The Compact has led efforts to put young people at the center of humanitarian action.

Young people must be part of the solutions to humanitarian challenges Check out the first #YouthCompact report to see how young people are learning from early response efforts, engaging with each other and serving populations in need: http://bit.ly/2lfNxcz #ECOSOCHAS Video by @TanyaRush #Gooddler - Social and Financial Inclusion to the

Our 60 members are at the forefront in raising accountability to young people in humanitarian action by :

  • Making their humanitarian programmes contribute to protection, health, development of young women, young men, girls, boys.

  • Supporting systematic engagement and partnership with youth in all phases of humanitarian action, especially decision-making and budget allocations.

  • Strengthening young people’s capacities to be effective humanitarian actors, and support local youth-led initiatives and organizations in humanitarian response. This includes young refugees and internally displaced persons living in informal urban settlements and slums.

  • Increasing resources to address the needs and priorities of adolescents and youth affected by humanitarian crises and use the new gender and age marker for better tracking and reporting.

  • Generating and systematically use age- and sex- disaggregated data.


What is the role of young people in humanitarian action?

Global Youth Consultation in DOHA - September 2015

The United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul Turkey in May of 2016. The hard work of the UN MGCY and its partner organisations lead to the Youth Compact on Humanitarian Action being sighed by over 50 high level international organisation.

Young People at the World Humanitarian Summit in 2016 - shaping and leading the High level session ”Transforming the Humanitarian System with and for young People”

What we have achieved so far

  • Mobilised to provide humanitarian actors with operational guidance on working with and for young people during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Development of guidelines to help organizations design, implement and evaluate age and gender-responsive and inclusive humanitarian programmes. The guidelines are under consideration by the IASC and expected to be released mid-2020. 

  • Development of a training module aimed at improving young people’s meaningful participation in preparedness, response and conflict resolution in the Middle-East region.

  • Launched standards for age disaggregated data collection in programming with young people as well as the more frequent use of real time data collection tools.

  • Provide a framework to guide the work agencies do with young people. For example, Mercy Corps and NRC conducted a youth assessment in Greece in 2016 and used the Compact as a framework for their engagement.