WFF Youth Action Track Identifies Local Policy Priorities of More Than 3 000 Youth Around the World

22/09/2022

The working group of the World Food Forum (WFF) Youth Action Compendium - composed of young people from all over the world - conducted a research synthesis collecting more than 40 regional and national manifestos and consultation outcomes that were either led or consulted by youth. This research synthesis identifies key policy priority themes and actionable solutions at the regional level regarding agrifood systems transformation. The local documents used in the analysis represent the views of more than 3 000 young people globally.

The synthesis provides the initial points of policy priorities distributed through the six regions of the world, connecting regional themes to global priorities, identifying the most prominent demands and recommending the actions that can be taken in each region.

Building on the Policy Priority Areas (PPAs) identified in the WFF 2021 Global Youth Policy Compendia, the team mapped the regional priorities and solutions from the youth documents, identifying the top five PPAs and their complementary recommended actions to be taken by various stakeholders. Evolving the global policy to reflect local context by analysing the most recurrent thematics of each region, the World Food Forum team aims to spark discussion on the intersections between the regional priorities as well as identify local actions that can spark change globally.

Although the policy asks varied across the six regions, a common thread was for the need to support smallholders, local family farmers, Indigenous Peoples and youth farmers through a diverse range of measures to promote inclusivity in agrifood systems transformation, such as financial investment, and land rights and social protection policies.

Want to learn more about the most recurrent topics in every region?

Check out our Report Summary.

What's next?

To complement the findings from the analysis, the WFF Youth Action working group is currently summarising the data from the survey consultation that took place this past July.

The policy priorities and actionable solutions for the way forward from both exercises will be presented for further discussion by young people from each region through the Regional Youth Consultations, organised by the WFF Focal Points group, volunteers and partners in order to agree upon a final set of policy priorities and ways forward for each region. This will inform the drafting of the next draft of the compendium and will provide concrete ways forward to be endorsed at the Youth Assembly at the WFF Flagship event in October.