The New Global Citizen: Harnessing Youth Leadership to Reshape Civil Society

"Our data indicates that youth leadership can be characterized as: participatory, intersectional, networked, resourceful and grassroots-based."

From the organisation Rhize, this report shares the results of research that mapped 425 civil society institutions (CSIs) and 85 youth leaders in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US) to identify the strengths and gaps across CSIs in how they recruit, involve, and support new leaders. The report examines the trends of youth engagement in civil society, exposes why youth are critical in this changing civil society landscape and how their energy can be best leveraged towards positive social change and global development. In brief, it finds that the global development sector has not kept pace with the changing ways youth seek to create social change, creating a disconnect between formal civil society and the majority of youth leaders. The final sections of this report contains a blueprint for civil society institutions to use as a guide to adapting better practices to engaging youth and enabling stronger active citizenship. Accompanying this blueprint is an actionable strategy that suggests concrete steps for how to implement the recommendations.

The research took place at a time when, in Rhize's estimation, "international development and human rights institutions are at a crossroads: over the last seventy years, INGOs [international non-govermental organisations (NGOs)], with the ostensible role of challenging the status quo to promote social change, have become associated with upholding it. They have developed professional staff, funding strategies and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms oriented around supporting formal national and local NGOs. Yet, over the last decade, the civil society landscape has dramatically shifted. The growth of youth populations has given rise to more informal networks and social movements that do not fit the traditional profile of groups INGOs typically support. These new actors challenge the effectiveness and legitimacy of age-old institutions and put formal INGOs in a tenuous position."

Furthermore, Rhize argues that youth are bearing the brunt of growing socioeconomic inequality, with high unemployment rates and lower opportunities for access and mobility - even in the Global North (the focus of this research). Meanwhile, youth civic participation, with the exception of volunteering, has fallen in every measured indicator: voting, joining a political group, and boycotting. "Youth's growing mistrust in government's ability to respond adequately to societal needs, as seen in both their low participation in voting processes and engagement with traditional medial and news outlets has begun to extend to formal civil society institutions as well....Reliant on government relationships and funding, youth perceive INGOs as extensions of, or closely aligned with, the same government agendas that have disillusioned them."

Quantitative and qualitative survey and interview data from the 85 selected Emerging Catalysts offered further insight into youth leadership journeys and trends. In short, despite perceived disengagement, Rhize's research found that youth are actually at the helm of the new forces driving social change: dynamic networks, movements, enterprises, and other initiatives. As youth identify less with institutions that have given older generations more social and political belonging, they turn to more self-organised networks for support and recognition, based on new conceptions of membership, identity, and commitment. Having less money to give in uncertain economies, youth prefer to donate time, skills, and effort instead. The new forms of participation that youth have sought out in response to changing contexts shaped in the context of the increased visibility of social movements, the shortcomings of civil society infrastructure, and the rise of digital tools. To expand up on role of the latter example, Rhize finds that youth leaders are breaking down conventional delineations between local, national, and global action thanks to greater access to networks deriving from increased globalisation, changing migration patterns, and the mediation of digital technologies. This emergent landscape allows for grassroots groups and movements to build local-to-local connections and solidarity and to work together to create specific strategies driven and informed by local experiences of global issues: whether it be climate change, gender, or racial justice. These linkages allow for bottom-up grassroots coordination on international development and social change, in contrast to being explicitly centralised or directed from international organisations downward to local levels.

Rhize argues that, "[w]ithout understanding the new model of global citizenship - what we call 'participatory citizenship,' international development institutions will continue to miss the innovative, networked energy of youth leaders who are motivated, activated but need better support to achieve collective global impact." The report outlines a path forward through a Collective Civic Participation Framework (CCPF), a blueprint to guide INGO practitioners to foster participatory global leadership in emergent generations and create the necessary architecture that enables leaders to build translocal, networked, communities for sustainable development. This involves:

1. Developing a holistic architecture of participation by shifting institutional structures and resources to identify participatory leaders and help them proliferate systemic solutions, rooted in the grassroots, which involves:
   • "Identify diverse, participatory leaders at all levels and enable them to build an architecture of participation for stronger movements...
   • Convene and facilitate rather than dictate...
   • Flatten hierarchies, decentralize operations and connect grassroots networks transnationally to build connections between youth leaders in the Global North and Global South...
   • Build citizen-citizen organizing as a grounding for citizen-government advocacy...
   • Coaching and training: not sexy, but critical...
   • Invest in technology as essential but not a silver bullet...
   • Restructure funding for more direct support for youth-led initiatives to grow over the long-term..."
2. Aligning across organisations to collaborate, share resources, and build collective capacity throughout the sector, which involves:
   • "Share capacities and find opportunities for partnership...
   • Advocate to donors to fund more directly and to fund joint initiatives...
   • Succeed and fail together - it is more economical this way...
   • Connect current conversations to global goals, not the other way around...
3. Redefining impact and value to measure participatory leadership, collective action, and strong networks at all levels, which involves:
   • "Value participation and leadership as impact and success as actualization...
   • Evaluate the quality of participation, not inputs or outcomes...
   • Embrace informal and emerging initiatives, movements and networks for what they are and where they are...
   • Emphasize long-term strategies while ensuring tangible impact...
   • Self-care shouldn't be a myth....Building in breaks and spaces for reflection in programming helps leaders become more strategic so they do not waste valuable energy and allows them to embrace the individual practice of social justice - not just the collective struggle."

For CSIs to actualise this framework, it is important to work with the campaigns, networks, and movements embodying participatory citizenship. Through this Emerging Catalysts project research, Rhize built coalition of close to 30 organisations and donors that share a commitment to adapting their work to meet the needs of this changing landscape. To move this forward, Rhize's goal is to instate a Global Citizenship Lab, a hub of learning, testing, and exchange for organisations and donors to bring the CCPF's initial blueprint to fruition. The Global Citizenship Lab will enable INGOs to define and clarify their role in serving as effective intermediaries between high-level advocacy and grassroots initiatives and movements. Working together, members will mitigate risk, coordinate resources, and build shared sector knowledge and infrastructure for campaign and movement support.

Rhize concludes: "Youth recognize there are tangible ways that organizations could strengthen and support their work. They are seeking expertise, best practices, networking and capacity building to improve their skill set and develop their leadership. Formalized civil society still has a ways to go to build the infrastructure needed to support these innovative leaders and must shift vantage point from top-down directors of change to that of support providers. The global development sector must leverage their capacity and shift to new modalities of engagement before they lose relevance."