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#YouthLead Dialogues

A group of young people smiling and taking a selfie, with a blue and green overlay effect

Your voice matters

Under the banner of the #YouthLead Festival, young people and partners are coming together in September 2025 to reflect on progress made and recommit to bold action for youth rights, participation, and empowerment.

In the lead-up to this historic moment, youth-led and/or youth-focused conversations are taking place in the form of #YouthLead Dialogues.

These dialogues are an opportunity to capture diverse ideas and lived experiences, explore youth priorities and solutions, and feed local voices into global spaces of decision-making.

Whether you are gathering in a classroom, coffee shop, community hall, boardroom, or online — your voice matters.

Young man with short brown hair and button-down looking at the camera in front of a blue background

Watch this short message from Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs, Felipe Paullier, as he shares why the #YouthLead Dialogues are a critical opportunity and why we need you to take part.

Themes to explore

Each dialogue is unique, and that is by design. However, we encourage participants to reflect on one or both of the themes guiding the High-Level Meeting on the 30th Anniversary of the World Programme for Youth (WPAY):

  • Accelerating the implementation of the World Programme of Action for Youth (WPAY): What is working? What could be better? How can we move faster, together, with a forward-looking lens, ensuring no one is left behind?
  • Making youth participation meaningful: How can we ensure that young people can fully, effectively, and meaningfully engage in policymaking and decision-making at national and global levels — for the benefit of both current and future generations?

How to host a #YouthLead Dialogue

Hosting a dialogue is simple, flexible, and impactful.

Anyone! Young leaders, youth organizations, schools, community groups, civil society, UN entities, UN Country Teams, or other partners.

Anywhere — online, in person, or hybrid. It can be part of a class, a meeting, a podcast, a side event — or something entirely new.

Make your space inclusive. We encourage intergenerational and diverse participation across ages, identities, experiences and perspectives.

The UN Youth Office has prepared some tools and resources:

A guidance note outlines important details on everything from the logistics of event planning to the protection and safety of young participants.

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Click here to read the full guidance note

A notetaking template serves as a framework to easily capture the outcomes and insights from your #YouthLead Dialogue.

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Click here to access the notetaking framework

An online form provides an effective and efficient way to send us your key takeaways.

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You are also welcome to share photos, videos, or creative materials from your event. Tag us @unyouthaffairs on social media or use the hashtag #YouthLead for your content to be amplified on UN Youth Office platforms.

Young woman speaking into a microphone behind a blue overlay

Making the #YouthLead Dialogues count

To narrow in on recommendations, select participants who contributed to the conversation will be invited to join a foresight workshop co-led by the Global Office of Research and Foresight and the Global Hub.

This workshop will build on the broader contributions by exploring deeper insights and generating concrete recommendations to advance the youth agenda and strengthen meaningful youth participation. Using the Three Horizons framework, participants will assess the current state of youth affairs, envision preferred futures, and identify innovations, risks and opportunities for action.

The foresight workshop, together with the broader conversations from each self-organized dialogue and additional online engagement platforms, will inform a global summary document with key takeaways and recommendations.

The summary document will serve as a key input to the high-level meeting of the General Assembly on 25 September and will connect youth voices to global frameworks like WPAY, the 2030 Agenda, and the Pact for the Future.

#YouthLead Dialogues Summary Report

YDL Summary Cover

Over 75,000 young people in 182 countries engaged in and co-led the #YouthLead Dialogues, sharing the realities they face today, the futures they want to build, and the actions needed to get us there. Their message is urgent and clear: the future is not something to wait for—it is something to build together, on foundations of peace, justice, equality, inclusion, sustainability, and solidarity. We are not there yet, but with concrete actions and the seeds of change, we can move closer to our preferred future. Read more about young people’s recommendations in the #YouthLead Dialogue Summary.

Join the global conversation

Your voice belongs to this conversation.
Your story can inspire action.
Your perspective can shape the global agenda.

Take action in one or more of the following ways:

Via #YouthLead Dialogue

  • Host a Dialogue — find guidance and tools below
  • Participate in an existing Dialogue
  • Remember to from your Dialogue!

Other Ways to Engage

Unable to host or join a #YouthLead Dialogue? You can still participate:

  • an online space hosted by UNDP
  • Answer the U-Report poll, hosted by UNICEF, by sending the word "LEAD" to U-Report on , , or

No matter how you choose to contribute, all inputs will feed into a global summary document that will inform the high-level meeting commemorating the 30th anniversary of the World Programme of Action for Youth and other intergovernmental spaces.

Quick links

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Learn more about hosting a #YouthLead Dialogue

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Answer the U-Report Poll

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Learn more about the #YouthLead Festival