A New Partnership Building Government Capacity to Engage Young People in Democracy

YDC-OGP Sign MOU at Global Summit In Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain

October 10, 2025

A new partnership promises to mobilise solutions to the ongoing crisis of youth participation in politics and democracy around the world.

At the Open Government Partnership’s Global Summit held in Spain in October, the European Partnership for Democracy (EPD), in its capacity as co-leader of WYDE’s Youth Democracy Cohort, formalised a new collaboration on youth participation with the OGP.  

In a Memorandum of Understanding, the two organisations agreed a joint programme of flagship projects such as a review of the OGP Youth Toolkit and relaunch of the OGP Youth Collective as an advisory body composed of young experts in open governance. 

This is an important milestone for the YDC, as a platform of 9 co-leading organisations and over 550 members including governments, international organisations, civil society, academia and the private sector. This new alliance will boost YDC’s efforts to continue strengthening youth participation at the local, national, regional and international levels.

It builds on previous EPD-OGP cooperation to empower the next generation to take an active role in shaping political reforms. In the past year, the YDC has supported local youth organisations in Liberia, Benin, Nigeria, Ecuador and Malawi to meaningfully engage in the co-creation of their countries’ National Action Plans. The Global Summit in Spain was the third OGP event in which YDC took an active role, following participation in the Americas and Africa summits. 

In this difficult global context, WYDE’s YDC initiative will continue to promote bold and innovative government approaches to engage young people in participation and decision-making, in order to strengthen our democracies and regain the trust of citizens.

The Youth Democracy Cohort (YDC), supported by WYDE, is a platform composed of 9 co-leading organisations and over 550 member organisations worldwide, including governments, international organisations, civil society, academia and the private sector. It seeks to enhance the involvement of youth in democratic processes at national, regional and global levels.