Youth advisory boards/panels
What is a Youth Advisory Board/Panel?
Youth advisory boards and panels are structured participation mechanisms where young people advise organizations, institutions, or decision-making bodies on policies, programs, and initiatives that impact youth. Advisory bodies don’t work as legislative or representative bodies but rather as consultative groups that provide youth perspectives on strategic decisions and program development.
Key characteristics
Youth advisory boards can function at local, national, or international levels and can be government-led, NGO-driven, or private sector initiatives. They often meet on a regular basis to be consulted on specific questions and/or to provide structured recommendations on any relevant matter to decision-makers. Members may be selected through an application process, based on their expertise, experience, diversity of youth perspectives and/or interests in the topic at hand, and are expected to serve for a set period of time. To be effective, boards/panels must have a clear mandate, diversity of perspectives, sufficient resources, transparent information and the genuine involvement and the interest of decision-makers to the youth voice. This model is particularly suitable for large-scale organizations that can benefit from regular but flexible youth input without the constraints of a permanent advisory structure.Different types of Youth advisory boards/panels
Youth Sounding Board
CSOs or NGO-led initiatives
Steering groups
Do NOT establish this model in case
you wish to establish independent and youth-led decision-making structures your primary goal would be to promote strong inclusivity and representativeness in the youth group you do not intend to follow-up on what is discussed/recommended, and only consider youth input as optional; you expect urgent decision-making processes