This briefing is co-organized by the Major Group for Children and Youth, UN Department of Social and Economic Affairs, UN Youth Office and EYF Youth Partners Group.
The briefing will focus on raising awareness of and generating inputs towards the ECOSOC Youth Forum – including upcoming consultations and engagement opportunities – and gathering inputs and priorities for the upcoming Voices of Youth report and HLPF Children and Youth Sectoral Paper.
Register now using this form!!
About UN ECOSOC Youth Forum
The next ECOSOC Youth Forum will take place from the 15th-17th April, 2025 at the UN Headquarters in New York. The Forum provides a global platform for dialogue among Member States and young leaders from around the world on solutions to challenges affecting youth wellbeing. It also serves as a unique space for young people to share their vision and actions as well as provide an opportunity to advance youth solutions to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs.
In Action 43 on “Strengthening the Economic and Social Council to accelerate sustainable development,” of the Pact for the Future, Member States decided to: “Support the youth forum of the Council to enhance youth engagement, ensuring that the forum is a platform for youth from across all regions to continue to share their ideas and engage in dialogue with Member States.”
In this context, The ECOSOC Youth Forum will be guided by the 2025 theme of ECOSOC and the High-level Political Forum (HLPF): “Advancing sustainable, inclusive, science- and evidence-based solutions for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its Sustainable Development Goals for leaving no one behind”. It will also provide opportunities to discuss concrete actions and commitments to realize the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for in-depth review at the 2025 HLPF, namely SDG 3 (Good health and well-being), SDG 5 (Gender equality), SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth), SDG 14 (Life below water) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals).
The Youth Forum will also gather young people to share their recommendations and innovative ideas of key cross-cutting agendas including advancing the 2030 Agenda, implementing the Pact for the Future and contributing to different intergovernmental processes in 2025 such as the 4th International Conference on Financing for Development and the Second World Summit for Social Development – WSSD2. The 2025 ECOSOC Youth Forum is convened by the President of ECOSOC and organized by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) in close collaboration with the UN Youth Office, the United Nations Inter Agency Network on Youth Development (IANYD) and co-convened by the Major Group for Children and Youth (MGCY) and the International Coordination Meeting of Youth Organizations (ICMYO), on behalf of the EYF Youth Partners Group, with technical input from youth organizations relevant to the theme of the forum. More details about the Forum are available on the link here.
UN Youth Compass / Youth Blast Overview
A great majority of young people attend the ECOSOC Youth Forum for the experience. But this is not an experience of visiting the UN building; we desire an experience of meaningful engagement that produces meaningful impact. The Youth Blast organised by MGCY, EYF Youth Partners and youth constituencies globally- held every year ahead of ECOSOC Youth Forum – serves as an in-depth capacity-building session and opportunity for substantive discussion in order to lower the barrier to provide a more equitable share of opportunities regardless of the young person’s prior educational and experiential capacity. It promotes universal, equitable access to all interested youth and aims to promote strong collective participation in the Youth Forum and subsequent steps of the process towards the High Level Political Forum, FfD-4 World Social Summit and other major foras in 2025. Recognising the challenging barriers young people face to their in-person participation, this year we will be hosting both a virtual youth blast (4 April) and an in-person youth blast with hybrid modalities (14 April). These will serve as crucial youth-led spaces for capacity building and skill sharing, networking, strategic discussion and fostering new collaborations, as young people finalize their preparations for the ECOSOC Youth Forum.
The virtual UN Youth Compass / Virtual Youth Blast on April 4 will be in form of a global meeting focused on raising awareness of and generating inputs towards the ECOSOC Youth Forum – including upcoming consultations and engagement opportunities – and gathering inputs and priorities for the upcoming Voices of Youth report and HLPF Children and Youth Sectoral Paper. The in-person youth blast on April 14 will focus on preparing young people for their participation in the forum and co-creating statements, interventions and advocacy strategies to make the most of their participation. For the virtual Youth Blast, a partnership is being held with initiatives carried out by the UN Youth Office as elaborated below. We invite you to register now!
The Meaningful Youth Engagement Policy Brief of the Secretary-General proposes that Member States support “the establishment of a standing United Nations Youth Townhall, convened by the Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs, to provide the world’s young people with a dedicated space to better prepare for participation in decision-making mechanisms of the United Nations and to boost the diversity of youth voices informing the work of the United Nations […]”.
Against that backdrop, the United Nations Youth Office (UN Youth Office) is committed to designing and implementing a new flagship initiative called the UN Youth Compass. The UN Youth Compass is an offering to empower young people and stakeholders to meaningfully engage in intergovernmental policy- and decision-making processes. It aims to enhance the diversity, inclusivity, and effectiveness of youth participation while serving as a hub for connection and collaboration. By providing guidance, engagement opportunities and resources, the Compass helps young people navigate these spaces and engage more effectively in shaping global policies. This is directly responding to the commitments made in the Pact for the Future to strengthen meaningful youth participation at international level.
At the core of this initiative are the principles of youth participation and youth representation as foundations of inclusive and meaningful processes. The UN Youth Office will pursue youth participation in selected intergovernmental spaces1 ensuring that diverse voices can be heard, while ensuring that youth representation can directly be reflected in the related decisions and outcomes.
More info here 
linktr.ee/ecosocyouthforum