Youth mainstreaming and youth perspective(s)
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Dariusz: Hello. Welcome to this episode of Under 30 Podcast of the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership.

My name is Dariusz Grzemny and I will be talking today with two researchers, Marco Kovacic and Tomaz Dezelan and Tanya Basarab from the EU-Council of Europe Youth Partnership. In this episode, we'll focus on youth mainstreaming and youth perspective, or I should say, youth perspectives.

Tanya, can you introduce us a little bit to the topic?

Tanya: So already in the, in our current work plan, we had a big part on the youth policy to try to understand more how, youth mainstreaming and youth perspectives are defined.

On the EU side, there has been [00:01:00] growing interest in adopting youth mainstreaming, particularly in the year 2022, which was the year of youth. There were actually quite a lot of Commission Directorates that highlighted initiatives they do with young people or for young people, and there was a growing coordination, which now is enshrined in the, commitments the Commission has taken in the follow up to the year 2022 to do a youth check ofmost relevant initiatives. And on the Council of Europe's side, there has been growing interest to push for the perspective of young people across all policies and structures.

And that was highlighted in the Reykjavik Declaration of the Heads of State. And,they are working towards a youth ministers summit, which will happen in Malta this year. And there they will be adopting a new reference framework for a youth perspective [00:02:00] with the idea that already quite some initiatives are being implemented inside the organization.

There is cooperation with the Congress, with the Parliamentary Assemblyand there is really better sectoral initiatives that take this youth perspective in account when they are starting to plan initiatives.

And we in the partnership have launched two studies we will be discussing findings in this episode.

One focused on looking at national approaches. So how actually this idea has been taken up differently in different member states, but also at local level, local initiatives. Marco and two other of his colleagues he will probably introduce, have focused on that and there are quite interesting findings there.

And then a second study looked at how international organizations have approached it and what it actually means in practice. And we will be discussing that with [00:03:00] Thomas. And he was involved with other researchers from the pool looking at that.

Dariusz: Thank you Tanya. Marco, the study on youth perspective and youth mainstreaming. For some people it may be very new concepts or very difficult concepts to grasp. If you can explain a little bit what it is and especially what kind of perspective on youth perspective youth mainstreaming you took in your research.

Marko: Well thank you for this question. Every time, when we start any kind of research, it's important to define and to have clear definitions of different terms. So, when we talk about the key difference between youth mainstreaming and youth perspective, I would say that discursively there is a difference, but in essence it is actually quite similar approach.

In essence, basically both concepts aim to improve how young people are integrated into broader policy agendas. On the one hand you have youth mainstreaming, which is more [00:04:00] dominantly used by the European Union, and it's a governance tool, so to say. It refers to a systematic embedding of youth considerations across different sectors.

As such, perhaps our listeners would be more familiar with gender mainstreaming. So it's a quite a similar concept as gender mainstreaming. On the other hand, we have a youth perspective, which is the Council of Europe concept. or it is a concept that Council of Europe promotes and it focuses more on the values and lived experience ofyoung people almost as just as a lens or attitudes in policymaking.

Why this matters? It's because the two institutions are setting a tone for the national institution and national practices, and, that's why it's important just to have a very clear de definition. I would say that both of these terms are still in development. And, it is important that we do understand what we are talking about, but in [00:05:00] essence, basically it is just the relationship between young people and policymaking as such, and the way how to involve young people's points of view into quality decision making process.

Dariusz: Tomaz, in your paper, you are using the term youth perspectives. So basically in plural, why is it so, and what kind of actually importance or impact it has on youth policy and so on.

Tomaz: Yeah. Thanks for this observation. It's actually true,and it's nothing new, to be very honest. But what we like the team, Sladjana, Marti and I wanted to say is actually that we should be careful about the language. And, if you also look at, for example, the Council of Europe, or if you look at also the, the European Union, basically the Commission or various other institutions, they actually use it in plural as [00:06:00] well as in singular, but they are not consistent, right.

What we wanted to say also, because of the, well, of what we're saying as a research community or researchers within this field, and we actually reiterating this, this claim all over, over and over again, over different topics. Youth is not a uniform group, right. And then this is what we wanted to say particularly because it's also important for youth mainstreaming or youth perspectives in that sense, because also the mainstreaming descriptions always take into account either voice and use it sometimes in plural sometimes in singular. It is very important to know what your target group is. And obviously in various policy fields, we're mainly talking about certain groups of youth, not youth in general, right? So this is very important also for, basically the big policy planners to have in mind [00:07:00] that we should be really careful about which kind of interest or which voices, perspectives are we talking about also in terms of mapping those groups before we start the process, right. Because we have certain groups of young people, particularly the ones that are the most affected by certain policy areas, certain policy proposal. And this is why this is very important. So we're actually making a statement here to be careful about the language because obviously the language is very important in this case when you're actually addressing youth as a, let's say, this general target group, but also when you are talking about the mechanisms that should address that. Because this implies budgetary dimensions so on. And obviously when you are designing an instrument that can cost quite a lot of money, you need to [00:08:00] know what this will take into account in order not to take shortcuts when you are implementing the process. So this is why we are actually affirming this position that basically we should talk about perspectives, plural, because we are not talking about a single voice that young people produce.

Dariusz: Okay, thank you. Well, so far we have been using a lot youth participation and inclusion of young people and, all these terms. Do we need these new terms? This youth mainstreaming and youth perspective, how do they differ from what we have traditionally used so far?

Marko: Well, I think we need these terms because in contrast with youth participation, youth inclusion, these concepts are much more focused on young people as such. And therse concepts of youth perspective and youth mainstreamings are much more concerned with policymakingprocesses. So, I think that all of these concepts are just getting [00:09:00] traction across Europe because of the growing understanding that young people are disproportionately affected by decisions in areas such as housing, digital governments, mental health climate, and so on and so forth, but they aren't systemically involved into shaping this decision.

If you want just to systemically involve them into making decisions, then we have to just find some terms that would encompass the idea of youth participation, but also have this very clear policy orientation. So basically, I would say to cut long story short, that youth mainstreaming and youth perspective both respond to the needs of a youth specific lens.

And it put the attention of policymaking, people or policymakers, onto young people as a specific social, political, economical, and cultural group.

Dariusz: Okay, good. Good to know. I think that's important to explain at the beginning what actually the [00:10:00] differences between the terms that we have traditionally used and these two terms that are not maybe very new, but the concepts are still growing and they are very, very discussed nowadays, especially in the youth policy domain.

Okay. About the study. What were the main findings, Marco, in the study that you did, you worked on the national context and also local, so what are the main findings and what did surprise you in these findings?

Marko: So we took a look at several national examples because the idea was to see to what extent these concepts actually can be found in, in, in the national policymaking. And, so we had both, sub-national and national examples. I would say that at the national level, it is quite evident that some countries, for instance, Austria or Germany have a very clear idea of how to involve youth checks into the process of policymaking. So the general idea is [00:11:00] in both of these countries that all the policy acts, all the laws, all the normative acts that affect young people have to be inspected through the lenses of young people. And in both of these countries, namely Germany and Austria, there are several

entities or bodies that have a certain role. For instance, everything starts with the needs analysis. If we talk, for instance, in Austria, about Austria, so there's a need analysis to see whether some act has the big impact on young people, if this is so then the whole process basically undergoes the

quite complicated process that involves research, but also administrative processes within the ministry and involvement of different stakeholders that basically throughout this methodology areassessing to what extent where this act will have a positive or negative impact in the end on young people. [00:12:00] So this is one thing that we discovered that basically there are positive examples at the national levels, which can be then replicated further on into other countries. But also, we took a look. We decided not only to talk about the national levels because in, in most of the countries that we, we took under consideration this process is still in the initial phase, it's still being developed. For instance, in Malta, they have a very clear idea how they wanna develop, but they still haven't started using it as such. So this study for sure can just helpto tailor, this process because it can be an inspiration for all

countries that are thinking about this kind of stuff. But, your question was also about the local level. So we took a look at one local level example, which is Croatian City of Rjeka, which does not have the youth check as I just previously explained in the case of Austria and Germany.

But what they do have is that this idea of youth perspective is very well just [00:13:00] embedded in to their policymaking process because in every single department of the city, there is a so-called a youth ambassador who's in charge of just mainstreaming and putting youth perspective into policy dimensions and policy processes of respective department.

For instance, housing, which is not per se in a youth department is of course something that is of interest for young people. So they decided that they need someone who will be acquainted with youth policy and the needs of young people. And when they formulate policies, this perspective would be since the beginning integrated into into these, these respective policies.

So the City of Rjeka basically calls that youth ambassadors model. And, they are also being trained and sent abroad by using different European mechanisms such as TCA and Erasmus in order for them, [00:14:00] despite the fact not being necessarily experts in youth policy, but they should be just acquainted with the idea of them.

So this is also a very good example how cities without much resources can use this youth perspective and youth mainstreaming in order to boost their youth orientation as such.

Tanya: What I found surprising in the study that Marco, Dan Moxan and Veronica Stefan did, is that actually the participatory dimension in this whole process of mainstreaming youth is not a decisive factor. It's not the decisive success factor, which means that it has been done quite well without a participatory process or a consultative process.

So I think that that will be something really interesting to discuss further with the people who actually do it. Even in these countries that were selected [00:15:00] for the study, to get more nuances on understanding perhaps,in their understanding these are two separate processes and they have to coexist and they should be happily coexisting and lead to successful results or to good impact in terms of taking really the, the perspective and the concerns of young people when doing other policies or that participatory mechanisms will in the future be integrated better. Because in some of these initiatives, they are integrated, but I really found this as the surprising finding when you analyzed across the case studies.

And then of course, another interesting dimension is that because, policymaking is a policymaker driven process, this political championship, and it's quite well highlighted in the Rjeka case, for example, that the [00:16:00] mayor is pushing for it. So the people at the highest level, they have to push for these processes to happen and say, this is important for our policymaking agenda and therefore we need you to upgrade yourself in the different fields.

And maybe a last point is the, that in the end, youth perspectives and youth mainstreaming is happening if the youth departments are doing the groundwork of checking and all that. So that will be something for the youth sector, especially the policymakers in the youth field will have to consider for the future.

What type of capacity will be needed for this processes to happen successfully and to actually be well integrated or the ambition might have to be reduced, but these three points I found really interesting in the study.

Dariusz: Thank you for this explanation. What about the findings of your paper , Tomaz, related to [00:17:00] the youth mainstreaming in international organizations, are there any noticeable differences or similarities in, in approaches, when it comes to youth mainstreaming in different international organizations?

You reserached quite, quite a few of them, so it will be interesting to hear what you found out.

Tomaz: Yes. I mean it's always a challenge as well as a privilege to actually do something that's really, shaping up in real time, right? So we were quite privileged about that. Sometimes also quite frustrated. And obviously, you know, like various sectors are also kind ofvery wary about sharing all the information they have because obviously they're also facing internal criticism, external, you know, criticism.

So it was really a nice challenge.

But what I would point out here, something we actually started withat the beginning, you know, like with [00:18:00] this discussion that we're actually talking about something that's not really new, you know, that various other fields already know something about that. Also, this field knows a lot about, we're just not framing it within this like notion of youth mainstreaming or youth perspective.

So, I would link this process also to this, let's say question or dimension of terminology. So we wanted to kind of reiterate the fact that, it's not something new. and we didn't want to reinvent the wheel. So basically we looked at like the foundations of what we are doing now more systematically in the past in the youth field but also across other fields. So, this was the first step, this is what we did, we actually wanted to get our

language straight, you know. In that sense, we wanted to kind of [00:19:00] name things that can be grouped under youth mainstreaming or youth perspective, or just perspective and mainstreamingregardless of the fact that they were actually named in a different way also under different political realities. And this is also why they were named differently. And like from certain organizations that we actually already observed and then also from the past we know that some terminology is simply not acceptable within the political reality of this organization. So you actually don't say that, but you're doing it, right. So in that sense, we wanted to actually kind of match the hype around the concepts we are talking about also with of these concepts at the international level by also saying that or also recognising the fact that it's usually, I mean, sometimes it is, but you know, like a lot of things happened elsewhere as well at the [00:20:00] subnational level, at national levels and so on, because it's all always a matter of , window of opportunity, that is recognized in certain area or certain context. We feel and then we know that, and this is why youth is also so important. Youth is a very important field and a very relevant field for policy experimentation.

So in this sense, this is really something that actually also kind of put international organizations in a bit different position. Because actually at the national level, particularly now, you already see some, let's say, resentment or some hostility towards like very clear initiatives that would empower youth as political agents.

At the international level it's not so strong yet, I would say, even though at some organizations you can actually feel that, that youth can be also a [00:21:00] political force, that at some point becomes too powerful, too dangerous, you know, so we could sense this, but in a sense these organizations were, that we picked, were actually brilliant in terms of the experimentation they do,like the examples they set for other authorities. But at the same time, you know, like we also, realized that basically they take knowledge from other examples that are around and maybe in some cases national authorities and local authorities are even more familiar with. So like the first was the language and then it was actually not about, you know, like good and bad case of mainstreaming, but rather you know, like dimensions that actually contribute to what we feel mainstreaming is, right. So, and then we felt this is a goal. This is kind of a utopia that we're all like working [00:22:00] towards, right? And then in that sense, we wrote the paper as well by pointing out to the areas that actually are enablers of what we feel a proper youth mainstreaming or integration of youth perspectives is, because we don't feel we have an ideal model yet. I mean, in theory we do, but in practice we don't because we operate in the real world. So in that sense, we actually pointed out to areas that really demonstrate what such an instrument needs in order to perform well and with this we pointed out certain areas that are obviously very important and like through cases we identified for sure, like political leadership, like if you don't have the leader who's actually committed to that, it won't work. That's the end of the story.

Dariusz: I [00:23:00] think it's important to mention, and you didn't mention it, Thomas, that in your paper, you cover many international organizations, because here we usually in this podcast,

we usually talk about the European Union and the Council of Europe, but in your paper you refer to practices by the UN, by OECD, OSCE, I think the Commonwealth appears there. If you can share with us some very practical examples. How is it done on the level on international organizations, maybe not the Council of Europe and the European Union, although maybe we can as well.

But because we talked about it a little bit, how is it done? If there are any examples that actually surprised you?

Tomaz: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. Particularly when we talk to colleagues from the US or like elsewhere in the world sometimes we do realize that we're really Eurocentric, you know, like we're talking about Council of Europe all the time. We're talking about the EU and they're looking at okay. You know, like, so in [00:24:00] that sense we, we wanted to kind of also make our paper, I mean, to be honest, even if we would just focus on EU and Council of Europe, it would be, you know, like, but in order to actually also cover other relevant organizations out there we also obviously wanted to look at that as well because we knew that there are, because of different missions obviously, also different focuses there, different situations and contexts that could inform our work. So I would say, there were no major revelations, you know, or differences well, in fact if we look at all those those organizations, it was very clear that they all originate from the same source, right? We're talking about the mainstreaming definition said by the UN Commission on the Status of Women [00:25:00] from 1997. and that was it, right? Because it's so universal, and to be very honest, it's so good, you know, it's very well developed, it's based on those broad discussions.

So, this is what organizations are working with. You know, some of them, maybe like OECD, not so directly 'cause like their mission is also a bit different. But in general, you know, like this is what they work with and then I think this is very good 'cause basically we have a common frame here.

And even though we talked about different terminologies and then different mechanisms, we're actually talking about the same goal. You know, like we take it as a goal, it's kind of a utopia, and hopefully we'll be wrong, right? 'cause it's gonna be reality. We'll see. But anyway, it's a common framework that most or all of the organizations are using most of the time. And then this is, I guess also a good [00:26:00] insight into what they're doing. I think it's also quite an interesting result and this is why we were also kind of surprised that there's not so much coordination between them. In a way this is good 'cause it actually points out to, you know, like the enablers that I was talking about, before that it's like the position of young people that actually drives those,organizations.

It's also the threat, you know, like either political or, you know, like security or whatever of young people

that actually kind of pushes policymakers to deal with youth in a more comprehensive manner and, and in that sense, it makes sense, but it was still quite, a, quite an interestingthat we learned that basically organizations do not coordinate between themselves heavily, or that this coordination process is more, like I would say driven on a personal basis, on the basis of [00:27:00] individual actors that kind of are in charge or are in a way given the authority to address this field and then they're looking elsewhere about what other organizations are doing. And so on. So basically this knowledge sharing,

it's happening, but I would say that not at the level that we expect. Because there's so much knowledge sharing about various things also within the sector. This was quite a revelation for us. And then I think there should be more because there are like, various agents within those organizations that are interested in that and would profit from that, we actually talked to a few of them, they would all support this, right? So in this sense, this was something that we found striking, or at least this is something where we feel our research also adds value.

So, when I said there are organizations with different missions, [00:28:00] this is what we learned as well 'cause basically it, it doesn't make sense to copy paste the models from organisation to organisation because there are very clear terms of reference that the organisations have as well as the context they work within, and this was clear, this is then a very, well, informative variable when you're actually looking at, different organizations. 'cause for example, then the OECD, you know, why the OECD actually invest more in data, you know, more in, in a way also bench learning and so on.

And then also, this is why you then realize,like the Commonwealth invests more into mainstreaming of programs. You know, like programming or this is also why OSCE did a lot of work there because. They did a lot of work at the program level or very localized program levels. And then this is [00:29:00] wheretheir knowledge as well as experienceis built. So in, in that sense, I would say the mission of the organization, the context of organization shape the way they do the work.

And even though they started from the common definition, I would say,the images of the mainstreaming mechanisms that we see are quite different, you know, and then it should be like that, you know? But at the same time, what I would say It's very clear that all of them. Some, maybe some more than others. All of them are still like very heavily involved in the process of developing the system. So it's a work in progress. So it's all of them It's a goal, you know, like it's something that hopefully in the future will be there also, like structurally as well as in terms of the provision of impact [00:30:00] or the production of results that we all expect from those kinds of mechanisms. So I would say, it's like the universal work in progress. And I would say currently, and it's not something new, but also, you know, like work in progress in order to safeguard the mechanisms we already see are producing good results.

Dariusz: We can maybe look at the practical application of all of this all,the research especially for the cities or municipalities or maybe the countries, so national level governments, about the recommendations.

Because you put a lot of those recommendations in your research. So what would you Marco, recommend to those governments or municipalities that would like to start or are starting, but they're a little bit navigating in the dark.

Marko: Well, as you mentioned, there are quite, quite a few recommendations that we put, but I think that they can be clustered [00:31:00] into three main things. And this is quite in line what Tanya was just saying. The first one is that you really need to have a clear political mandate. So there needs to be a formal signal that you, it's a crosscutting concern and if you have a clear political mandate or if you can advocate at the highest level to have this political mandate. And the job is half done. But the other half of the job is the coordination infrastructure. And I think it's very important to just have a focal points or inter-ministerial working groups, or interdepartmental working groups that will be just in charge for the implementation.

And the last thing is, of course, something that we haven't seen, but I think that it is definitely something that has to befurther developed. And these are the mechanisms for youth input. So participatory structures must feed into the policy cycle, not just sit beside it. And that's why we still have to work on the meaningful integration of young people into [00:32:00] these policy processes.

So, political mandate, coordination infrastructures and the way how to involve young people. I would say is a winning recipe for quality youth mainstreaming slash youth perspective in whether in local or national level.

Dariusz: Thank you Marco. Thank you Tomaz and Tanya for this insightful conversation. You'll find the links to both studies in the notes to this episode. So this is the end and we hope you will listen to our next episode very soon. Thank you.