Agulhas works with governments, donors, foundations, and civil society to address climate and development challenges. At the core of our work is the belief that global challenges require new forms of international collaboration based in diversity, equity and inclusion. This includes the meaningful inclusion of youth. We therefore fully support the work being led by the Eval4Action Youth in Evaluation initiative, which takes an international approach to encourage concrete action towards the long-term, sustainable, and meaningful achievement of this goal. In 2023, the initiative published Youth in Evaluation standards that provide practical guidance and pathways for all organizations, ranging from academia to governments and NGOs, to initiate and sustain youth engagement.
Youth in Evaluation Week 2024 focused on how these standards can serve as an accountability mechanism to make development programmes more responsive to the needs and demands of youth, raise youth voices and agency, and ultimately make evaluation more inclusive and equitable. These goals provided the foundation for our online learning event; a discussion on ‘Enabling Accountability to Youth Through Evaluation’. This was led by colleagues from across the globe working in climate and development, including Timothy Leslie, an emerging evaluator, ecologist, researcher, and trainer at Data Innovators; Veena Balakrishnan, a political scientist, intersectional environmentalist and a co-founder of the Youth Negotiators Academy and Climate Youth Negotiators Programme (CYNP); and Gaia Campanelli, a Programme Associate for Climate Strategies, working to advance climate action in the science-policy interface. The discussion was chaired by Ashley Greenleaf, a young evaluator at Agulhas Applied Knowledge.
First, Timothy led us through a case study of a recent utilisation-focused evaluation, which involved young grantees in a participatory mapping of actions to improve the programme’s processes and outcomes. Young grantees provided feedback on their experiences, including through group discussions on elements of the programme they would like to reimagine. Importantly, these conversations resulted in actionable solutions, which were not only included in the evaluation’s recommendations (see the Lacuna Fund Learning and Evaluation Report 2023), but have since been incorporated into the programme design. One such recommendation was the need for increased collaboration and peer support, which has resulted in the programme establishing hubs for facilitating knowledge sharing and providing technical assistance and capacity building to grantees. The benefits of youth participation in this evaluation were two-fold; young grantees were able to identify gaps and voice their needs as the end users of the programme, and learning from the workshop was used to improve programme effectiveness.
Veena then discussed her experience of starting up a youth-led and for-youth programme – the Climate Youth Negotiators Programme (CYNP) – recently evaluated by the Agulhas Climate Hub. Reflecting on the learning systems cultivated over CYNP’s three-year journey towards enabling youth leadership in multilateral processes and climate negotiations, Veena reaffirmed the importance of involving youth in decision making processes. While many institutions have acknowledged the need to incorporate youth perspectives, many still lack mechanisms to meaningfully connect young people with decision making processes. CYNP was founded to bridge that gap in international climate negotiations, working to address the systemic inequality that inhibits young people’s representation through capacity building and training of youth negotiators, as well as the creation of networks for youth that enable peer-to-peer collaboration and learning.
Veena also explored how a diverse funding group has driven accountability by holding the programme to the standards of all those involved in the ecosystem. CYNP has sought to cultivate a culture of accountability by facilitating community-building among funders and end users, including inputs from funders on how to strengthen monitoring and evaluation processes. Continuous learning is encouraged, supported by regular feedback loops and inputs from youth participants and sector experts, including through training surveys and updates to the training curriculum.
Finally, we heard from Gaia, who works across diverse thematic areas – all of which reflect a commitment to bridging science and policymaking to catalyse climate action. Gaia’s presentation focused on how co-creation is a signature way of working at Climate Strategies, recognising that this can take different forms, ranging from events, workshops, media and communications. Gaia highlighted that all of these co-creation approaches can be considered significant learning channels for evaluation, enabling accountability by creating feedback loops and opportunities to share knowledge between groups.
Gaia also shared reflections from Climate Strategies’ South to South programme, a multi-year research initiative that supports countries in the global south to advance research on just transition. This project is active in nine countries, including Bangladesh, where a quarter of the population is aged 15 to 29 years. The first phase of the project developed a roadmap for capacity building to support just transition, including skills training and career development. Gaia described how the project’s research partners at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB) are ‘walking the talk’ when it comes to youth participation, building a network of young scholars and supporting them through training sessions to bolster research capacity in the field of just transition. This expertise will become an incredible asset for the evaluation of just transition projects, showcasing a meaningful example of forward-looking methods to enable youth evaluation capacity.
Following the case study presentations, a Q&A session allowed participants from around the world to share their comments and ask questions. Participants recognised that young people and their perspectives are an important source of innovation in evaluation, bringing new ways of thinking to complex problems, especially when given the agency to discuss challenges and solutions in a collaborative setting, rather than as a token youth voice in a large decision-making group.
The panel discussed possible ways to encourage accountability to youth by engaging youth in the entire evaluation process, not only at the end point. They reflected on how youth might be engaged in the design of evaluations, the development of recommendations and outcomes, and in learning events and the dissemination of outputs. Inclusive feedback mechanisms were highlighted as a key mechanism for supporting young people’s input and access to the evaluation process.
The panellists also explored ways to work with evaluation-commissioning parties to support youth accountability, particularly for those who engage with young people and have young people as key stakeholders. It was highlighted by both Veena and Tim that working with commissioners and organisations that do not have a culture of accountability to youth can present unique challenges, but that it important for us as evaluators and leaders of young organisations not to be deterred. Instead, we must continue to push for inclusive practices within evaluation and learning to move the needle on accountability. Veena highlighted that doing so will help to necessitate a mindset shift and a funding shift that enables us to follow these commitments.
A key takeaway from all our panellists was the importance of capacity building for young people – to build a bridge allowing for youth participation in ongoing discussions in the international development and climate sector, including at COP negotiations and the upcoming UN Summit of the Future. Intergenerational and peer-to-peer networking is also vital for enabling knowledge sharing and building confidence for youth participation. Young people need to be included at all levels – multinational, national, and local.
Our conversation was one of many across Youth in Evaluation Week 2024 that hoped to enlighten our audience, share experiences and expertise and, importantly, encourage ideas from within and outside our network to enable accountability to young people. Young people are the future of our planet and of our development and evaluation work. They must be encouraged and supported to continue to drive conversations about the future in all places and forums where decisions are made.
In September this year, when world leaders convene at the United Nations to adopt the Pact for the Future, young people must be heard and, as our event proved, there are many ways to ensure this happens. However, enabling this takes leadership, intent and listening. As the Let Youth Lead open letter states, “To rebuild trust and restore hope, we need to see meaningful youth engagement become the norm at all levels, backed by dedicated resourcing everywhere around the world. The Summit of the Future this September will be one important opportunity for governments to commit to finally giving young people their rightful seat at the table.”
