Ortiz examines intergenerational politics through the 1970 United Nations (UN) World Youth Assembly, highlighting the complexities of youth representation and the lessons for multilateral engagement today. Ortiz compares this gathering with the UN’s 2024 Summit of the Future, where meaningful youth participation was central in reflecting commitments in the UN’s Youth2030 strategy. The two cases illustrate the enduring impact of youth leadership on the ethos and practice of multilateralism.

Ellie Catherall analyses how and to what extent young people’s voices were represented and included in the drafting of Chile’s 2023 proposed constitution. The analysis shows that despite young people’s view that a new constitution should be representative of Chilean society, the dominance of right-wing parties in the drafting process meant the status quo was maintained. Besides this exclusion of youth voices, young Chileans also felt increasingly detached from the process because of a lack of reliable and impartial information.

Wasal Naser Faqiryar describes how young people in Afghanistan are finding alternative channels to express their grievances, ideas, and dreams to counter the oppressive grip of the Taliban regime. Faqiryar identifies art and other creative forms of expression as fundamental avenues that remain possible, as they pass under the radar of the regime’s control. The chapter also discusses social media as an important platform for the amplification and diffusion of the concerns, needs, and desires of young Afghans.

Ambar Kumar Ghosh presents the importance of youth representation in the democratic life of India, a country with a large young population. The analysis looks at the most significant challenges for young Indians in engaging in parliamentary politics: the cost of politics, the role of established parties in nominating young candidates, disillusionment about political careers, the pervasiveness of dynastic politics, and gender disparities. Ghosh argues that granting young people access to legislative politics would have a positive impact on India’s governance structures.

Dechen Rabgyal explains the minimal engagement of Bhutan’s young people in traditional politics through the lens of democratic elitism. Rabgyal shows how despite civil and democratic programmes equipping young Bhutanese to run for office, a requirement for parliamentary candidates to have at least 10 years’ professional experience reproduces inequalities and excludes a significant portion of Bhutan’s young people from the country’s legislature. The case study highlights the importance of adopting a more realistic approach to ensuring youth engagement.

Finally, Intifar Chowdhury writes about the evolving political relevance of mainstream parties in Australia, analysing how younger generations, disillusioned with traditional parties, are moving away from them. Chowdhury highlights a disconnect between the political priorities of younger voters and traditional political parties, which creates a risk of dealignment. In addition, the chapterexamines how young Australians are more closely linked to issue-based politics, on topics such as climate change, education, and housing, than to traditional party-political divisions.

These case studies aim to spark important discussions of the multiple layers and dimensions of youth political participation. Beyond highlighting diverse experiences and approaches, they provide insights that can inform research and advocacy for more meaningful youth involvement. We encourage readers to engage with these studies, which can support efforts to strengthen young people’s agency and influence. In an age when so much hinges on youth participation, this report gives a voice to a unique range of young writers from around the world to shape these debates.

Ana Mosiashvili is a research and programmes manager at the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD).

Sara Canali is a doctoral researcher at Ghent University and UNU-CRIS.

Explore the Full Study

The Young Researchers’ Network is an initiative developed in the framework of the European Democracy Hub and EPD’s Women and Youth in Democracy WYDE Civic Engagement project, supported by the European Union.

Get to know the 12 Young Researchers

^[i] “United Nations Sustainable Development Goals”, United Nations, https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/youth/.

^[ii] “Cost of Politics”, Westminster Foundation for Democracy, https://costofpolitics.net/.

[iii] Gerardo Berthin, “Why Are Youth Dissatisfied with Democracy?”, Freedom House, 14 September 2023, https://freedomhouse.org/article/why-are-youth-dissatisfied-democracy.

^[iv] Brit Anlar et al., “The Global Youth Participation Index: Report 2025”, European Partnership for Democracy, 2025, https://gypi.studiopompelmoes.eu/assets/images/GYPI-Final-Report.pdf.

[v] Roberto Foa and Yascha Mounk, The Danger of Deconsolidation: The Democratic Disconnect (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard Kennedy School, 2019).

^[vi] “The Young Researchers’ Network”, Youth Democracy Cohort, https://youthdemocracycohort.com/the-young-researchers-network/.

The post How Young People Are Redefining Political Participation first appeared on Youth Democracy Cohort.

Can Democratic Elitism Explain Bhutan’s Minimal Youth Political Participation?

Ever since Bhutan’s introduction of democracy in 2008, a recurring question has been why so few young people are involved in the country’s politics. A 2018 study observed that even students of political science do not see politics as “something that they can care about”.^[i] The need for a more realistic approach to encouraging youth political engagement has been raised time and again.

Bhutan has a respectable record in the European Partnership for Democracy’s 2025 Global Youth Participation Index (GYPI), with an overall score of 63 out of 100.^[ii] A closer analysis, however, underlines the recurrent challenge of how to boost the political participation of young Bhutanese. While Bhutan’s score of 81 out of 100 on the index’s socioeconomic dimension pushes the country’s average upwards, the score for political affairs is a meagre 55 out of 100.

With an estimated 51% of its population of almost 800,000 under the age of 30, Bhutan is a youthful nation.^[iii] The puzzle of why a country with a large young population has such low youth engagement can be studied in the context of Bhutan’s strict eligibility criteria for parliamentary candidates.

Bhutan’s parliament consists of the Druk Gyalpo (the monarch), the National Council, and the National Assembly.^[iv] The National Council has 25 members: five eminent persons nominated by the Druk Gyalpo and one elected member from each of the country’s 20 districts.

In August 2022, the Election Commission of Bhutan adopted a rule requiring candidates for the National Council to have at least 10 years of professional experience, and candidates for the National Assembly to have five or more years’ experience.^[v] These criteria were in addition to the existing constitutional provision of a minimum age of 25 as well as the 2008 election act, which required all candidates to have an undergraduate degree.

The requirement of professional experience points to an elitist approach to democracy. As young people necessarily have fewer years of experience than their older counterparts, the 10-year rule for the National Council effectively made electoral politics the preserve of older, educated adults. As a result, youth participation in Bhutan’s mainstream politics remained low.

Drawing on the stories of four aspiring parliamentary candidates, this chapter reveals how Bhutan’s strict experience requirement cancels out the successes of young people’s initial political socialisation.

Dechen Rabgyal is an author and aspiring social scientist whose work draws on his rural Bhutanese upbringing and international education to examine public policy challenges and socio-political change in Bhutan.

Get to know Dechen

Methodology

To explain the minimal level of political participation among young people in Bhutan, this study focuses on the concept of democratic elitism. Elitism is understood here to refer to an outlook that favours those with good educational qualifications and a high level of professional experience.

Through this lens, the study examines the factors that affect youth participation in Bhutan’s electoral politics. The research brought together four aspiring National Council candidates, including one former National Council member. None of the participants could run for election as they did not meet the 10-year experience criterion.

All four research participants took part in semistructured interviews that allowed for a deeper understanding of the respondents’ beliefs, attitudes, and opinions. Three of the participants also engaged in a focus group discussion, which provided exposure to group language and narratives by exploring specific topics among people of similar backgrounds and experiences.^[vi] Held virtually, the discussion covered youth political participation, young people’s motivations to run for office, and the implications of recent electoral laws.

To maintain their confidentiality, the four participants were given the pseudonyms Dawa, Karma, Norbu, and Phuntsho.

Bhutan’s election rules

The rule of law is a foundation for any democratic polity. As one interviewee, Phuntsho, stated: “Laws should create enabling conditions for people to exercise agency and rationality, enabling youth political participation … to influence policies and programmes.” In that context, procedural incentives are important to promote young people’s participation.^[vii]

In Bhutan, clear election procedures were established by the country’s constitution, which requires members of the National Council to be at least 25 years old, and the 2008 election act, which made it compulsory for candidates to have an undergraduate degree. The latter criterion emphasised the need for parliamentarians to have subject-matter expertise to be better able to study policies and legislation.^[viii] This provision disappointed former representatives who had served in the old National Assembly between 1953 and 2007, as “they saw no place for themselves in the new parliamentary setup”.^[ix]

When a draft of the 2008 election act was adopted the previous year, only 16,000 of the country’s then 634,000 inhabitants had an undergraduate degree.^[x] This shows that the law represented an elitist approach to democracy: formal education was equated with competence, making democratic processes an arena for the qualified few – the academic elite.

In each of the three National Council elections held from 2007 to 2018, the largest group of candidates consisted of those under the age of 35. These candidates are likely to have had less than 10 years’ professional experience, as most Bhutanese are around 23–24 when they complete their first university degree. In 2007–08, 19 out of 52 candidates were aged 25–29. By contrast, in the 2023 election, the first held after the introduction of the 10-year rule, there were no candidates in this age range (figure 11.1).

Figure 11.1. Number of candidates in National Council elections by age, 2007–23

In the elections before 2023, some younger candidates were able to oust their older counterparts (figure 11.2).^[xi] As long as younger candidates met Bhutan’s high legal benchmarks, informal societal norms and expectations did not prevent young Bhutanese from running for office.

Figure 11.2. Number of elected National Council members by age, 2007–23

Empowerment versus elitism

Engagement in civic and community projects encourages political participation.^[xii] In Bhutan, democracy and civic-education programmes play an important role in socialising young people into mainstream politics. For example, Phuntsho was a member of the Youth Initiative launched in 2014 by the Bhutan Centre for Media Democracy. Modelled on youth parliaments in other countries, the initiative aimed to nurture and empower young people.^[xiii]

In 2015, the election commission established the Bhutan Children’s Parliament (BCP) to foster the country’s future parliamentarians. The BCP’s members were elected from democracy clubs established in 2012.^[xiv] However, the national parliament questioned the legitimacy of the BCP, which also suffered from the apprehension of its youth parliamentarians and criticism that Bhutan’s education system was being politicised.^[xv]

Despite these initiatives, youth participation in Bhutan’s mainstream politics, such as elections, remained low. In the first round of the 2013 National Assembly election, only 26.6% of those aged 18–30 cast their vote. Five years later, 21.7% of those between the ages of 18 and 24 turned out to vote.^[xvi] In the GYPI, Bhutan’s score for youth voter turnout was a meagre 21 out of 100, against a global average of 41.^[xvii]

The 2022 rule change therefore came at a time when youth enthusiasm in mainstream politics – in terms of voter turnout – was already low. The 10-year work experience requirement made Bhutan’s electoral laws more restrictive and turned electoral politics into the mainstay of a gerontocracy that undermined the younger generation while protecting the old.^[xviii] The pre-existing requirements of a minimum age limit of 25 and an undergraduate degree were already high benchmarks.^[xix] As early as 2019, critics had argued for the removal of the requirement of an undergraduate degree.^[xx]

Yet Bhutanese lawmakers and authorities have a deep-seated inclination towards an elitist, competence-based approach to democracy. Back in 2007, the National Assembly proposed that candidates should have at least eight to 10 years of work experience. The proposal was turned down, as a 10-year experience rule would have taken the effective minimum age to 34, since most Bhutanese complete their undergraduate studies at 23 or 24. This would have been at odds with the constitutional requirement of a lower age limit of 25.

In 2014, the National Council similarly proposed requiring its members, except for incumbents, to have 10 years’ work experience, with the aim of ensuring that members had the competence to review draft legislation.^[xxi] According to one analysis, the proposal had “heavy overtones of elitism and an air of preserving the old boys’ club”.^[xxii] Again, the National Assembly decided against introducing the requirement.^[xxiii]

Experience over aspiration

The 2022 rule made several aspiring candidates ineligible for election. Supporters of the new rule argued that professional experience would bring mature, well-educated, capable people with real-life professional experience into Bhutan’s legislature.^[xxiv] According to one former member of the National Council, intellectual competence and professional integrity come with age.^[xxv] There were concerns that the previous system had allowed well-connected candidates, who were not necessarily the most capable, to be elected.^[xxvi]

Young people were seen as lacking the competencies needed to shoulder the burdens of parliamentary office.^[xxvii] The rule change to privilege older, more mature, more capable, and more experienced candidates was supposedly geared towards maintaining democratic stability and coherent public policy, an approach best explained as an example of elitism.^[xxviii]

Young Bhutanese never lacked motivation to run for public office. One interviewee, Karma, had left a postgraduate studies opportunity to stand in the 2023 National Council election. Norbu, a former National Council member, said: “I was prepared to [stand for election again] to serve the people with more experience and maturity.” For Phuntsho, his engagement in various social activities and volunteerism awakened his political consciousness. Three interviewees – Karma, Dawa, and Phuntsho – were politically socialised and driven by their respective desires to contribute to decision-making, change political outcomes, and pursue the common good.

Yet for all four interviewees, their ambitions were quashed by the new rule. Norbu’s skills and knowledge from his previous term in office, Karma’s social capital and network, Phuntsho’s aspiration to influence political outcomes, and Dawa’s commitment to duty – all factors that encouraged political participation – were swept aside by the fact that they did not meet the professional experience requirement. The new rule inadvertently became anathema to the would-be candidates’ processes of political socialisation. The focus on professional experience solidified Bhutanese lawmakers’ long-standing assumption of a strong link between competence and age. Leadership skills and youthful dynamism were seen as mutually exclusive.

The 2022 rule change challenged parliamentary supremacy and became more powerful than the 2008 election act, as the numbers of candidates and elected members in the 2023 National Council election confirm.^[xxix] There were only two candidates under the age of 35, one of whom was elected.

The implications of the rule change on the motivations of young Bhutanese were significant. In the words of Dawa: “It felt like everything vanished overnight.” He continued: “The rule affected my enthusiasm, my energy … it was all drained out … I do not think we would have the same energy to come and contest in the elections [in the future].” Phuntsho reflected: “I could not participate, but that is it. It was not the end of everything for me.” But he went on to say: “I do not think I will be joining politics anymore.”

Norbu, however, said: “I will contest future elections with more experience and exposure.” The impact of structural constraints on young people’s political engagement is therefore not universal, as Norbu’s persistence attests. Yet of the four interviewees, three were discouraged from participating in future. Bhutan’s elitist approach to election rules, and to politics in general, looks set to have an effect on young people’s long-term commitment to public service and political office.

Conclusion

Young people have been referred to as “standby citizens”.^[xxx] Their low levels of political engagement have been attributed to unequal access to social services, a lack of political influence, and a lack of trust in political parties and politicians. The political climate and the discourse of youth engagement in Bhutan are no different from elsewhere, albeit with a unique national context.

Even before 2022, the minimum requirements for Bhutanese wanting to run for elected office – a lower age limit of 25 and an undergraduate degree – already set a high bar. Still, before the new rule was adopted requiring 10 years’ professional experience, the largest group of candidates for National Council elections consisted of those under 35 years of age, who may not necessarily have had 10 years of experience. Indeed, democracy and civic-education programmes, a sense of duty, and a motivation to serve all empowered young people to run for political office.

However, the requirement of 10 years’ work experience has made elected office a stronghold of the experienced and educated few, an outcome best explained as an elitist approach to democracy. Young people, previously keen to run for office, are left disappointed, and their motivation to take part in future elections may be affected. This trend, with its outcome of lower political participation, effectively cancels out young people’s gains from their initial political socialisation, the benefits of which would otherwise increase as democracy matures. At the same time, voter turnout among young Bhutanese continues to be lower than the global average.

Future research could build on this study by broadening the sample size to include not only the National Council but also the National Assembly. The impact of the 2022 rule on young people’s motivation and the composition of Bhutan’s two houses of parliament could be studied comparatively to gauge parliamentary dynamics, political participation, and the broader impact on democracy.

Further, a quantitative approach could generate data on correlation and causation, which would provide a better understanding of the impacts of legislative interventions such as eligibility criteria on youth participation. This would be an important lens through which to assess the expectation that democracy becomes more representative, participatory, and competent as it takes root.

Explore the Full Study

This chapter is part of a Deep Dive of Young Researchers who worked on Youth Participation for three years. This deep dive is a global collection of 12 case studies unpacking how young people are reshaping political engagement.

The Young Researchers’ Network is an initiative developed in the framework of the European Democracy Hub and EPD’s Women and Youth in Democracy WYDE Civic Engagement project, supported by the European Union.

Get to know the 12 Young Researchers

[i] Siok Sian Pek-Dorji, “Youth and Politics in an Evolving Democracy”, The Druk Journal 4, no. 1 (2018): 72–8, https://drukjournal.bt/youth-and-politics-in-an-evolving-democracy/.

[ii] “Country Profiles: Bhutan”, Global Youth Participation Index, European Partnership for Democracy, 2025, https://gypi.epd.eu/country-reports/bt.

[iii] “Population Projections Bhutan 2017-2047”, Bhutanese National Statistics Bureau, 2019, https://www.nsb.gov.bt/publications/census-report/.

[iv] According to their functions, the National Council may be considered equivalent to the upper house in a western political system and the National Assembly to the lower house. However, no reference is made to upper and lower houses in the Bhutanese context.

[v] “Rules on Elections Conduct in the Kingdom of Bhutan”, vol. 4.3.3.1, Election Commission of Bhutan, 2022, https://www.ecb.bt/Rules/conductofelections.pdf.

[vi] Lokanath Mishra, “Focus Group Discussion in Qualitative Research”, TechnoLearn: An International Journal of Educational Technology 6, no. 1 (2016): 1–5, https://doi.org/10.5958/2249-5223.2016.00001.2.

[vii] Jan Teorell, “Political Participation and Three Theories of Democracy: A Research Inventory and Agenda”, European Journal of Political Research 45, no. 5 (2006): 787–810, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-6765.2006.00636.x.

[viii] “Bhutan National Human Development Report: Ten Years of Democracy in Bhutan”, Parliament of Bhutan and United Nations Development Programme, 2019, https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/documents/nhdr-2019ii.pdf.

[ix] Kunzang Wangdi, “Growing up with Modern Bhutan”, Cho Sid Public Policy Publications and Studies, 2024.

[x] “Bhutan (Gyelyong Tshogde) Elections in 2007”, Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2025, http://archive.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/2036_07.htm.

[xi] Needrup Zangpo, “Bhutan’s National Council Election 2023: A Setback for Women”, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, 29 June 2023, https://www.freiheit.org/south-asia/bhutans-national-council-election-2023-setback-women.

[xii] Teorell, “Political Participation”.

[xiii] Dechen Rabgyal, Youth Civic Engagement: Concepts, Agents, Reflections and Empowerment (Trashigang: Sherubtse College, 2018).

[xiv] Wangdi, “Growing up”.

[xv] Pek-Dorji, “Youth and Politics”.

[xvi] Dechen Rabgyal, “Forces Shaping Bhutan’s Young Social Capital”, The Druk Journal 7, no. 1 (2021): 118–26, https://drukjournal.bt/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Forces-Shaping-Bhutans-Young-Social-Capital.pdf.

[xvii] “Bhutan”, European Partnership for Democracy.

[xviii] Dechen Rabgyal, “From Votes to Voices: Socialise Politics and Normalise Public Affairs to Address Bhutan’s ‘Democratic Dilemma’”, Dechen Rabgyal, 30 October 2022, https://www.dechenrabgyal.com/2022/10/30/from-votes-to-voices-socialise-politics-and-normalise-public-affairs-to-address-bhutans-democratic-dilemma/; Yeshey Lhaden, “10 Years Work Experience Mandatory to Contest for National Council – BBSCL”, BBSCL, 30 January 2014, https://www.bbs.bt/36769/.

[xix] Tenzing Lamsang, “Ruling and Opposition Parties Uneasy with ECB’s New Rules on Experienced Candidates and Showing Money for Pledges but 3 Other Parties Welcome It”, Bhutanese, 3 September 2022, https://thebhutanese.bt/ruling-and-opposition-parties-uneasy-with-ecbs-new-rules-on-experienced-candidates-and-showing-money-for-pledges-but-3-other-parties-welcome-it/.

[xx] “Bhutan”, Parliament of Bhutan.

[xxi] Lhaden, “10 Years”; “Proceedings and Resolutions of the Twelfth Session”, National Council of Bhutan, 2014.

[xxii] “House of Review Needs to Review Its Experience Criteria”, Bhutanese, 15 February 2014, https://thebhutanese.bt/house-of-review-needs-to-review-its-experience-criteria/.

[xxiii] “Proceedings and Resolutions of the National Assembly of Bhutan: Second Parliament of Bhutan, Fourth Session”, National Assembly of Bhutan, 2014; “Proceedings and Resolutions of the Thirteenth Session”, National Council of Bhutan, 2014.

[xxiv] Zangpo, “Bhutan’s National Council Election 2023”; Lamsang, “Ruling and Opposition Parties”.

[xxv] Pema Choki, “The Increasingly Important Role of the National Council over the Last 15 Years”, Bhutanese, 2023, https://thebhutanese.bt/the-increasingly-important-role-of-the-national-council-over-the-last-15-years/.

[xxvi] Nidup Lhamo, “Seminar Participants Question ECB on New Rules”, Business Bhutan, 24 October 2022, https://businessbhutan.bt/seminar-participants-question-ecb-on-new-rules/.

[xxvii] Jack L. Walker, “A Critique of the Elitist Theory of Democracy”, American Political Science Review 60, no. 2 (1966): 285–95, https://doi.org/10.2307/1953356.

[xxviii] Fredrik Engelstad, “Democratic Elitism – Conflict and Consensus”, Comparative Sociology 8, no. 3 (2009): 383–401, https://doi.org/10.1163/156913309×447585; Robert A. Dahl, “Further Reflections on ‘the Elitist Theory of Democracy’”, American Political Science Review 60, no. 2 (1966), 296–305, https://doi.org/10.2307/1953357.

[xxix] Kinley Wangchuk, From Armed Parliamentarians to Peaceful Debates: Principles and Practices of Bhutan’s Democracy (Thimphu: Kinley Wangchuk, 2024).

[xxx] Erik Amnå and Joakim Ekman, “Standby Citizens: Diverse Faces of Political Passivity”, European Political Science Review 6, no. 2 (2014): 261–81, https://doi.org/10.1017/s175577391300009x.

The post Chapter 11 by Dechen Rabgyal first appeared on Youth Democracy Cohort.

Over the last decade, the United Nations (UN) system has increasingly invested in creating institutional space for greater youth participation and leadership. Launched in 2018, Youth2030 is a UN-wide youth strategy that prioritises “meaningful youth engagement in policymaking and decision-making processes”.^[i] Other efforts to systematise youth participation include the UN Youth Office, the UN Youth Envoy, and the 2024 Summit of the Future.

Attempts to reform institutional architectures to enhance meaningful youth participation have elements that are both new and old, inventive and anachronistic, symbolic and material. Indeed, current attempts to fashion institutions and processes that represent multiple generations have historical antecedents. While many of the UN’s contemporary youth engagement efforts are cast as novel, they are situated within much longer stories of the UN as an institution that is invested in involving and reaching young people.

This chapter explores the reinvention of intergenerational politics through the case study of the 1970 World Youth Assembly, held at the UN headquarters in New York. The chapter details several complex aspects of youth representation and offers three lessons for understanding youth engagement in multilateral decision-making today.

First, it is important to pay critical attention to the framings of “generation” and “youth” adopted by different actors to different ends. Examining the varying interpretations of these concepts highlights contradictory narratives that are still relevant for intergenerational politics today.

Second, it is essential to centre analyses of youth engagement in questions of power. Focusing on power enables a nuanced analysis of the intersections of representation, geopolitics, gender, class, and age in shaping the potential and limitations of youth inclusion.

Finally, this case study highlights how young people adapt inherited processes to offer more expansive conceptions of what is political. This suggests that research on youth politics must deal not only with the formal politics of youth engagement in institutions but also with the micropolitics of how young people reimagine politics more generally.

Mark Ortiz is a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow and incoming Assistant Professor of Geography at Pennsylvania State University whose research explores youth politics, climate justice, and digital storytelling in global youth climate action

Get to know Mark

The 1970 World Youth Assembly

To commemorate the UN’s 25th anniversary in 1970, then Secretary General U Thant spearheaded a first-of-its-kind World Youth Assembly at the organisation’s headquarters in New York. Over 600 participants from some 120 countries convened in July that year to discuss a broad range of topics, such as education, peace, development, and the environment. The average participant was reported to be in their early 20s, with nearly half engaged in some sort of education or university training, and many involved in youth organisations.^[ii]

The videos, documents, and speeches that remain from the assembly form a unique archive that illustrates how the UN and its officials articulated their roles in generational language. As U Thant said in a radio broadcast before the assembly, the project’s ambition was to forge a “relationship of mutual confidence and cooperation … between generations so that we can transmit the goals and ideals with which the United Nations was brought into being a quarter of a century ago”.^[iii] Here, U Thant articulated a mission of progressive betterment intended to engender a sense of global citizenship.

Generational conflict and geopolitics

Framing this mission was a notion of nascent generational conflict. Victor Mills, the assembly’s executive officer, alluded to broad youth dissatisfaction with the sluggishness and inefficacy of institutional politics.^[iv] Similarly, in his opening remarks to the event, U Thant described the central generational fissure as being between the “older generation”, with its emphasis on the “legacy of achievements passed on to the youth of today”, and the younger generation focused on “injustice, waste, [and a] lack of love and understanding”.^[v]

Ghana’s permanent representative to the UN, R.M. Akwei, also focused parts of his speech on diagnosing a generational chasm and identifying different articulations of democratic thought. He, like Mills, mentioned a prevailing sense of frustration among young people because of the “inability of individuals to influence institutions in order to make them more humane and responsive to new social values”. He described a “virtual civil war” between an older generation interested in affluence and younger citizens critical of the “emptiness and callousness” that affluence produces.^[vi] He went on to suggest that the younger generation was interested in a vision of democracy that embraced “spontaneity”, in contrast to rigid institutions.

Speeches and historical reporting present contradictory narratives about young people that oscillate between idealism and chaos. A cautionary report for the Boston Globe in May 1970 wondered: “What happens if the gathering decides its own agenda, different from that offered? And what if it produces a psychedelic manifesto of revolution and irreverence?”^[vii] The central dialectic that emerges is of youthful idealism as either an engine of possibility or a harbinger of social breakdown.

UN Chef de Cabinet C.V. Narasimhan identified two potential pathways the assembly could take. The first was that the “the young will bring a new dimension to our own thinking about how the world should be run … and how the future affairs of mankind should be handled”. The second was a “rambunctious youth assembly” that “would end in chaos”.^[viii]

U Thant’s opening remarks leaned into an optimistic vision that framed participants as part of a long historical lineage of young people leading “inspirational” and transformational change.^[ix] Both Narasimhan’s and U Thant’s understandings of young people embodied a faith in them as progressive catalysts. But across the archival materials, a thin line distinguishes youthful idealism and innovation from the omnipresent threat of disorder.

Each stage of the assembly was animated by the geopolitical conflicts of the era, suggesting the need to take seriously power dynamics in studies of youth engagement and intergenerational politics. For example, countries disagreed over whether a youth assembly should happen at all, with one western representative reportedly suggesting that the Soviet Union was more “worried about [the] unpredictability of youth than we are”.^[x] Another report suggested that “the big powers, sensing they would be the prime targets of the youthful participants, became wary”.^[xi]

U Thant appealed to a sort of universalist generational thinking to elevate the gathering’s importance as transcending geopolitical interests. He suggested that if the event did not happen, its absence would be “likely to affect the relations between generations for a long time to come”.^[xii]

Thus, generational ideas interacted with questions of geopolitics. In western reporting, many of the delegates who represented communist-affiliated youth fronts were described as older and interested in pursuing a manipulative realpolitik. New York Times reporter Kathleen Teltsch described the discussions being dominated by “not-so-young professionals who had learned their tactics at youth festivals in various communist capitals”.^[xiii] In the same way, a write-up in Time magazine decried the presence of “professional Youths” in the conference.^[xiv] Here, depictions of young people function as sites of geopolitical contestation that distinguish subversive, not-so-young attendees from communist countries, on the one hand, from their innocent or naive counterparts from the west, on the other.

Delegates’ views

Many young attendees criticised the way their conversations unfolded along predictable lines and implored other participants to embrace a spirit of possibility. Dennis Smith from Jamaica lambasted the assembly for “quarrelling” in the way that national leaders did in the UN and suggested that the outcomes of such bickering would be “foolish”.^[xv]

Speeches by young delegates in the early stages of the assembly challenged the forum’s purported universality: there was criticism of the presence of young people selected by China’s nationalist regime, of military action by the United States (US) in Vietnam, and of global imperialism.^[xvi] Some participants withdrew from the forum entirely, including one Puerto Rican participant who cited a “climate of ideological intolerance”.^[xvii]

A delegate from Mali exhorted participants to “have faith in our capacity to persuade, in our capacity to change each of these youth into the men of tomorrow”, suggesting a promising view of the possibility of negotiation and interpersonal change. Australia’s Kenwin Smith suggested that “virtually no one has managed to break beyond the concepts of the adult generation”.^[xviii]

A young participant from the US offered a different view: “There has been an overt sign of entire chaos, but I think underneath a lot of work has been getting done.” Lars Thalen, who chaired the assembly, insisted that the role of young people was to take a “longer view” and inject politics with a future-oriented moral vision.^[xix] Overall, the participants’ experiences emphasised that young people cannot be shoehorned into reductive symbols of progressivism or future-oriented politics.

In closing the assembly, U Thant remarked that “the ideological, political, and other preoccupations of the world were bound to reflect themselves in the attitudes of youth”. His sober concluding assessment departed from the aspirational tone with which the assembly was opened and imagined. Interviews with attendees after the event painted a negative image of the affair, with one Chicago Tribune headline reading “U.N. parley disillusions youth”.^[xx] Meanwhile, an appraisal for the Boston Globe claimed that “adult cynicisms and ploys crept into the attitudes and voices of the young supplanting the dreams of a better world with polemics of the present”.^[xxi]

A Norwegian delegate quoted in the Chicago Tribune recounted being disillusioned that young people were not “more capable of international cooperation than their elders”; another delegate remembered how her “hopes sank lower and lower” as she watched the assembly unfold.^[xxii] Even amid the maelstrom of the gathering, Thalen hoped the forum would provide the basis for the creation of a “permanent channel through which youth or young people can speak to the General Assembly and to the U.N.”, indicating modest ambitions for institutional innovation.^[xxiii]

Reflections on 1970 in the context of intergenerational representation today

As U Thant remarked presciently at the closing of the 1970 World Youth Assembly, “the United Nations will probably never be the same”.^[xxiv] While the assembly’s organisers expressed an ambition that the delegates would “inject new ideas” into the conversations unfolding on the international stage, participants and news reporters converged on how congruent the assembly was with the broader geopolitics of the moment.

So, what, if anything, did the assembly accomplish, and what can scholars and practitioners interested in youth engagement today glean from this historical moment? Three lessons stand out.

The importance of framings

First, analysts must be attentive to “youth” and “generation” as symbolic constructs loaded with complex and often contradictory meanings, depending on who is using them. This results in tensions that mark young people as unsettled political subjects and materially shape the politics and possibilities of participation. While some observers extol young people as bridges to a new historical formation, the same commentators often describe the potential for youth politics to become unruly, chaotic, or destructive.

Young people are often depicted as the political foils to older adults. However, as institutions like the UN increasingly carve out space for youth participation, the contrary expectation is that young participants will inject new ideas, practices, and energies into inflexible institutional settings while embodying the norms of staid, bureaucratic dialogue.

The centrality of power

The second lesson is that any study of young people that does not take seriously questions of power will be limited in its analytical utility. As with the World Youth Assembly, in any political deliberations involving young people today, articulations of youth are key battlegrounds on which states, corporations, and other actors seek to articulate, curate, and control their images and extend their influence.

The World Youth Assembly was undeniably shaded by the great-power geopolitics of the cold war, the rising tide of decolonisation and anti-imperial insurgencies, and the countercultural youth and student movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Within today’s power dynamics, youth representation in settings like UN climate negotiations is vitiated by concerns about so-called youth-washing – the careful selection and curation of young spokespeople to exhibit representativeness, which presents potentially misleading images of governments and corporations.^[xxv]

Still, as one researcher has suggested, while youth-led change may be “partial and incomplete”, it is “always playful in the sense that it is generative and creative”.^[xxvi] While it may be impossible to trace any large-scale changes emerging from the 1970 assembly, a sense of the micropolitics of youth advocacy helps analysts understand the modest advances that emerged across the gathering. U Thant’s closing remarks alluded to some of them:

Your informal manners, the practice of certain commissions to limit the statements to five minutes or even less, the recognition of speakers by number rather than country, and most of all the principle of individual participation rather than governmental representation … all of these may affect in some way the practice of the United Nations organs in the long run.^[xxvii]

The value of history

The third finding is that as the international community pursues ever more substantive modes of intergenerational inclusion, it is essential to look back at the histories of youth and intergenerational politics in order to more perspicaciously look forward. The stories of generational tension and the divergent representations of youth that unfolded at the World Youth Assembly resembled the stories that shape multilateral negotiations, local forums, and political conversations around the world today.

The assembly’s final declaration expressed “regret that the conditions of the World Youth Assembly did not permit the participation in the Assembly of all the youth organizations and movements” and did not embody a “universal character”.^[xxviii] The document also prioritised representation of young people from the “Third World”, the importance of protections for those in work, and efforts to promote literacy among “out-of-school youth”. These priorities offer important precursors of what would become an interest in meaningful youth engagement that takes broad inclusion seriously.

The final statement also envisaged the creation of a “UN International Youth Centre” that would “work through a decentralized structure … through many local bases directly”. These modest visions, along with Thalen’s insistence on creating a more permanent platform for UN youth engagement, have stood the test of time and find their institutional forms in the youth-focused strategies and offices of today.

The current younger generation may leverage social media, digital technologies, and pop culture to articulate their political dissatisfaction.^[xxix] But the “do-it-ourselves” politics of youth climate activism in the 2010s and 2020s is not so different from the visions of democracy and shared generational consciousness expressed by many attendees back in 1970.^[xxx]

The 2024 Summit of the Future

Comparing more recent efforts to engage young people in multilateral institutions with the 1970 World Youth Assembly reveals both parallels and contrasts. One major event was the UN’s 2024 Summit of the Future, which focused on meaningful youth engagement, reflecting commitments made in the Youth2030 strategy.

Before the two-day negotiations on 22–23 September, UN Secretary General António Guterres convened two action days to set the tone for the talks. The first was entitled “#YouthLead for the Future”. Speaking at this action day, UN Assistant Secretary General for Youth Affairs Felipe Paullier described the summit as an opportunity to “put young people at the centre” of multilateral decision-making.^[xxxi]

The media that documented the summit and the preceding action days reveal a diverse range of young participants. The involvement of marginalised individuals, such as disabled people, Indigenous groups, children, and others, signalled an evolution of inclusion since 1970. Similarly, the language used in the outcome document of the 2024 event reflected a greater emphasis on generation-spanning challenges and insisted on the importance of factoring future generations into today’s decision-making.

Juxtaposing the highly curated media, interviews, and celebratory tone of the 2024 summit with the grainy, amateurish footage of the 1970 assembly, it would be tempting to believe that youth inclusion has evolved in a singularly positive direction. And indeed, the organisers of the 2024 event took strides to contribute to the aspiration expressed in the final outcome of the 1970 assembly that future gatherings should evolve towards a more “universal character”.

But today, the central question is pivoting from the mere inclusion of young people in traditionally adult-dominated meetings to more meaningful ways to link multilateral processes with transformative, youth-centred outcomes on the ground. As young climate change commentators such as Greta Thunberg have noted extensively, and as could be heard even in the youth speeches of 1970, although young people may be at the table, too often the words, promises, and commitments of older political figures do little to enable intergenerational equity in practice.

A continuous legacy of youth leadership

There remains work to be done to translate the lofty promises of forums such as the 2024 summit to the layered and often unjust realities experienced by children and young people around the world. Worryingly, progress in the representation and inclusion of young people in multilateral governance is set against the backdrop of declining faith in multilateralism, antidemocratic turns in many nations, and widespread youth dissatisfaction, as evidenced in protest movements around the world.

And yet, the outcome of the 2024 summit, particularly the first-of-its-kind Declaration on Future Generations, enshrined an intergenerational ethic at the heart of the multilateral system. The declaration considers the past, present, and future as a set of interlinked flows that shape the material realities of the children and young people of today and tomorrow.

This type of intergenerational outlook is something that young people have been campaigning for through their participation in multilateral institutions – from Thalen’s speech at the 1970 World Youth Assembly to then 12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki’s words at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit or Thunberg’s many speeches at UN climate summits. From the 1970 assembly to the 2024 summit and beyond, there is a continuous legacy of youth leadership. This legacy, which is embodied in young people’s insistent demands that global institutions evolve to more meaningfully represent them and their successors, continues to influence the shape and scope of multilateralism today.

Explore the Full Study

This chapter is part of a Deep Dive of Young Researchers who worked on Youth Participation for three years. This deep dive is a global collection of 12 case studies unpacking how young people are reshaping political engagement.

The Young Researchers’ Network is an initiative developed in the framework of the European Democracy Hub and EPD’s Women and Youth in Democracy WYDE Civic Engagement project, supported by the European Union.

Get to know the 12 Young Researchers

[i] “Youth2030: Working With and for Young People”, United Nations Youth Office, 2018, https://www.un.org/youthaffairs/sites/default/files/2024-12/Youth2030_UN%20Youth%20Strategy_EN.pdf.

[ii] “International Zone: Unlike Their Elders” (video), United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 1970, https://www.unesco.org/archives/multimedia/document-5119.

[iii] “U Thant on the World Youth Assembly” (radio), WNYC, 6 May 1970, https://www.wnyc.org/story/u-thant-on-the-world-youth-assembly/.

[iv] “International Zone,” UNESCO.

[v] “World Youth Assembly, United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y., 9-17 July 1970. Message to the General Assembly of the United Nations, Reports of the Commissions, Statements to the World Youth Assembly”, United Nations (UN) Digital Library, 30 July 1970, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3906570?ln=en&v=pdf.

[vi] “World Youth Assembly”, UN Digital Library.

[vii] Darius S. Jhabvala, “World youth assembly runs into new snags”, Boston Globe, 14 May 1970.

[viii] “International Zone”, UNESCO.

[ix] “World Youth Assembly”, UN Digital Library.

[x] Robert H. Estabrook, “Powers argue over U.N. youth assembly”, Washington Post, 10 January 1970.

[xi] Darius S. Jhabvala, “World youth assembly opens today at UN”, Boston Globe, 9 July 1970.

[xii] Jhabvala, “New snags”.

[xiii] Kathleen Teltsch, “World Youth Assembly”, New York Times, 20 July 1970, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/07/20/archives/world-youth-assembly-parroting-of-elders-slogans-in-familiar.html.

[xiv] “United Nations: Professional Youths”, Time, 27 July 1970, https://time.com/archive/6843354/united-nations-professional-youths/.

[xv] “International Zone”, UNESCO.

[xvi] “International Zone”, UNESCO.

[xvii] William Fulton, “U. N. youth parley invites reds”, Chicago Tribune, 11 July 1970.

[xviii] “International Zone”, UNESCO.

[xix] “International Zone”, UNESCO.

[xx] “U.N. Parley disillusions youth”, Chicago Tribune, 20 July 1970.

[xxi] Darius S. Jhabvala, “Faith in young deeply shaken by world youth assembly”, Boston Globe, 19 July 1970.

[xxii] “U.N. Parley”, Chicago Tribune.

[xxiii] “International Zone”, UNESCO.

[xxiv] “International Zone”, UNESCO.

[xxv] Mark Ortiz, Charles Mankhwazi, and Neeshad Shafi, “Who is going to talk about my granddad? Who is going to talk about me?”, Climate and Development 16, no. 10 (2024), https://doi.org/10.1080/17565529.2024.2360618.

[xxvi] Stuart C. Aitken, “What happened to adventurous young people and their cool places?”, Children’s Geographies 17, no. 1 (2019): 9–12.

[xxvii] “World Youth Assembly”, UN Digital Library.

[xxviii] “World Youth Assembly”, UN Digital Library.

[xxix] Nuurrianti Jalli, “From anime to activism: How the ‘One Piece’ pirate flag became the global emblem of Gen Z resistance”, The Conversation, 24 September 2025, https://theconversation.com/from-anime-to-activism-how-the-one-piece-pirate-flag-became-the-global-emblem-of-gen-z-resistance-265526.

[xxx] Sarah Pickard, “Young Environmental Activists and Do-It-Ourselves (DIO) Politics: Collective Engagement, Generational Agency, Efficacy, Belonging and Hope”, Journal of Youth Studies 25, no. 6 (2022): 730–50, https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2022.2046258.

[xxxi] “Action Days for the Future” (video), UN Web TV, 22 September 2024, https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k12/k12uooughw?_gl=1*llk69a*_ga*MjAwNzI3NTE3MC4xNzY5NTQ0OTYw*_ga_TK9BQL5X7Z*czE3Njk1NDQ5NTkkbzEkZzAkdDE3Njk1NDQ5NTkkajYwJGwwJGgw.

The post Chapter 7 by Mark Ortiz first appeared on Youth Democracy Cohort.

Youth officially became a matter of public policy in Latin America in the 1980s, when specialised state agencies were created to institutionalise youth policies. In Argentina and Paraguay, the emergence of these policies coincided with the return of democracy after military dictatorships, with young people playing a significant role in the democratic transitions. This highlights the direct relationship between democracy, youth participation, and the development of youth policy.

The advent of democracy in Argentina and Paraguay occurred at the same time as decentralisation and municipalisation processes. Municipal governments have a strategic role in youth policies because of their territorial proximity and their capacity to create specific institutional arrangements for youth participation.^[i] In Paraguay, the first democratically elected municipal government after the dictatorship created the country’s first official youth policy unit, before any national institutionalisation.^[ii] Despite the importance of specialised youth services in local governments, however, obstacles such as resource shortages and difficulties in ensuring effective and sustained youth participation remain.

The concept of youth constructed by a state is fundamental in defining the approach of its policies. This approach can take one of two forms. It can be transitional, focused on helping young people enter adulthood through employment and education.^[iii] Or it can be affirmative, based on an understanding of youth as a social condition and aimed at promoting identity building and participation.^[iv]

Given the tension between these two approaches, and in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, this study seeks to answer the following question: How did the municipal governments of Buenos Aires (Argentina) and Asunción (Paraguay) – with their structural differences but common challenges – develop youth policies and promote youth participation in the period surrounding the pandemic?

Olga Paredes Brítez is a Paraguayan lawyer, social worker, and PhD candidate in Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires, specialising in public policy, youth policies, and higher education, and serving as a director and lecturer at the National University of Asunción.

Get to know Olga

Methodology

This chapter analyses how the municipal governments of Buenos Aires and Asunción addressed youth policies and participation between 2016 and 2024. The study examines regulatory frameworks, prevailing policy approaches, forms of youth participation – both institutionalised and non-institutionalised – and youth involvement across different stages of the policy cycle.

Buenos Aires and Asunción were chosen as case studies because of their status as national capitals and their political and institutional relevance. This allowed for the identification of shared challenges in the development of municipal youth policies across different national contexts.

The research adopted a qualitative approach based on semistructured interviews with key interlocutors, including current and former municipal youth directors and academic experts in youth studies in both cities. Participants were selected based on their institutional roles and academic experience in the field. Interviews were structured around the main research categories – youth policies and youth participation – and were transcribed and analysed thematically to identify patterns, similarities, and differences relevant to the study’s objectives.

The study period includes the Covid-19 pandemic, which is a contextual factor that helps explain changes in youth policies and participation mechanisms, particularly in relation to education, employment, and mental health.

Youth policies in Buenos Aires and Asunción

Municipal youth policies, because of their territorial proximity and institutional location, tend to offer greater opportunities for youth participation than national policies. However, these opportunities are neither automatic nor homogeneous. They are shaped by the extent of legal frameworks, the prevailing policy approaches, and the ways in which youth participation is promoted across different stages of the policy cycle.

Legal frameworks

At the municipal level, the strength of legal frameworks is central in determining whether proximity translates into effective youth participation. Legal frameworks not only define institutional responsibilities and policy continuity but also affect the extent to which youth participation can become a stable component of public action.

In both Argentina and Paraguay, the absence of such frameworks is evident. Despite the existence of youth departments or programmes, neither country has enacted a comprehensive youth law that structures responsibilities or guarantees institutional continuity. Both countries display regulatory gaps across three normative levels: constitutional, functional, and administrative.

Argentina lacks an explicit constitutional recognition of young people as subjects of rights, while Paraguay mentions the promotion of youth participation only in one article of its constitution. At the national level, both countries have partial sectoral laws – on education, health, and employment – that address young people tangentially and often contradict one another. In Buenos Aires, there is a law mandating a youth survey, whereas in Asunción, no relevant municipal regulation on young people exists.

This absence of comprehensive frameworks reflects weak institutionalisation. This perception was shared by both former municipal youth directors and academic experts interviewed, who emphasised that youth policies depend largely on political contingencies and institutional voluntarism.

Approaches to youth policies

Interviews with former municipal youth directors revealed that youth policies in both Buenos Aires and Asunción have been structured around a limited set of priorities. Employability and scholarships emerged as the most consolidated lines of action, alongside fragmented recreational initiatives.

Based on interviewee testimonies, it is clear that a transitional approach to youth policies predominates in both cities. This approach places the responsibility for young people’s transition into adulthood primarily on the youth themselves, while underestimating structural constraints, such as poverty, territorial inequality, and digital exclusion.^[v]

In Buenos Aires, this logic is particularly evident. Employability is the basis for training programmes, first-job initiatives, and links with productive sectors, reinforcing young people’s functional role in the system.

In Asunción, in contrast, the most consolidated youth policy is the provision of university scholarships, which reflects a selective and individualist response to youth inequality. Beyond this central policy, youth action largely emphasises leisure and recreational initiatives – particularly sports and entertainment activities – without being embedded in a broader transitional or rights-based framework.

This approach may operate as a form of symbolic containment rather than structural intervention, diverting attention from deeper social inequalities and potentially aggravating young people’s vulnerabilities.^[vi] As a result, a third paradigm emerges – one that neither systematically supports young people’s transition to adulthood nor affirms their autonomy. Instead, this third way seeks to manage youth presence through fragmented and depoliticised interventions, mainly recreational programmes.

Interviews with former youth directors in both cities revealed a shared willingness to advance towards affirmative, rights-based policies – such as youth participatory budgets or civic programmes – that conceive of young people not merely as students or future workers but as full citizens. These efforts, however, are consistently constrained by institutional fragilities, budgetary restrictions, and the absence of a strategic vision that can consolidate young people as transformative political actors within municipal governance.

Historical and social context

Historical and political trajectories play a central role in shaping approaches to youth policy. During the democratic transitions that followed the two countries’ military dictatorships (Argentina in 1983, Paraguay in 1989), youth participation was strongly promoted through affirmative policies that emphasised political engagement.^[vii]

However, this approach shifted in the 1990s with the advance of neoliberal reforms, particularly in Argentina, where so-called excluded youth were increasingly framed as policy targets through employability and vocational training initiatives.^[viii] In Buenos Aires, successive municipal administrations consolidated this employability-centred axis within youth policies.

In contrast, in Asunción, youth policies were progressively hollowed out. Participatory spaces were weakened and municipal action was redirected towards sports and recreational programmes, often focused on children and early adolescents, rather than young people as political subjects.

As of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic acted as a stress test for already fragile institutional frameworks: it weakened policy capacities, displaced young people from the social policy agenda, and reinforced control-oriented narratives. In this context, youth issues were not only pushed to the margins of public policy, but young people also came to be framed as expendable in public-health terms.

At the same time, pandemic-related lockdowns exposed long-neglected problems – particularly young people’s mental health and suicide – revealing structural vulnerabilities that predated the pandemic. However, these warning signs were not followed by robust youth mental health policies, underscoring a persistent disconnect between recognising the problems and delivering effective policy action.

Based on the collected testimonies, it can be concluded that Buenos Aires exemplifies a transitional, employability-centred approach, while Asunción illustrates symbolic containment within a weaker institutional environment.

Youth participation: institutionalised and non-institutionalised

Youth participation at the municipal level has taken place through a combination of weakly institutionalised mechanisms, such as ad hoc councils or consultations, and a wide range of non-institutionalised practices, including protests, cultural activism, and digital mobilisation.

Youth policies are not solely a product of state design; they are also the result of social struggles and the participation of collective actors.^[ix] In Argentina, the state recognised pre-existing youth movements, illustrating how youth participation can precede and shape public policy.^[x] In Paraguay, participation has shown peaks of visibility, yet repression and criminalisation continue to inhibit its institutional consolidation.^[xi]

The field of youth participation is marked by a tension between a restrictive understanding of the term, which equates it with partisan or union activism, and a broader conception that acknowledges the political nature of unconventional practices, such as cultural activism, street art, social networks, or protests.^[xii] Today, non-institutionalised participation is highly significant yet rarely recognised by public policy.^[xiii]

Empirical evidence reveals a paradox of low effective youth participation in decision-making alongside a high desire to participate.^[xiv] A central explanation for this paradox lies in the tension between recognition and autonomy: youth collectives seek the state’s validation to influence policies while preserving their independence from official frameworks. In practice, the two forms of participation are interdependent: the institutionalised form opens stable channels, while the non-institutionalised form innovates, monitors, and exerts pressure, sustaining a dynamic ecosystem of civic engagement.

When it comes to institutionalised participation, voting is the most widespread – and, in many cases, the only – guaranteed mechanism. Beyond suffrage, there is a striking lack of structured spaces, such as local youth councils, whose existence is almost entirely at the discretion of the municipal administration. This reveals a pattern of institutional fragility: in the absence of binding legal frameworks, participatory bodies are exposed to shifts in administrations’ priorities, as evidenced by the dissolution of youth councils in Asunción and similar experiences in Buenos Aires.

The Covid-19 pandemic deepened this split, weakening formal participation while accelerating online engagement. A strong form of solidarity-based youth participation emerged, expressed through networks of mutual aid and community organisation in response to urgent social needs.^[xv] Young women, despite facing care burdens and precarious conditions, led numerous collective actions. This dynamic reflects a form of resilient youth participation, in which political engagement persists despite structural constraints. These experiences strengthened organisational capacity, social bonds, and political commitment within initiatives marked by strong local youth involvement.

According to one interviewee, Buenos Aires presented a more consolidated tradition of non-institutionalised participation, such as anti-neoliberal resistance, student movements, feminist mobilisations, and rights-based agendas.^[xvi] In contrast, another informant said that in Paraguay, civic participation had been structurally weakened across social sectors, also affecting youth participation, which tended to emerge only episodically and under adverse conditions.^[xvii] This context of weakened institutional support and higher risks of repression helps explain the intermittent visibility of youth mobilisation in Asunción.

In both cases, overcoming the paradox of low participation despite a high desire for it requires broadening the frameworks of recognition for institutionalised participation while acknowledging non-institutional forms of engagement. It is essential to ensure fair access to participation – in terms of time, resources, and connectivity – and link territorial and solidarity-based practices with decision-making mechanisms that give young people real influence in the public sphere.

The Covid-19 pandemic did not result in the creation of new or sustained municipal mechanisms for youth participation in either city. Instead, it tended to weaken already fragile institutional spaces while shifting youth involvement towards informal, solidarity-based, and digital practices. Although local governments temporarily increased contact with young people through emergency responses, these interactions did not translate into more binding or permanent participatory arrangements. In this sense, the pandemic acted less as a catalyst for institutional innovation than as a stress test that exposed the limited depth of participatory governance at the municipal level.

Participation across the policy cycle

According to former youth directors interviewed, youth participation across the policy cycle in Buenos Aires and Asunción is uneven. Young people have minimal influence on the formulation and implementation of youth policies and virtually no involvement in their evaluation.

The diagnostic phase of policymaking shows some noteworthy elements, such as surveys that seek to identify young people’s priorities and demands. These instruments provide valuable inputs into decision-making and help strengthen the legitimacy of public policies. However, youth participation in decision-making is still a main challenge facing local youth policies in Latin America.^[xviii]

There are some exceptions, such as the participation of young civil servants in governmental spaces, for example through youth cabinets, which introduce a generational perspective to public administrations. Yet this form of participation has clear limitations: it is largely restricted to young people with political and institutional capital, and their influence depends on hierarchical structures that do not always value or incorporate their contributions.

During the implementation phase, participation becomes even more diluted, with limited articulation between design and execution. Although the youth presence may be more visible at this stage, it is often reduced to moments of public exposure or interaction, rather than meaningful involvement in policy design or decision-making. Young people are sometimes invited to receive benefits, such as scholarships or material resources, but are rarely involved in the processes through which these policies are formulated. Participatory processes tend to generate less political visibility and impact than symbolic acts such as public events or photographs, contributing to the absence of sustained spaces for participation.^[xix]

Most critical is the evaluation phase, where youth participation is virtually nonexistent. This absence reflects a weak evaluation culture across the region.^[xx] This limits the possibility of understanding the real impacts of youth policies and of incorporating young people’s perspectives into assessment processes.

Overall, youth participation throughout the public policy cycle is sporadic, discontinuous, and marginal. Rather than a cross-cutting dimension of public action, participation is treated as an accessory or symbolic element. Overcoming this limitation requires a shift towards participatory governance models in which young people are not merely recipients but co-creators and evaluators of the policies that affect them.

Conclusions

In both Buenos Aires and Asunción, the legal frameworks for youth policies are limited. Neither Argentina nor Paraguay has a comprehensive national youth law, and frameworks are fragmented across sectors. In both contexts, the institutional architecture is weak and discontinuous: youth departments typically depend on other secretariats and lack resources and clear mandates. This results in an institutional hollowing out: regulations without enforcement, programmes without stable funding, and participatory mechanisms that operate intermittently.

In terms of policy approaches, a transitional perspective of young people as “adults in the making” persists. In Buenos Aires, the state’s interventions are aimed at young people’s employability; in Asunción, a bias towards leisure and sports prevails. This pattern reproduces an adult-centric view that limits recognition of young people as political subjects. The Covid-19 pandemic did not correct these trends; rather, it deepened institutional fragmentation, reinforced punitive narratives, and displaced young people from the policy agenda, even as it exposed critical issues, such as mental health, digital inequality, and labour precarity.

As for participation, a clear tension exists between fragile institutional formats, such as councils and ad hoc consultations, and non-institutionalised forms, like cultural activism, digital interventions, and protests, which highlight young people’s civic vitality but are undervalued by local governments.

Across the policy cycle, youth involvement is sporadic: it appears in isolated diagnostic exercises, rarely influences policymaking, weakens during implementation, and is nearly absent at the evaluation stage.

In sum, without structural changes in legal frameworks, intersectoral governance, and binding participation mechanisms, municipal youth policies will continue to be fragile, reactive, and of low transformative impact – though with strong latent potential from the local level.

Beyond the specific cases analysed, this study suggests that the municipal level is a politically strategic – albeit fragile – arena for youth citizenship in contexts where national commitments to young people are weak or regressing. While local governments do not escape structural constraints, their territorial embeddedness enables forms of interaction, recognition, and experimentation that are largely inaccessible at higher levels of governance. The challenge, therefore, is not to idealise municipal youth policies but to recognise their potential as spaces where youth citizenship can still be contested, negotiated, and, under certain conditions, expanded.

Recommendations

Advancing municipal youth policies requires strengthening rights-based legal frameworks at the local level. Municipal rules should define clear objectives, competencies, organisational structures, budgets, and accountability mechanisms, including non-regression clauses to ensure policy continuity across administrations.

At the same time, it is essential to institutionalise binding participation mechanisms, such as local youth councils with deliberative functions throughout the policy cycle. These should be complemented by tools like youth participatory budgets and public hearings that ensure intersectional representation.

Effective youth policies also demand intersectoral governance that links areas such as health, education, labour, culture, the environment, and housing, supported by shared goals, indicators, and transparent monitoring. Recognising non-institutionalised participation is equally important. Cultural activism, digital networks, and community-based initiatives should be integrated as legitimate sources of diagnosis and innovation, with funding and technical support for youth-led projects.

Finally, strengthening state capacity through professionalised teams, specialised training, and merit-based recruitment is crucial for moving towards a comprehensive, participatory, and sustainable youth policy agenda.

Explore the Full Study

This chapter is part of a Deep Dive of Young Researchers who worked on Youth Participation for three years. This deep dive is a global collection of 12 case studies unpacking how young people are reshaping political engagement.

The Young Researchers’ Network is an initiative developed in the framework of the European Democracy Hub and EPD’s Women and Youth in Democracy WYDE Civic Engagement project, supported by the European Union.

Get to know the 12 Young Researchers

[i] Olga Paredes Brítez, “Políticas municipales de juventud como políticas urbanas: análisis de su gestión en Asunción (Paraguay) y su área metropolitana (2015–2020)” [Municipal youth policies as urban policies: analysis of their management in Asunción (Paraguay) and its metropolitan area (2015–2020)], Año 9, no. 16 (2025): 141–60.

[ii] Olga Paredes-Britez, “Políticas de juventud en Paraguay: gestión a nivel nacional y municipal” [Youth policies in Paraguay: management at national and municipal levels], Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud 24, no. 1 (2026): 1–27, https://doi.org/10.11600/rlcsnj.24.1.7166.

[iii] Joaquim Casal, “TVA y políticas sobre juventud” [TVA and youth policies], Revista de Estudios de Juventud 59 (2002): 1–13.

[iv] Sergio Balardini, “De los jóvenes, la juventud y las políticas de juventud” [On young people, youth, and youth policies], Última Década 8, no. 13 (2000): 11–24, https://doi.org/10.4067/S0718-22362000000200002.

[v] Author interview with Diego Beretta, online, 2025.

[vi] Andrea Bonvillani, “Juvenicidio: un concepto parido por el dolor. Reflexiones desde una revisión bibliográfica” [Youthicide: a concept born of pain. Reflections from a literature review], Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud 20, no. 3 (2022): 417–42, https://doi.org/10.11600/rlcsnj.20.3.5548.

[vii] Diego Beretta, “Políticas de juventudes en democracia. Itinerarios recorridos” [Youth policies in democracy. Paths explored], Temas y Debates, 2023, https://temasydebates.unr.edu.ar/index.php/tyd/article/view/631; Paredes Brítez, “Políticas de juventud”.

[viii] Beretta, “Políticas de juventudes”.

[ix] Joaquín Adelantado et al., “Las relaciones entre estructura y políticas sociales: una propuesta teórica” [The relationship between social structure and policies: a theoretical proposal], Revista Mexicana de Sociología 60, no. 3 (1998): 131–58.

[x] Pedro Núñez and Diego Beretta, “Las políticas de juventudes” [Youth policies], in Itinerarios del bienestar en espacios subnacionales. La política social en la ciudad de Santa Fe (1983–2016) [Pathways to well-being in subnational spaces. Social policy in the city of Santa Fe (1983–2016)], edited by Daniela Soldano (Santa Fe: Ediciones UNL, 2021), 249–80.

[xi] Author interview with Marielle Palau, online, 2025.

[xii] Author interview with Diego Beretta, online, 2025.

[xiii] André Noël Roth-Deubel, “Reseña del libro: ‘Las políticas públicas de juventud en Colombia durante el período 1997–2011’” [Book review: “Public youth policies in Colombia during the period 1997–2011”], Eleuthera 23, no. 2 (2021): 323–34, https://doi.org/10.17151/eleu.2021.23.2.16.

[xiv] João Dionísio, Maria João Hortas, and Joana Campos, “Jovens construtores da cidade: cidadania e participação no município do Funchal” [Young city builders: citizenship and participation in the municipality of Funchal], Da Investigação às Práticas 12, no. 2 (2022): 146–73, https://doi.org/10.25757/invep.v12i2.325.

[xv] Daiana A. Monti, “Juventudes de clases populares y covid-19: vida cotidiana y desigualdades” [Working-class youth and Covid-19: everyday life and inequalities], Revista Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Niñez y Juventud 21, no. 3 (2023): 196–219, https://doi.org/10.11600/rlcsnj.21.3.5960.

[xvi] Author interview with Agustina Corica, online, 2025.

[xvii] Author interview with Marielle Palau, online, 2025.

[xviii] Luis P. Bresciani, Maria C. Corrochano, and Maria E. R. Nogueira, “Mapa de políticas públicas para a juventude e o trabalho na cidade de São Paulo: uma perspectiva contemporânea” [Map of public policies for youth and work in the city of São Paulo: a contemporary perspective], Cadernos Gestão Pública e Cidadania 28 (2023): e84763, https://doi.org/10.12660/cgpc.v28.84763.

[xix] Author interview with Olga Caballero, online, 2025.

[xx] Bresciani et al., “Mapa de políticas”.

The post Chapter 5 by Olga Paredes Brítez first appeared on Youth Democracy Cohort.

Youth Political Participation in Mozambique’s Disconnected Democracy

In recent years, social media have become an integral part of young people’s daily lives. Giving users the ability to connect with others and access information quickly and easily, social media have become a powerful tool for political expression and engagement.[i] As the largest generation in history, today’s young people increasingly use social media to participate in political discourse, share their opinions, and mobilise others to take action.[ii] However, the impacts of social media on youth political participation are not entirely clear, and there is still much debate about whether social media are a force for good or bad in the political sphere.[iii]

On the one hand, social media have enabled young people to take part in political discussions and movements in ways that were previously impossible.[iv] Social media have made it easier for young people to organise and take part in protests, rallies, and other forms of activism.[v] On the other hand, there are concerns about the effects of social media, such as the potential to create echo chambers, in which young people interact only with those who share their views.[vi] Social media can also be used to spread misinformation and propaganda, which can undermine the quality of political discourse and democratic processes.[vii]

Taking Mozambique as a case study, this research investigates the impact of social media on the political participation of young people in the country, including their levels of engagement in political discussions, their attitudes towards political issues, and their participation in campaigns and social movements.[viii] Specifically, the chapter analyses the potential benefits and drawbacks of social media for youth political participation in Mozambique’s 2024 general elections.

Dércio Tsandzana is a Mozambican political scientist whose research explores youth political participation and how digital platforms are reshaping political engagement.

Get to know Dercio

Methodology

The methodology for this research is based on virtual ethnography – or, more precisely, netnography – which is ideal for researching online communities, cultures, and behaviours.[ix] Without the need for direct contact with participants, netnography enables the collection and interpretation of existing digital data. This study concentrated on online discussions and interactions related to Mozambique’s 2024 general elections, paying special attention to the growing political activism linked to the hashtag #PovoNoPoder (People in Power). This digital movement offered a distinct perspective for examining how young people express their political demands, grievances, and activities online.

The study observed a variety of social media platforms, including Facebook, X (previously Twitter), public WhatsApp groups, and TikTok. Over six months from October 2024 to March 2025, observations were made of online conversations, blogs, memes, videos, and comment threads. Relevant posts were identified using the platforms’ own search engines, drawing on hashtags such as #PovoNoPoder, #Moçambique (Mozambique), and #Eleições (Elections). As a researcher and digital media user from Mozambique, this author was able to analyse content in its original linguistic and cultural setting while being mindful of the dangers of personal bias.

This study was influenced by ethical considerations. Although the data was derived from publicly accessible digital content, anonymity and privacy were meticulously maintained. Quotes and posts were gathered exclusively from open forums; closed or private conversations were not included. The visible online political activity is likely to have been skewed towards more connected youth from the urban areas of Maputo and Matola, because internet access is still unequal in Mozambique, especially outside towns and cities.[x]

The study was also limited by the transient nature of digital content, which makes verification and archiving difficult. Posts, accounts, and entire narratives can be erased over time. Because there was no direct connection with the content’s authors, interpretation depends largely on contextual reading, which is perceptive but may miss offline context. This research was also subject to the possible presence of bot accounts and the constraints of limited internet connectivity in Mozambique. These factors may have influenced patterns of online engagement and, consequently, the conclusions drawn from the study.

Mozambique’s internet landscape

The internet has significantly transformed the way people communicate and participate in politics globally. According to data-tracking website DataReportal, in early 2025 there were 17.7 million active mobile phone connections in Mozambique, equating to 50.4% of the country’s total population (figure 1.1).[xi]

Some of these connections might not offer internet access, while others might only have phone and text-messaging services. Still, at the start of 2025, Mozambique’s internet penetration rate was 19.8%, with 6.96 million people using the web. Mozambique had 3.7 million social media user identities, representing 10.5% of the country’s population. Of these users, 58.7% were male and 41.3% were female.

Data from Meta’s advertising resources indicate that Facebook is the most popular social media platform in Mozambique. Facebook’s potential ad reach in the country grew by 500,000 (15.6%) between January 2024 and January 2025, according to Meta’s data. In the three months between October 2024 and January 2025, the number of Mozambicans whom marketers could contact via Facebook advertising rose by 400,000, or 12.1%.[xii]

Barriers to youth political participation

Making up more than 60% of Mozambique’s population, people under 25 are undoubtedly a large constituency, yet historically they have had low levels of formal political participation.[xiii] Many young Mozambicans express a sense of disengagement from electoral politics, citing a lack of faith in political parties, scarce economic opportunities, and an absence of meaningful representation. However, young people have embraced new forms of participation, especially online.[xiv] Political content, memes, satire, and unplanned conversations have exploded on platforms including Facebook, X, and TikTok.

On the European Partnership for Democracy’s Global Youth Participation Index, Mozambique scored 45 out of 100, reflecting a country with immense demographic potential but persistent structural barriers to youth participation.[xv] Young people are a powerful force for political and economic change, yet this potential remains largely untapped. On the index’s political affairs dimension, Mozambique scored 41 out of 100, reflecting young people’s low representation in the country’s parliament, an absence of formal advisory mechanisms, and a lack of youth quotas.

Young people’s involvement in Mozambique’s elections is similarly constrained. On the index’s elections dimension, the country scored 43 out of 100, revealing logistical difficulties, distrust in electoral institutions, and widespread voter apathy. While a national youth policy exists and efforts have been made to strengthen youth inclusion frameworks, the implementation of these measures has been slow. Political parties offer few meaningful entry points for young leaders, and the provision of civic education is inconsistent across the country. Youth political engagement became both a crucial problem and a significant uncertainty in Mozambique’s general elections held on 9 October 2024.

Mozambique’s 2024 general elections

The conduct of the 2024 elections was widely criticised. The late opening of polling stations, irregularities in voter lists, and instances of ballot stuffing in strategic districts were among the numerous problems recorded during the registration and voting stages of the election process.[xvi] International observers and local civil society organisations like Sala da Paz documented and condemned multiple cases of malpractice.

The official results showed that the ruling FRELIMO party retained a majority in parliament, although the election procedure was widely viewed as defective and opaque. This outcome reinforced many young Mozambicans’ feelings of political futility, as their online involvement did not translate into institutional change.[xvii]

The gap between official institutions and the lived realities of the population, especially young people, has become a more prominent topic of discussion since the elections. Although government officials have recognised the significance of youth inclusion, there are still few real mechanisms for engagement. As a result, digital platforms have evolved into venues for identity creation, resistance, and informal political education as well as expression.[xviii]

The 2024 elections therefore provide a critical lens through which to view Mozambique’s changing political landscape, in which young people are establishing alternative forms of engagement, often with humour, defiance, and inventiveness, and traditional channels are increasingly mistrusted.

Case study: #PovoNoPoder

The grassroots slogan-turned-movement #PovoNoPoder rose to prominence in Mozambique’s online public domain ahead of the 2024 elections. #PovoNoPoder is best understood as a symbolic and dispersed form of digital resistance, rather than a formal civil society campaign or an organised political organisation. It acted as a rallying cry for the populace, especially the young, who were fed up with the nation’s established political class, an unreliable electoral system, and institutions’ inability to address the public’s issues. Instead of using traditional modes of protest, the hashtag accompanied humour, memes, slogans, and impromptu commentary to convey a desire for radical political change.

The main players behind #PovoNoPoder were young people with digital connections, many of whom live in metropolitan and peri-urban areas like Maputo, Beira, and Nampula, although the movement lacked official leaders. Among the main actors were university students, rappers, digital artists, meme curators, amateur critics, and anonymous netizens. Crucially, the movement also struck a chord with members of the Mozambican diaspora, who amplified criticism and expressed their solidarity using the hashtag. It was challenging for the government to repress or co-opt #PovoNoPoder, since it functioned in a fluid, decentralised manner, in contrast to typical political groups.

No official political-party plan or civic campaign served as the inspiration for #PovoNoPoder. Rather, it developed organically in mid-2024 on sites like Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, and X as online grievances about pre-election anomalies started to flare up. Memes and short videos began to use the phrase while ridiculing the political establishment, particularly FRELIMO’s power and the alleged appropriation of electoral institutions.

The emergence of #PovoNoPoder, which reached its zenith around polling day on 9 October, accompanied a broad public outcry against election irregularities, such as problems with voter registration, claims of intimidation, and erratic correspondence from electoral authorities. Long-standing complaints, like elite impunity, urban inequality, and youth unemployment, added to these annoyances, fostering an environment that was conducive to a digital rupture. Particularly after photos and videos of alleged ballot fraud and disturbances at polling stations went viral, the hashtag’s popularity skyrocketed. The hashtag evolved into a vehicle for political storytelling and internet mobilisation, offering immediate criticism and emotional support at a turbulent moment.

Social media as a political forum

Online discontent continued after the elections. Between October 2024 and March 2025, numerous posts were published on X with the hashtag #PovoNoPoder. Most users, primarily young people, used the hashtag to express their frustration with the ruling party.

In one example, a video clip shows police using tear gas and fighting with teenage protesters on the street.[xix] The excerpt reveals how internet platforms have evolved into venues for recording and challenging state violence in Mozambique. The post highlights the harsh methods used to quell dissent, especially among young people who want to express themselves politically outside established channels. The post serves as both evidence and testimony, turning regular social media use into a political act of resistance and witness.

This example shows how digital media can act as a virtual forum in which young people can reveal abuses and spark public anger. Such videos inspire, motivate, and emotionally energise viewers in addition to providing information. In this way, digital engagement becomes embodied in real feelings of dread, danger, and confrontation, rather than being restricted to hashtags or abstract criticism. Outrage, sadness, and solidarity are key components of the way young people interact with politics in constricted and monitored political environments. In short, social media enable a new kind of affective political participation.

In other posts on X, users, again mainly young people, shared messages with revolutionary undertones, expressing a belief that the time for change had arrived. One such post (translated from Portuguese) read as follows:

This is the best moment to be Mozambican … I am EXTREMELY PROUD of the UNITY we are showing as a people. We are the most united 20% in all of history.
LET’S SAVE MOZAMBIQUE
THE REVOLUTION HAS ALREADY ARRIVED … !!
#SaveMozambique #ThisCountryIsOurs #7November #POVONOPODER[xx]

This post demonstrates the affective and symbolic aspect of young people’s digital political participation in Mozambique. Social media sites like X are used for more than just criticism or satire; they are also employed to create shared feelings, validate identities, and envisage different political futures. The message above uses urgency and an emotionally charged vernacular, rather than formal political language or institutional speech, to evoke a sense of resistance and affiliation. It also illustrates how #PovoNoPoder serves as a discursive forum in which demands for civic unity, national redemption, and dignity come together.

Meanwhile on Facebook, the hashtag #PovoNoPoder was widely shared by young people as a form of support for presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, who appropriated the youth protest movement to gain sympathisers and build a political challenge to FRELIMO. Several pages were created with the aim of amplifying the voice of #PovoNoPoder, always in connection with the 2024 elections. This approach was in contrast to the use of the hashtag on X, where the movement appeared less directly tied to the electoral process.

In one Facebook post, for example, a video shows young people protesting in the streets of Maputo and driving the police away from a meeting point.[xxi] The police, who are typically the aggressors, are shown as being pushed back by the very young people they are trying to suppress. In the post, the video is accompanied by Mondlane’s name and the hashtag #PovoNoPoder.

The way that digital platforms are used to combine informal activism with official political processes is one example of how youth political participation and social media in Mozambique are changing. Facebook has become a platform on which symbolic opposition is more overtly translated into electoral engagement, in contrast to X, where the hashtag #PovoNoPoder often functioned as a more general symbol of resistance and collective frustration. In another post on Facebook, a call to action urges young people to act for change and stop the violence.[xxii] Much of the youth-led digital mobilisation during Mozambique’s 2024 elections was marked by emotion and urgency for change.

It is worth noting that the durability of young Mozambicans’ digital political involvement is also impacted by the cyclical nature of elections and the volatility of online attention. Digital movements often pick up steam during political crises or election contests, but once the current event is over, this intensity usually fades.

This transience raises fundamental questions about whether online energy is being channelled into longer-term forms of civic participation, institution building, or community organising. Young activists often find it difficult to sustain their projects because of inadequate civic infrastructure, scarce resources, and a lack of supportive institutional processes. Consequently, postelection periods are marked by declines in digital engagement, highlighting the challenges of converting episodic online mobilisation into sustained political influence within Mozambique’s evolving democratic landscape.

Conclusion

More than just a political struggle, Mozambique’s 2024 general elections revealed how youth political participation in the digital age is changing and often conflictual. Social media platforms have emerged as crucial forums for the expression of dissatisfaction, the formation of identities, and alternative conceptions of power, even though many young people have lost faith in traditional politics.[xxiii] Movements like #PovoNoPoder show that young people in Mozambique are not passive; rather, they are actively involved, albeit often outside established political systems. Their involvement is multifaceted, ranging from confrontational to symbolic to increasingly digital. But there are conflicts in these interactions, too.

Youth engagement runs the risk of losing its transformative and moral force when it becomes enmeshed with party-political objectives or reflects the violence it aims to oppose. These inconsistencies highlight Mozambique’s larger fight to democratise public space, both real and virtual, as well as institutions. In Mozambique, youth political engagement follows nonlinear and ill-defined paths. These are full of opportunity, innovation, and resistance, but they are also shaped by history and limited by systemic injustices.

The challenge is not to ask whether young Mozambicans are political but to acknowledge and support the various complicated and sometimes unsettling ways in which they are already changing the political landscape – post by post, hashtag by hashtag, and, when necessary, voice by voice in the streets.

Explore the Full Study

This chapter is part of a Deep Dive of Young Researchers who worked on Youth Participation for three years. This deep dive is a global collection of 12 case studies unpacking how young people are reshaping political engagement.

The Young Researchers’ Network is an initiative developed in the framework of the European Democracy Hub and EPD’s Women and Youth in Democracy WYDE Civic Engagement project, supported by the European Union.

Get to know the 12 Young Researchers

[i] Manuel Castells, Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age (London: Polity, 2012).

[ii] Brian Loader et al., “The networked young citizen: social media, political participation and civic engagement”, Information, Communication & Society 17, no. 2 (2014): 143–50.

[iii] James Sloam and Matt Henn, Youthquake 2017: The Rise of Young Cosmopolitans in Britain (London: Palgrave, 2019).

[iv] Antonio Cortés-Ramos et al., “Activism and Social Media: Youth Participation and Communication”, Sustainability 13, no. 18 (2021): 10485.

[v] Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, “The logic of connective action: Digital media and the personalization of contentious politics”, Information, Communication & Society 15, no. 5 (2012): 739–68.

[vi] Eli Pariser, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You (Penguin UK, 2011).

[vii] Samuel Woolley and Philip Howard, Computational Propaganda: Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

[viii] Dércio Tsandzana, “Reporting on Everyday Life: Practices and Experiences of Citizen Journalism in Mozambique”, in New Journalism Ecologies in East and Southern Africa. Palgrave Studies in Journalism and the Global South, edited by Trust Matsilele, Shepherd Mpofu, and Dumisani Moyo (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).

[ix] Robert Kozinets, Netnography: Redefined (London: Sage Publications, 2016).

[x] Tsandzana, “Reporting”.

[xi] Simon Kemp, “Digital 2025: Mozambique”, DataReportal, 3 March 2025, https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2025-mozambique.

[xii] Kemp, “Digital 2025”.

[xiii] “Mozambique Data”, World Bank, 2025, https://data.worldbank.org/country/mozambique.

[xiv] Dércio Tsandzana, “Redes Sociais da Internet como ‘Tubo de Escape’ Juvenil no Espaço Político-Urbano em Moçambique” [Internet Social Networks as a Youth “Escape Tube” in the Political-Urban Space in Mozambique], Cadernos de Estudos Africanos 40, no. 2 (2020): 167–89.

[xv] “Explore Youth Participation in Mozambique”, Global Youth Participation Index, European Partnership for Democracy, 2025, https://gypi.epd.eu/country-reports/mz.

[xvi] Zenaida Machado, “Mozambique’s Ruling Party Wins Elections Amid Nationwide Protests”, Human Rights Watch, 2024, https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/10/24/mozambiques-ruling-party-wins-elections-amid-nationwide-protests.

[xvii] Domingos Getimane et al., “Impact of news consumption on social media during the 2024 electoral campaign in Mozambique”, Insight – News Media 7, no. 1 (2024): 668.

[xviii] “Mozambique: Post-Election Internet Restrictions Hinder Rights”, Human Rights Watch, 2024, https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/06/mozambique-post-election-internet-restrictions-hinder-rights.

[xix] Moz Informa, “!!! Na Av. Eduardo Mondlane” [!!! On Eduardo Mondlane Avenue], X, 22 November 2024, accessed 30 November 2025, https://x.com/mozinforma/status/1859925353088864538?s=20.

[xx] O Tigre Branco, “Esse é o melhor momento para ser um Moçambicano” [This is the best moment to be Mozambican], X, 5 November 2024, accessed 30 November 2025, https://x.com/Cheque_Senpai/status/1853872286970900622.

[xxi] Kelven Mídia, “A população contra a Polícia da República de Moçambique” [The population against the police of the Republic of Mozambique], Facebook, 24 October 2024, accessed 30 November 2025, https://www.facebook.com/kelvenmidia/videos/855214910098840/.

[xxii] DW Africa, “Artistas em protesto contra violência eleitoral em Moçambique” [Artists protest against electoral violence in Mozambique], Facebook, 14 December 2024, accessed 4 February 2026, https://www.facebook.com/dw.portugues/videos/artistas-em-protesto-contra-viol%C3%AAncia-eleitoral-em-mo%C3%A7ambique/1615312362693107/.

[xxiii] Dércio Tsandzana, “Juventude urbana e redes sociais em Moçambique: a participação política dos ‘conectados desamparados’” [Urban youth and social networks in Mozambique: The political participation of the “connected but helpless”], Sociedade e Comunicação 34, no. 2 (2018): 235–50.

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This content is inspired by The Youth Political Participation Literature and Policy review 1980-2023 – Epoch IV Mainstreaming Mechanisms– as outlined in the Youth Democracy Cohort’s scoping study on youth political participation. The study presents a comprehensive analysis of the evolution of youth-related policies and practices from 1980 to 2023. It is based on a literature and policy review, examining youth involvement in political affairs, electoral participation, and civil society engagement within democratic contexts. The findings are framed within four distinct epochs, offering insights for policymakers and programme designers aiming to foster youth-inclusive democratic practices. While the content draws on these findings, it does not represent a verbatim excerpt or official position of the Youth Democracy Cohort.

This epoch is characterised by efforts to establish concrete innovative, long-term youth political participation mechanisms enabling and empowering young people to contribute to policy development across various policy fields.

Global Context and Trends

Apart from the demographic development in the countries of the Global North, as previously mentioned in epoch I., worldwide crises of the early 2020s (e.g. climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, etc.) became another key factor that formed youth policy into not only a standalone, but also an important policymaking domain. It is the emergence of these global crises that pushes upon the policymakers the necessity to acknowledge the cross-sectoral nature of these challenges as well as their intergenerational dimension. In response, youth mainstreaming as well as widening the understanding of youth policy as a cross-sectoral domain have become established practices. Building on the key developments from the previous epoch, namely on the systematic strategies on youth political participation, new policymaking mechanisms, and overall change in understanding of youth participation take place.

It should also be noted that these developments are in line with the more general trends in evolution of Global North democracies, namely their diversification to include various practices beyond representative democracy, including participatory democracy, direct democracy, and deliberative democracy approaches, as well as recognition of the importance of the counter-democracy domain (e.g. civic spaces, movements, and activism). Emergence of the second key trend framing youth political participation as a key priority(i.e. complex cross-sectoral and intergenerational matters such as climate change) enhanced youth mainstreaming developments. UN policy, as articulated in the reports of the Secretary-General, also emphasised an intergenerational perspective, calling for solidarity with current and future generations of young people in global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which mark this era thus far.

Within the Global South during this epoch, policy initiatives have taken place in BRICS, ASEAN, African
Union, CARICOM, and Commonwealth regions. These tend to follow the discourse on participation set by the UN, but mostly focus on policies which address international development for youth. There is some emphasis on youth as change makers, mobilising young people towards achieving various aims, such as the sustainable development goals. Thus the Global South agendas are less concerned with the democratic crisis of the Global North, and more underline the contribution young people can make to a nation’s development. There is considerable emphasis on volunteering, and even entrepreneurship connected to youth participation. Policies are generally not detailed enough to establish the concrete long term cross sectorial mechanisms that occur within the Global North for youth involvement in policymaking. Instead, Global South policies provide the building blocks for youth participation policy, setting out youth as rights holders and emphasising the value and need for promotion of youth participation.

Youth First in Policymaking

Overall, the policy developments of this epoch in the area of youth participation include young people becoming active agents in policymaking rather than only policy subjects, in combination with efforts to establish innovative and long-term mechanisms to facilitate youth political participation beyond typical channels of representative democracy (i.e. voting and running for office).

Milestones in Youth Policies

Key milestones include:

• UN Secretary General Report: Our Common Agenda, in response to the context of Covid-19, “now is the time to think for the long term, to deliver more for young people and succeeding generations and to be better prepared for the challenges ahead”.

Landmark International and European Policies

• Towards structured youth engagement on climate and sustainability in the EU decision-making process, policy ensuring that youth perspective is integrated into sustainability and climate policies, reflecting the nature of the inter-generational concerns.
• The Updated OECD Youth Action Plan: Building Blocks for Future Action, this updated plan emphasises strengthening relations between youth and political institutions, by promoting spaces of engagement, removing public sector barriers, and ensuring youth participation in youth organisations engaged with OECD.

Read the full study

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Liberia

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ABSTRACT

Liberia’s youth, who make up about 74.6% of the population, have long been underrepresented in the legislative decision-making process. Although young people are a demographic majority, they are often sidelined in legislative debates that impact critical areas such as employment, education, and climate change. Recognising this gap, the Youth Legislative Caucus was established to advocate for the interests of the youth in Liberia’s national legislature and ensure their voices are heard.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The Youth Legislative Caucus of the 55th National Legislature was officially established on March 18, 2024. This initiative was proposed by Hon. Ernest Manseah of Nimba County, following the development of legislation by two youth activists, Ernest Duku Jallah and Isaac Muapoh. The Caucus is a groundbreaking move to bring young lawmakers together under the age of 45, with the mission of actively engaging in legislative processes to advocate for youth-centric policies.

OBJECTIVES

1. Advocate for Youth Interests: The Caucus aims to represent the voices and concerns of young people within the legislative framework, ensuring youth-related issues are prioritised in national policies.
2. Foster Youth-Government Dialogue: It serves as a bridge between Liberia’s youth and the Legislature, promoting dialogue, collaboration, and mutual understanding.
3. Promote Civic Engagement: By involving young people in the legislative process, the Caucus encourages greater civic participation and responsibility towards governance.
4. Empower Young Lawmakers: The Caucus provides a platform for young lawmakers to engage in leadership roles, fostering their development as effective advocates and decision-makers.
5. Institutionalize Youth Engagement: The Caucus seeks to establish a sustainable framework for long-term youth participation in legislative processes, strengthening democratic governance.

KEY MILESTONES & ACTIVITIES

Formation and Membership:

The Caucus was formed with an open invitation to youthful lawmakers and those committed to youth advocacy. It aims to include members under the age of 45, ensuring a diverse and representative body.

National Budget Town Hall (April 2024):

A town hall was organised to gather input from young people regarding the national budget. This initiative aimed to ensure that youth perspectives were considered during the budget hearings.

Resolution for War and Economic Crimes Court (April 2024):

Caucus member Representative Sumo Mulbah advanced a resolution, endorsed by the Caucus, to establish a war and economic crimes court in Liberia, demonstrating the Caucus’s commitment to justice and accountability.

Deliberative Meeting with Ambassador Sjostrom (May 2024):

A strategic meeting with Ambassador Sjostrom led to the proposal for a working session to develop a comprehensive legislative agenda, work plan, and strategic plan for the Caucus.

CHALLENGES & OPPORTUNITIES

Despite its promising start, the Youth Legislative Caucus has faced challenges due to the absence of a comprehensive legislative agenda, work plan, and strategic plan. This lack of structure has limited its ability to coordinate efforts effectively and maximise its impact on youth-related issues.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

• Increased Representation: A more inclusive and diverse Legislature that better reflects the demographics of Liberia.
• Policy Impact: Legislative reforms that directly benefit young people, contributing to sustainable development.
• Civic Engagement: Greater civic participation among young people, empowering them to engage with and influence the legislative process.
• Institutionalisation: A sustainable framework for youth engagement in governance, ensuring the continued relevance and effectiveness of the Caucus.

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The WYDE Civic Engagement project complements its activities at global and regional levels with ad-hoc country-level support. The overall aim of the Quick-Impact Actions (QIAS) is to provide urgent and strategic support to local actors working on youth political inclusion and participation, always upon request of the relevant EU Delegation.

Based on the specific objectives determined in close cooperation with EUDs, the most appropriate local actor(s) are identified and selected to implement the QIAs. This is done either through a direct technical intervention or an action grant, awarded directly or through a restrictive call for proposals, depending on the urgency of the need, the political calendar, and the potential to generate positive changes in youth participation.)

Background

Liberia’s young people, aged 18-35, represent a significant yet underrepresented demographic in the nation’s political landscape, comprising over 60% of the population. Their voices have historically been marginalised in decision-making processes due to factors such as limited access to education and economic opportunities, a legacy of civil war trauma, and skepticism towards traditional political institutions.

Recognising this gap, the Liberia Youth Elections Project emerged as an innovative initiative to bridge the divide between young Liberians and their elected officials. This project aimed to empower young people in Liberia to actively participate in the political process, ensuring their concerns and priorities were heard and addressed by all presidential candidates in the 2023 elections. The project’s multifaceted approach included the establishment of the Inter-Party Youth Council, conducting surveys and focal group discussions to highlight youth concerns, facilitating the signing of the Buutuo Declaration symbolising youth commitment to peace and democracy, and hosting youth town halls with presidential candidates. These efforts fostered inclusive political dialogue and youth empowerment, contributing to a more responsive and inclusive political environment for Liberia’s young population.

Project Overview

The Liberia Youth Elections Project, funded by the European Union through the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), was designed to engage and empower young people in Liberia’s political landscape. Through various initiatives such as the establishment of the Inter-Party Youth Council, conducting surveys and focal group discussions, facilitating the Buutuo Declaration, and hosting youth town halls with presidential candidates, the project aimed to amplify youth voices and promote their active participation in the democratic process. This program not only addressed the historical disenfranchisement of young Liberians but also fostered a sense of ownership and responsibility among the youth for the future direction of their country’s governance.

Expected Impact

The Liberia Youth Elections Project significantly contributed to amplifying youth voices in Liberia’s political landscape. Through the formation of the Inter-Party Youth Council, policy advocacy, and innovative initiatives like the YESR and Youth Impact Meter, young people are better represented, engaged, and empowered. The project’s multifaceted approach has fostered a more inclusive and democratic environment, paving the way for meaningful youth participation in governance.

About Federation Of Liberian Youth

The Federation of Liberian Youth – FLY is the umbrella Organization for all Youth in Liberia. It was estalished in 1978 through an act of National Legislation.

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Global

ABSTRACT

Millions of young people are missing from public life. With the climate crisis, global conflict and generational inequalities running rampant, the inputs, perspectives and representation of youth are needed more than ever.
Almost half the world’s population is under 30. Yet, they make up only 2.8% of parliamentarians around the world. The average age of a world leader is currently 62. Of all the parliaments in the world, 37% do not have a single Member of Parliament (MP) under age 30 and less than 1% of the MPs are young women.
Young people have the right to be included in political decisions that affect them, however, numerous barriers prevent their participation. The UN Youth Office and The Body Shop are collaborating to change this through the global Be Seen Be Heard campaign to amplify youth voices in public life.

CAMPAIGN DESCRIPTION

The campaign seeks to create long-term structural changes to decision-making to be more inclusive of young people. The campaign was launched in May 2022 with the release of a joint report, ‘Be Seen Be Heard: Understanding young people’s political participation’.

 
The report is a snapshot at a critical moment to understand preconceptions and structural barriers preventing young people from participating in public life, along with recommendations to address these challenges for the benefit of societies around the world. The report includes findings from the largest- ever survey carried out by The Body Shop in December 2021, covering 26 countries with 27,043 respondents in total, over half of which were under age 30.

The research found that 82% of people surveyed agree that political systems need drastic reform to be fit for the future. The majority, two in three people, also agree that the age balance in politics is wrong, with 8 in 10 people of all ages believing the ideal voting age (the age when someone can first vote) is 16 to 18, despite that in most countries around the world the voting age is 18 or over. People across all age groups agree that more opportunities for younger people to have a say in policy development and/or change would make political systems better.

ENABLING FACTORS

The campaigns are being localised and support different advocacy streams aiming at policy change, including:

• Lowering voting ages
• Increasing formal youth representation through youth councils, parliaments, or committees
• Removing barriers for young people to participate in public decision-making
• Simplifying registration for first-time voters
• Improving young people’s leadership skills

For further information: www.beseenbeheardcampaign.com

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