Independence of youth councils

The project had the following main objectives: 1) To investigate the legal and administrative environment in which youth councils function on local and national level, by performing series of rese...

The project had the following main objectives: 1) To investigate the legal and administrative environment in which youth councils function on local and national level, by performing series of research activities (desk research, surveys, focus groups) 2) To compare the legal and administrative environment for youth councils in different countries based on the conducted research. 3) To develop a collection of good practices from different countries consisting of good examples of cooperation between youth councils and authorities. 4) To create an innovative training program for development of key civic competences - advocacy, participation and capacity building of youth councils and use it to upskill youth leaders from the participating countries (built-in the study visits that we conducted). 5) To propose an EU wide intervention on the topic of independence of youth councils through development of policy papers. Through this initiative, we sought to provide added value to youth policy stakeholders, especially the YFJ, by generating insights that would not only reflect the current state of youth councils' independence but also support the creation of stronger structures for youth participation and advocacy.

Throughout the duration of the project we implemented a range of activities to achieve the objectives. These were: 1) Mobilities: Kick-off Meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria; Study Visits in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain; Study Visits in Riga and Sigulda, Latvia; Final International Conference in Skopje, North Macedonia 2) Research Activities: Focus Groups conducted in 6 partner countries; Online Survey distributed across all partner countries and member states of the Council of Europe represented in the network of the European Youth Forum; Desk Research covering all member and observer states of the Council of Europe; Analytical Report that concluded the research activities and explored the collected good practices from the project partners. 3) Policy paper: Development of a policy paper that serves as a revision and expansion of the 2001 policy paper of the YFJ and addresses the outcomes of the project. 4) Other Activities: Development of a project visual identity and branding; Quality Assurance throughout the whole project; Ongoing communication and dissemination efforts to ensure visibility and stakeholder engagement.

The outcomes of the project are: -A desk research covering all member and observer states of the Council of Europe; -7 focus groups on the independence of youth councils that were conducted in different partner countries; -An analytical report on the environment in which youth councils function based on the results of the performed research activities. The report includes: 1) Comparative analysis of the legal and administrative environment mapping repetitive differences and similarities between the different countries. 2) Collection of good practices submitted by partner countries with the description of the specific cases 3) Analysis of the responses from the survey. -An innovative training program for advocacy, empowerment and capacity building of youth councils that was implemented in the activities of WP4 and WP5. Youth leaders developed key civic competences from the participating countries and overall raised the capacity of the participating youth councils. -A visual identity and branding of the project and the topic; -A proposal for a policy paper to be submitted to the European Youth Forum + an appendix - Decalogue, or 10 key points on the independence of national youth councils that are to be respected.