Youth Empowerment for Urban Development

The Youth empowerment for urban development programme is a global initiative which aims at improving the livelihoods of urban marginalized youth. To achieve this, UN-HABITAT will build on existing knowledge and lessons learned from pilot projects and scaling up best practices. The youth fund will be a key instrument to facilitate and catalyze broader and more focused and effective engagement of youth in urban areas globally to address urban challenges. UN-Habitat has become a leading international agency focused on improving the livelihoods of urban youth through innovative programmes, policy and research. The Youth Strategy has been implemented through the Youth Empowerment Programme, which falls under the Partners and Youth Branch (PYB), and utilizes three key activities: UN-Habitat Urban Youth Fund (Youth Fund), One Stop Youth Resource Centres, and Entrepreneurship and Employability initiatives. To achieve the planned expected accomplishments outlined in the document, over the next two years the youth programme aims at achieving two main expected accomplishments: a) Improved livelihoods for marginalised youth in slums b) Improved inclusion of young women and men in governance issues at all levels. Four subsidiary result areas will be generated to realise the planned expected accomplishments. i). Increased access to financial resources by marginalised youth ii). Improved social and cultural space for youth expression and civic engagement in targeted cities iii). Increased knowledge and sensitization of national and local authorities in targeted countries on matters of youth. iv). Enhanced engagement of strategic partners (national, local, civil society, private sector and youth organizations) on matters of youth. Through this programme, UN-Habitat is embarking on a strategy to ensure a focus on empowerment of marginalized youth in urban centres across the entire spectrum of the Agency’s programmes. The strategy sees a rights-based approach as fundamental to empowerment, with knowledge building as its primary ingredient. The mainstreaming approach during this period will focus on collaboration with relevant divisions/departments, as well as external partners, in addressing youth engagement in water and sanitation, housing and infrastructure, climate change, land rights and governance. Gender equality and capacity-building are crosscutting themes in this work.