“Only if you make us the architects of our own future can policies, decisions, and actions meet our needs now – and not hurt generations tomorrow. We are an investment, not an expense – with dividends that last a lifetime.”
Ahead of the Global Partnerships Conference, children and young people across the globe created a Ten-Point Plan for Change – setting out the issues that matter to them most and where they want world leaders to focus their attention, resources and partnerships to shift power to young people.
“Leaders and adults need to recognise our evolving capacities: we are not a problem to be solved or passive beneficiaries — we are rightful partners whose expertise is essential to any solution.”
Providing a collective youth perspective to inform discussions and decisions throughout the Conference, the Ten-Point Plan was generated through a three-phase process, starting with drawing on existing survey and consultation data from millions of children and young people globally related to each core theme of the Conference, followed by a validation survey with 115 respondents, and three in-person and online consultations between April-May 2026 (including with over 300 young people at the Youth Pre-Conference held at Women Deliver), focus groups led by Restless Development – in partnership with the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office – with 132 young people aged 18–35 across India, Sierra Leone, and Zimbabwe, and two online consultations with the Youth Conference Group.
The result is a whole that is far greater than the sum of its parts; a rallying cry for how to shift power to children and young people, and the guiding principles for decision-makers to turn that intention into genuine impact.
A 10-POINT PLAN FOR CHANGE
BY CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE ACROSS THE GLOBE
1. Partnership
We have the initiative to make change happen, but we need the mandate to execute it. Forget tokenism – move from consultation to trusted, shared ownership. Design change with us, not about us; we’re your partners in a common future!
2. Power
Listening without shared partnership isn’t power. Start deciding with us, stop resourcing around us, and be accountable alongside us. Be willing to cede control – where we’re not just present but influential. If you’re comfortable, power isn’t truly shifting…
3. Financing
What matters to us most is still funded least. Resource us to lead – shift from gatekeeping to flexible, long-term partnerships, invest in local youth-led responses, and remove structural barriers. Adopt a catalytic approach: ‘nothing for us, without core funding to us.’
4. Education + Growth
Education without skills, and skills without opportunity, will not deliver growth. Make a minimum of twelve years of quality, free education that is future-focused and disability inclusive. Then stop training us last and hiring us least; sustainable growth starts with us.
5. Humanitarian
Childhood cannot wait for safety. It depends on it. Prioritise our protection, participation and dignity before, during and after crises, including for those displaced and unseen. These things are not optional—they’re life‑saving.
6. Health
Health information and services must be accessible, trustworthy, child‑friendly and co-created with us — leaving no one behind. The invisible is often the most harmful: mental health, trauma, chronic illness, hidden disabilities, malnutrition and SRHR all deserve the same urgency as “visible” health issues.
7. Climate
We are the most impacted, the least prepared, and already living the consequences of conflict, displacement, and scarce resources. This is not tomorrow’s problem. Give us the skills, jobs and voice to shape a just transition with home-grown climate solutions. We didn’t create this generational crisis. Include us in solving it.
8. Technology
Technology is shaping our lives, but we had no say in how it was built. Close the digital divide and involve us—especially girls and women—in AI governance, digital safety laws, and decisions about automation. Our futures are inside these systems; we should be in the rooms building them.
9. Equality + Violence
Don’t ask us to overcome barriers – remove them. Design systems to be gender and disability‑inclusive from the start, so we don’t have to fight to access what is ours. Stop putting the burden on survivors; believe us when we try to claim protection. Real equality begins when systems change, not when we are forced to endure.
10. Radical Accountability
Points 1 to 9 mean nothing without the will to act, the investment to deliver, and the transparency to prove it. Accountability to young people not just about us means co-ownership of decisions, measurable goals that are funded and tracked, actions plans to achieve youth leadership, and commitments that come true. No child or young person should be left behind by a system that was never designed to see them.
