1. January 2013 Page 1 of 24
Youth active citizenship: an analysis of external and
internal trends, barriers and strategies
Annabel Brown, Anna Powell and Geoff Hazell
1. Introduction
Oxfam International Youth Partnerships (OIYP) is a global network of over one thousand young
people working with their communities to create positive, equitable and sustainable change. OIYP
is an Oxfam International initiative managed by Oxfam Australia.
Oxfam International is a confederation of seventeen international non-government organisations,
know as Oxfam affiliates1
. Oxfam is networked together in more than 90 countries “as part of a
global movement of change, to build a future free from the injustice of poverty. [Oxfam] works
directly with communities and seeks to influence the powerful to ensure that poor people can
improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that affect them”.2
OIYP is currently going through a change process. The aim is to explore opportunities to directly or
indirectly continue to invest in an evolution of the OIYP program and network. Oxfam will do this in
conversation with the Oxfam International (OI) Secretariat and affiliates with an interest in global
programs around active citizenship and youth engagement.
This paper aims to identify opportunities and likely barriers to the evolution of the OIYP program. It
surveys and analyses the context within which the OIYP programming is taking place, both internal
to OI and external. It seeks to support the options development and decision-making in the OIYP
change process.
2. Scope and Parameters
For the sake of timeliness and brevity, the context analysis has been kept to a limited scan for
now. Any further work to drill down into specific areas, strategies or the work of particular affiliates
will be undertaken when the options for the future have been identified.
The analysis is broken up into the three inter-related components of:
i) trends affecting youth active citizenship;
ii) barriers and challenges for young people as active citizens; and
iii) key strategies and areas of engagement for supporting youth active citizenship adopted
across civil society and the Oxfam confederation.
The external analysis specifically focuses on domains relevant to civil society interventions and in
particular of INGOs. The authors have drawn on a limited review of targeted literature and a
breadth of current youth active citizenship programs.
The internal analysis explores the Oxfam landscape, including work initiated and managed by the
Oxfam International Secretariat, the Oxfam affiliates, and the Oxfam country teams. There is an
emphasis in this paper on the regions where Oxfam Australia is active – South Asia, Southern
Africa, East Asia, Pacific, and in Australia3
– as well as on countries and regions where English is
the dominant language used within Oxfam affiliates. Therefore, there is little documented here
about the regions of West Africa, the Middle East and Maghreb, Central America, Mexico and the
Caribbean; despite documents and interviewees suggesting these regions may have a particular
interest in working with young people.
1
For a complete list of Oxfam affiliates see Annex 1
2
www.oxfam.org/en/about
3 Oxfam Australia is the managing affiliate in Timor Leste, Indonesia, South Africa and Sri Lanka. Oxfam currently has management
responsibilities in the Pacific countries of Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, with plans to transition out of managing in these countries in
the medium term.

2. January 2013 Page 2 of 24
There are a number of different labels used for countries that are deemed to be emerging in terms
of their economic strength and political power. BRICSAM denotes Brazil, Russia, India, China,
South Africa and Mexico. CIVET denotes Columbia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt and Turkey. For
ease we have used the term ‘emerging economies’ to refer to these countries. Furthermore, the
focus in this analysis is on supporting those young people living in poor and middle income
countries rather than those young people living in high income countries.
The UN defines youth as 15 to 24 years although there is broad recognition that youth is a broad
term and often context specific. For the purpose of this paper, we distinguish between adolescents
and young adults, focusing on the specific contextual implications for the active citizenship of
young adults, typically aged 18 – 24 and sometimes older in many parts of the world (UNICEF
2011; UN Population Division 2011).
3. The Broad Context
i. Global trends and youth active citizenship
The literature points to five significant global trends that relate directly to youth active citizenship.
These trends demonstrate the critical role of youth active citizenship in a transformational agenda
for positive change; and the risk of not supporting young people as positive agents of change.
Whilst these global trends reach beyond young people, they do highlight the necessity of
supporting positive youth active citizenship in today’s world.
a. Changing populations: our largest ever youth population
There are rapidly increasing youth populations in some regions coupled with rising ageing
populations in others. The youth generation today is the largest the world has ever seen, placing
increasing pressure on demand for education, health and employment as well as presenting a
powerful force for transformative political and social change.
With an estimated 1.2 billion people aged 15 to 24 across the world, there is a sizable youth bulge
in many lower and middle income countries. Since 1980 there has been a decreasing proportion
of young people in higher income countries (UN Population Division 2011). The UN estimates that
the majority of the world’s youth live in developing countries and this proportion is expected to rise
to 89.5% by 2025.
Asia has the highest proportion of young people with a rapidly growing population doubling over
the last 40 years, despite a decline in the overall population across East, South and Central Asia.
The highest proportion of young people for any continent is in Africa with 70% of the continent’s
population under the age of 30 in 2010 (UNPY 2010). In the Pacific region, a fifth of the region’s
total population is between 15 – 24 years and over a quarter is between 15 – 30 years (UNICEF
2011). The Middle East has a ballooning youth population with over 20% now aged between 15 –
24 years, the same as for Latin America (UNPY 2010). The youth bulge in each of these regions,
whilst felt more sharply in some countries than others, is regarded as a critical factor in the shocks
stemming from the global financial crisis, resulting in rising youth unemployment. In the Middle
East for example, 50% of unemployed people are youth and the majority of these are young
women.
This generation of young people are also more urbanised than ever before. As a result we are
seeing a double-edged sword of greater connectedness for some, and also greater isolation from
family and cultural support networks for those who have migrated in search of education and
employment opportunities, or because of forced migration.
Longstanding, deeply entrenched political and economic issues effecting young people’s rights and
responsibilities as citizens, are not being addressed at the rate that the youth population is

3. January 2013 Page 3 of 24
expanding in many countries. With a growing youth population in Africa, Middle East, South Asia
and the Pacific in particular, there is also an increased need to address the lack of infrastructure
and systems required to be accountable to young people and support their role as citizens.
b. Globalisation, complexity and changing power dynamics
Today’s world is characterised by complex and interwoven issues presenting new pressures on
marginalised groups, including young people. These issues include climate change, food security,
resource scarcity, violence against women and armed conflict. They are driven by entrenched and
systemic political, economic and cultural forces spanning across national boundaries and many of
these issues have material impacts on the rights of young people. They require civil society to
carve out a transformative agenda to tackle deeply embedded injustices at the local and global
levels. They also require all institutions to find politically savvy approaches to tackling these issues,
presenting new opportunities for the active engagement of young people in holding duty bearers to
account.
We are seeing a changing relationship between citizens and states as the role for non-state actors
becomes more prominent and authority becomes more diffuse across a range of actors and
institutions (Edwards 2011). At the same time, poverty and inequality in many middle income
countries is transitioning from being an international distribution problem to a national issue of
taxation and redistribution. Geo-political power dynamics are changing with the growing influence
of the emerging economies, changing the role of traditional global governance structures of the
UN. This is leading to new questions about the role of civil society in entering the new spaces that
open up with this shift in global power dynamics and processes (Edwards 2011).
However at this international level, young people continue to experience limited and fragmented
access to influence multilateral forums and governance processes, for example at the recent CO17
negotiations (CIVICUS 2012). The issue of access and representation is part of a broader issue for
civil society. However for young people specifically, there is a trend towards young people having
their voices mediated by the agendas of large INGOs and coalitions or sidelined in people’s
assemblies, outside the formal and recognised decision making forums (CIVICUS 2012; Edwards
2011).
As a result of these complex global issues, there is a renewed call for strategies to focus on
interaction between institutions and citizens in constructing and implementing developmental
outcomes at national and global levels (Gaventa & McGee, 2010). The changing dynamics and
growing interdependencies demands a nuanced and multi-layered approach to citizenship and
accountability with a particularly critical role for young people in middle income countries. Realising
the potential of these strategies will require deeper investment in the agents of change to have the
capacity to shape effective development and positive social change through both formal and
informal networks and coalitions and shifts in the role of INGOs to facilitate this (Leftwich 2010).
c. Our most connected generation
Coupled with an increasingly complex and interdependent world, young people are also now more
connected than in previous generations. There are two significant trends in relation to this
connectedness: access to new technologies and global education movements. Both trends have
deeply rooted inequalities associated with them, often perpetuating existing privileges. However,
both new technologies and education opportunities are changing the conditions of, as well as
presenting new opportunities for, youth active citizenship.
New technologies
Since the early 1990s the global networked population has grown a thousand fold (Shirky 2011).
With 68 mobile phone subscriptions and 27 internet users per 100 people globally, the use of ICT
technologies have grown significantly in recent years (Ling & Horst 2011). The Knight Foundation

4. January 2013 Page 4 of 24
predicts that with current internet penetration estimated at just 29% globally in 2010, the global
trend towards interconnectedness will continue to grow. They suggest that the new era for
connectivity will be in mobile handsets with world-wide usage expected to double every year until
2014.
This growth of ICT and new forms of media and communication are changing the way we engage
with each other, our communities, governments, and other actors (Kinsman, 2011; Ling & Horst,
2011). Young people are accessing new information, values and ideas through new information
technologies. This is enabling an increase in both transformational and transactional forms of
engagement and challenging the assumptions about the nature and preconditions for affecting
political, economic and social change.
Young people are forming networks and coalitions, albeit often loose connections online. Many are
now able to advocate on issues within and beyond their traditional state boundaries and rapidly
spread new information through online tools. For example, in the case of the Japanese 2011
emergencies, the rapid spread of information by young people proved to be vital in reducing the
impact of the crisis (CIVICUS 2012). At the transformational level, young people are also utilising
the benefits of new technologies to shift their engagement to offline political engagement.
This melding of online to offline forms of engagement is seen in the tipping point of the uprisings in
Tunisia and Arab Spring more broadly, the Occupy movement and in the changing consumer
patterns of middle class young people. A recent study also suggests a relationship between
increasing online engagement with non-political forums that are participatory in nature with an
increase in civic and political action, with the non-political spaces acting as a gateway to more
politically informed and active citizenship (CIVICUS 2012).
New technologies are also bringing about new forms of censorship and control of young people.
The perceived freedom that was initially associated with the rise of the internet in the 1990s is now
met with an increase in cyber-policing, presenting real threats to the voice of young people in many
oppressive regimes.
There is much literature, evidence and lived experience that points to the opportunities new
technology presents for youth active citizenship. It has in many respects transformed how
institutions and individuals communicate with young people. This potential must however be held
with appreciation of two important questions: to what extent does the digital divide continue to
perpetuate inequalities? And, what are the preconditions for maximising the benefits that new
technology (as a tool) can bring about?
For this second question, there is a need to focus less on the tool of technology and more on the
overarching organising strategy that accounts for the politics of change as the starting point. In the
case of the Arab Spring, it was not necessarily young people or the technology they used that
resulted in the protests in Tunisia (CIVICUS 2012). Decades of building the leadership capacities
of citizens coupled with the wicked mix of economic and political drivers laid the foundations for
young people to trigger a seismic shift in power through their combined finger and foot power.
Education
Formal education is another significant driver of increasing connectedness of young people – in
particular of elites and middle classes. There is an increasing segment of young people who now
identify as global citizens; who due to the opportunities afforded by overseas education, are now
sharing interests, understandings and cultures across borders. At the same time, these young
people are also negotiating their own individual and collective identity as they reconcile their
cultural and political values with their traditional culture and societal norms (UNFPA 2008).
Overall, the trend towards growing global awareness works in conjunction with the prevalence of
new technologies. Each presents unfounded and unique opportunities to harness the inter-
connections across traditional state boundaries, particularly of relatively elite and influential young
people.

5. January 2013 Page 5 of 24
d. Protests and rising intergenerational inequality
Rising inequality, rising food and fuel prices, a youth bulge, high youth unemployment - including of
highly educated and young people - and increasing urbanization are contributing to a growing
unrest and economic disadvantage amongst young people, particularly in middle income countries.
Literature points to the increasing economic inequality and lack of opportunity, exacerbated by
repercussions from the global financial crisis, for young people as key underlying causes of the
2011 protests in UK, Spain, Portugal, East Africa and the Arab Spring (CIVICUS 2012). In 2012,
youth unemployment stood at 75 million people, a significant proportion of the total 200 million
unemployed globally - a critical contributing factor of economic inequality, social and cultural
alienation and a symbolic breach of the contract between citizen and the state (UNPD 2011).
The Middle East as a region has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world, standing at
20% of the total youth population not able to find formal employment. Young people constitute
more than 50% of the total unemployed in the Middle East region, a key contributing factor in the
Arab Spring protests. In Portugal, the ‘desperate generation’ protest of 2011 was sparked by
young people taking action on youth unemployment and on the inequalities facing them. Similar
conditions also lead to the Chile protests, which grew from growing discontentment about the
perpetuation of economic inequality through the higher education system. The UK riots, while
having different origins, were also in part a materialisation of alienation by young people and
growing economic inequality.
ii. Oxfam’s analysis and response
a. Geography
Oxfam actively undertakes development work in ninety-four countries across twelve regions of the
world4
. The advocacy and campaigning of Oxfam touches on issues pertinent to even more
countries, and Oxfam responds to humanitarian crises in countries in which the confederation is
not usually active, if required.
The majority of Oxfam affiliate headquarter offices 5
are in high income countries, with the
exception of three affiliates based in emerging economies - Oxfam Hong Kong, Oxfam Mexico and
Oxfam India. Oxfam has a growth strategy that targets working in emerging economies and
therefore there is a process underway in Brazil and there a new affiliate is being discussed in
South Africa. As mentioned above, the majority of people living in poverty are now in middle
income countries. The middle classes of emerging economies are increasingly becoming involved
in the fight to eradicate poverty, and the political and economic influence of emerging economies is
increasingly apparent. Emerging economies are understood by Oxfam to be increasingly important
and the newly drafted Oxfam Strategic Plan 2013 to 20196
emphasises the need for Oxfam to
engage effectively with emerging economies in a number of ways.
Each country in which Oxfam is active has been designated a managing Oxfam affiliate which has
management responsibility for the work of Oxfam in that country. Country and regional governance
structures oversee the contribution of other Oxfam affiliates in that country/region. Each regional
and global initiative is designated a lead Oxfam affiliate.
4
Africa (East and Central; Horn; Southern; West), Middle East and Mahgreb, Asia (Mekong; South; Archipelago), Pacific, Latin America
(Central America, Mexico and Caribbean; South) Eastern Europe and the Former States of the USSR
5
With the exception of Oxfam Hong Kong, Oxfam Mexico and Oxfam India
6 Oxfam Strategic Plan Draft 1, October 2012

6. January 2013 Page 6 of 24
b. Themes
In the broadest sense Oxfam supports women, men and children living in poverty, to claim their
rights to sustainable livelihoods, to basic social services, to life and security, to be heard, and to an
identity. In the most recent strategic plan period (2007 to 2012) Oxfam’s work has focused on the
four ‘change goals’ of:
 economic justice, including agriculture, natural resources and climate change
 essential services, including education, health and HIV and AIDS
 rights in crisis, including peace and security
 gender justice, including violence against women
There are also themes that cut across Oxfam’s work, including indigenous and minority rights,
active citizenship and aid effectiveness. Gender justice, as well as being a stand-alone change
goal is also a theme cutting across Oxfam’s work.
Youth outreach is a cross-cutting theme of Oxfam’s work, although it is less prominent than others.
The youth outreach theme, as described on the Oxfam International website7
, suggests a focus on:
developing young people’s leadership capacity; deepening their understanding of rights and
responsibilities; assisting the development of young people’s networks locally and internationally;
and supporting them to take control of their lives and actively engage in their communities and the
wider society. The initiatives showcased to exemplify this thematic area are predominantly ones
that engage young people living in the home countries of Oxfam affiliates.
The last strategic plan and the text describing Oxfam and its focus on the website represent the
work over the past five years. Recently, as a precursor to the Oxfam Strategic Plan development, a
review analysed the contents of all of the available Oxfam Joint Country Analysis and Strategies
(JCAS)8
. At that time 48 JCAS were available in draft or final form, representing approximately half
of the countries in which Oxfam works. This gives a signal of what Oxfam is projected to focus on
over the next five to ten year period.
The JCAS review found that in the vast majority of the countries reviewed (94%), Oxfam was
committed to work towards economic justice with the primary focus under this change goal for
nearly all of these country programs being on rural livelihoods; namely agriculture and pastoralism.
Rights in crisis was the next most popular change goal in Oxfam strategies, featuring in 81% of the
JCAS. The emphasis was on disaster risk reduction and was often linked to livelihoods work.
Humanitarian response was also a significant program area.
Gender justice was the next most popular area of work (77%) in the countries reviewed, with an
emphasis on implementation of progressive legislation in regards to gender-related violence,
enhanced participation of women and the economic empowerment of women, as well as others.
Essential services and active citizenship were next with approximately 50% of JCAS featuring work
in these domains.
Over the course of the last five to ten years, active citizenship has become more and more
prominent in Oxfam’s strategic thinking, approach and language. The JCAS review noted that the
work under the active citizenship domain is both “prolific and consolidated” (p.7) and that “active
citizenship and governance are central to how Oxfam sees the problems of poverty and how it
works to overcome it” (p.16). Active citizenship featured in the work of Oxfam as a stand-alone and
a cross-cutting objective with the two large areas of Oxfam’s engagement being in:
7
See www.oxfam.org/en/about/issues/youth
8
Sanchez de Ocaña, M. A Review of Oxfam Joint Country Analysis and Strategy documents, December 2011. Joint Country Analysis
and Strategy Documents have been developed by Oxfam country teams and describe the trends of poverty and injustice in the country
in focus, the strategic intent and projected workplan of Oxfam.

7. January 2013 Page 7 of 24
 Democratic Governance: promoting civil society organisation and participation in decision-
making; alliance building, education and campaigning for citizen engagement, and
strengthening capacities for internal governance and external engagement.
 Public Institutionalism: strengthening state institutions and practices as well as the rule of
law; monitoring the performance of duty bearers; capacity building; transparent
management of government revenues; pro-poor investment; and civil society engagement
with local government.
Not only has the work within the active citizenship area become more prolific and more prominent,
it is now gaining more recognition within Oxfam. Indicative of this newfound recognition, the draft
Oxfam Strategic Plan features a change goal focused on active citizenship or more specifically,
people to claim their rights to a better life. The change goal focuses on supporting the actualisation
of the ‘right to be heard’, which comprises of freedom of thought, opinion, expression, assembly
and political participation9
. The expected impact of this change goal area is that “more women,
young people and other poor and marginalised people will exercise civil and political rights
influence decision-making by engaging with governments and by holding governments and
businesses accountable to respect their rights”10
.
Active citizenship is now taking its place as a stand-alone goal in Oxfam’s strategy as well as a
cross-cutting theme. The main strategies of this change goal area are grouped under the
organising effectively; access to information and technology; public decision and policy-making
spaces; access to justice; and global citizenship. The change goal will have a specific focus on
women and youth, give their particular vulnerabilities.
Oxfam India’s Strategy for 2010 – 2015, is a strong example of country analysis linking active
citizenship with young people, along with the emerging middle classes more broadly. The strategy
states that, in India “there are tremendous opportunities and potential for the youth to be in the
forefront of social transformation and development. Equitable distribution of prosperity and peace
is likely to happen faster when youth are perceived as being inextricably linked with community
development.”11
Oxfam campaigns and advocates on a plethora of issues across the globe, all in line with the
change goal focus mentioned above. The current global campaign enjoying the engagement of
many of the Oxfam affiliates and country teams is called GROW. It is focused on food justice
issues and the global food system. The GROW campaign is the major focus of resources - both
time and money - in the Oxfam confederation currently.
It is worth noting in Oxfam’s thematic analysis that it is very rare to see the thematic priorities
voiced from a young person’s perspective. Young people are almost always spoken about as a
potential target group. Engaging young people is therefore taken up in more detail in the ‘People
Oxfam is working with’ section below. The country analysis and strategies from Vanuatu and
Oxfam India are the exceptions to this that were reviewed by the researcher.
c. Ways of working
Oxfam uses a combination of rights-based sustainable development programs, public education,
Fair Trade, campaigns, advocacy, and humanitarian assistance in disasters and conflicts; a blend
of work the organisation calls the ‘one-program approach’. The ‘one program approach’, as a way
of working, is recognised in the JCAS review to be a distinctive element of Oxfam’s value.
Oxfam predominantly works with and through civil society partners in the countries in which it is
active. This includes community based organisations, unions, women’s groups and networks, non-
9
Oxfam Strategic Plan 2013 – 2019 Draft 1, October 2012
10
Oxfam Strategic Plan 2013 – 2019 Draft 2, December 2012
11
Oxfam India Strategy 2010 – 2015, p.23

8. January 2013 Page 8 of 24
government organisations focused in different thematic areas and many more. The concept and
reality of Oxfam’s partnership with civil society is changing in response to the changing power
dynamics mentioned in the external analysis above, as well as the changing nature of civil society.
Oxfam’s draft Strategic Plan12
suggests that the agency will expand its network of partnerships to
include more transient actors, social movements and digital communities. The agency recognises
the important role of young people within these movements and communities. “Civil society is
evolving and learning rapidly, with new activist movements using digital communication and
sharing real-time information. These movements are often led by young people opposing political
tyranny, corporate greed and reckless plundering of the planet’s resources.” (OSP p.3)
As the shifts take place in civil society and broader power dynamics, Oxfam sees its role shifting
from one of a funder and advocate to one of a broker, convenor and connector; bringing together
different (and unlikely) stakeholders to foster understanding and solutions to shared problems.
Oxfam also works with governments and the private sector. When responding to humanitarian
crises or campaigning and advocating for change, particularly when at a regional or global level,
Oxfam implements work directly.
Oxfam affiliates engage the public in their home countries in Oxfam’s work through raising their
awareness on issues of concern, campaigning, fundraising and volunteering. Young people are a
significant population group that Oxfam affiliates work with in their home countries, particularly in
volunteering and campaigning.
d. People Oxfam is working with
It is difficult to generalise about the groups of people Oxfam works with and seeks to benefit. It is
an impossibly broad group as Oxfam seeks to support men, women and children living in poverty
and facing injustice. In actuality, children are very rarely engaged with directly by Oxfam or its
partners, but are understood to benefit from Oxfam’s work through benefits to their families13
.
Within this broad population of people living in poverty or facing injustice, certain population groups
that are particularly marginalized on the basis of their identity – indigenous peoples, ethnic
minorities, people living with disability, for example – are targeted by programs. Rural populations
are far more significant in Oxfam’s work than those living in urban settings. Due to the widespread
emphasis on rural livelihoods, agriculturalists and pastoralists are a significant target group.
Women are now, more than ever, extremely prominent in Oxfam’s target population with the JCAS
Review finding that “the primary targets of Oxfam’s actions are rural women in 73 per cent of
JCAS” (p.8).
The JCAS Review suggests that youth are currently one of the “missing stories” of Oxfam’s
narratives, stating that “3114
per cent of JCAS want to target young people, but most are not very
specific about how to do so”. There is very little discussion of young people in the JCAS generally
and in the draft Oxfam Strategic Plan. “How to engage with ever-more disenfranchised (and
unemployed) youth” is identified in the JCAS Review as one of the global trends affecting poverty
that needs more development by Oxfam (JCAS Review p. 8).
Young people are most frequently discussed in the country analysis as significant due to the size
of their population and/or their importance in social development. They are often associated with
unrest, disenfranchisement and unemployment. Young people are also referred to as leaders of
the future, for example in the Papua New Guinea (PNG) and Pakistan JCAS and the Oxfam India
Strategy, although this is rarer. As the strategic documents become more specific about goals,
strategies and target populations they become more silent about young people. For example, in
Timor Leste and PNG, the following sentiments are expressed: “...recognising youth as a
12
Oxfam Strategic Plan 2013 – 2019 Draft 1, October 2012
13
Some exceptions to this include working with orphans and other vulnerable children and work focused on early education.
14
Countries that want to target young people include: Eritrea, Niger, Senegal, Kenya, Burundi, Tanzania, Timor-Leste, Afghanistan,
Honduras, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Papua New Guinea, Maghreb, El Salvador, Burkina Faso, Cuba, Guatemala, Zambia.

9. January 2013 Page 9 of 24
disproportionately large segment of the population, their potential role in development as well as
the potential threat related to social stability, inclusion of youth in programmes will be explored and
their role in development process monitored.” (Timor Leste JCAS p.4) There are of course
exceptions to this with the Vanuatu and the Pakistan JCAS, as well as the Oxfam India strategy,
being three reviewed by the researcher. In the Vanuatu JCAS young people are referred to
explicitly in the program goals and strategies and Oxfam India recognises that it is imperative to
engage with young people and facilitate opportunities and spaces for them to effect meaningful
changes in their own lives and in those around them.
When young people are sought as a target group it is most often as part of livelihoods work, in line
with the analysis of their position in society and the current emphasis of Oxfam programming.
Young people are the target group of 23% of Oxfam’s economic justice programming15
. Less often
the leadership and empowerment of young people is the focus. That said in some instances,
although not mentioned in strategic documents, there is work going on in country that engages
young people. In Indonesia for example, young people are working with Oxfam on the “We Can”
campaign to stop domestic violence and on the GROW campaign to raise awareness on the
inequities of the global food system. Young people are also the target of current programming on
HIV and AIDS awareness raising in Southern African and Pacific countries.
The Pacific region is significant in that there is a relatively strong history of working with young
people there, albeit on a small scale. There has been focused youth programming in the countries
of Vanuatu, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and PNG for almost 10 years. The extent to which that will
continue is unknown, but the analysis of the country contexts in that region invariably highlights the
importance of young people as a population group.
The Oxfam Australia Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program continues to have a youth
focus in one of the three program areas, with an emphasis on active citizenship, raising youth
voices and youth development.
Oxfam India have identified a Youth Active Citizenship Program. In recognition that young people
are a force for change, the program engages young active citizens as volunteers, working towards
change in a variety of settings.
Please note again, there is little documented here about the regions of West Africa, the Middle
East and Maghreb, Central America and Mexico; despite documents and interviewees suggesting
these regions may have a particular interest in working with young people. It is also worth noting
that JCAS continue to emerge from country teams, so the full extent of engagement with young
people and youth active citizenship across Oxfam’s work will not be known for some time to come.
Country and regional program teams continue to grapple with the issue of whether it is most
effective to mainstream young people and their issues into all appropriate programming or to
develop separate stand-alone programming focused on youth16
. Vanuatu has decided to take the
following approach, as articulated in their JCAS: “To date the vast majority of our overall program
has been supporting a range of specific projects targeting young people. This program broadens
the issues we work on beyond this youth focus, but has youth and young people as a key cross
cutting issue/a key population that we need to focus on and support.” (Vanuatu JCAS p.8-9)
Despite regional and affiliate differences, interviewees and document analysis suggest a
generalisation that from a country program perspective, working with young people is new to most
of Oxfam and past efforts have been ad hoc, in that they have not been part of a larger strategy of
engagement. Increasingly however, young people are identified as an important population group
and a desire to work more closely with them is apparent.
Oxfam’s campaigning has undoubtedly worked with young people over the course of many years.
The current GROW campaign is active citizenship focused and has engaged young active citizens
15
Review of Joint Country Analysis and Strategy documents
16
Pacific Youth Program Reflection Report, S.I Youth Program Review, Vanuatu JCAS, PNG JCAS

10. January 2013 Page 10 of 24
at multiple levels and across many countries, including in the home countries of Oxfam affiliates.
Emerging economies present special opportunities for engaging young active citizens with their
increasingly engaged, well educated and active middle classes. The Indonesian JCAS notes the
opportunities to innovate: “We intend to allocate a proportion of our resources to experimental
processes such as: supporting new and more efficient models of change, engagement with new
sectors of the community on different issues, linking appropriate technology and or social media to
initiatives and divergent alliances.” (Indonesia JCAS p.18-19)
4. Barriers to youth active citizenship
Numerous deeply entrenched political, cultural and economic barriers inhibit – and often work
against – young people contributing to positive social change. These barriers transcend into the
practices, attitudes and values of the institutions and leaderships that either deliberately or
inadvertently impede the capacity of young people’s active citizenship. The following section
outlines the most significant challenges to youth active citizenship in a general sense whilst
acknowledging the unique individual, contextual and historical factors that are also at play.
a. Marginalisation of young people
To different extents, cultural norms and customs are often the dominant barriers that young people
explicitly point to when describing their experience of agitating for change. Respect for elders is
well understood and well documented as a cultural norm, often leading to young people assuming
they need to wait their time to influence and lead. These cultural understandings of age and
authority are often then normalised in the systems, structures and programs of institutions.
There are also disproportionate levels of access and opportunities between young people. Young
indigenous peoples, people living with a disability, sexual minority groups and young women
predominantly experience more barriers than other young people (UNDP 2010; CIVICUS 2012).
This is seen in both formal civic participation processes and also in the informal local change; often
with young people viewed as recipients of services and programs rather than drivers of change.
Young people from rural areas and isolated urban areas experience the additional barriers of
limited access to information, networks and opportunities to consider challenging the status quo.
b. Political risk
Persecution of activists, including young people, remains to be a tactic used by the state in many
countries, evidenced in the actions of long standing regimes during the 2011 Arab Spring as well
as in China, Russia, Zimbabwe and Fiji, to name a few. Women and minority groups, including
human rights defenders and LGBTI activists are particularly vulnerable targets for intimidation and
harassment (CIVICUS 2012).
The rise of the internet has also created new spaces for political expression yet has also created a
new form of political censorship and state backlash against young activists through cyber-policing
and restriction of internet usage.
Fear and experience of political persecution is a particular barrier for young people not aware of
their right to protest or with inadequate support and protection to do so. The long term costs for
mobilising and speaking out can also lead to burn-out and disengagement from political activism,
compounded by the need for financial as well as personal security.
c. Economic security
Increasing youth unemployment combined with rising cost of living and resource scarcity is a
significant barrier for young people to sustain their active citizenship. The opportunities for

11. January 2013 Page 11 of 24
continuing to participate in political, economic and social change become less obvious and in many
cases, more limited for young people in their early to mid 20s. Whilst this is an area relatively
unexplored in the literature, we know from experience that young people feel pressure to choose
between continuing their work for social change or secure their livelihoods through formal work.
With the growing presence of the private sector in lower and middle income countries, talented
young leaders are often attracted to secure, relatively well paying jobs. The cognitive dissonance
people experience in shifting from civic engagement to private sector work can also present a false
choice between ethical or self-interested behaviours. The narrow view of active citizenship as only
occurring through engagement formal politics or NGOs and community based organisations
(CBOs) helps to perpetuate this either-or perception.
d. Dominant strategies of civil society
Whilst there is large-scale investment in youth participation and leadership across civil society,
private sector foundations and government bodies, there are also significant barriers in these
programs enabling youth active citizenship. The limitations of civil society in general terms include:
 Gaps in funding: Open Society Foundation (2011) found that there is a proliferation of funding
for youth leadership, service provision and youth participation programs. However there are
significant gaps in funding directly to young people and youth-led organisations for piloting new
initiatives, innovations and supporting political change processes led by young people.
 Mediation of voices of young people: one dominant model of NGOs, particularly in the global
North, is to promote youth voices in decision making to influence policy and practice. At the
international policy level, this means NGOs play a ‘proxy role’ for young people. This model
can be seen as a filtering of the real voices of young people and is being challenged by new
forms of citizen organizing (Trocaire 2011).
 Lack of nimbleness to respond: literature is already pointing to the relative insignificance of
INGOs and CBOs in the tipping point of recent Arab Spring movements, regardless of their
longer term work that may have contributed to these changes. Whilst civil society organisations
were not necessarily seen as a barrier, they were generally not viewed as relevant institutions
at that point in time. NGOs and CBOs in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are now asking new
questions about their role and relevancy to active citizens and there has been a rapid increase
in youth memberships across these countries in the last year (CIVICUS 2012).
Trocaire (2011) argues that one reason for broader growing irrelevancy of many NGOs to
support communities is due to the rigid frameworks within many large organisations. With the
need to be accountable to both donors and partners, often as a conduit between the two, they
argue that many NGOs are struggling to continue to change and adapt to the needs of the
communities, including of young people.
 Focus on building capacity of individual leaders: the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP)
argues that it is 'leaderships’ as a collective process, rather than the creation of individual
leaders, that contributes to developmental outcomes (Leftwich 2010). Whilst there is a broad
spectrum of leadership development programs ranging from the individual to collective models,
analysis of existing strategies suggests a skew towards focusing on the individual traits of
leaders (de Ver and Kennedy 2011). These strategies are also often implemented through a
Western model of personal development as opposed to fostering political processes of
leaderships through networks and coalitions, in context.
e. Current operational constraints for the Oxfam confederation

12. January 2013 Page 12 of 24
Oxfam International has been focused for the last three years on implementing a fundamental
change to the way the confederation works internationally. Its purpose is to drive a greater degree
of impact from Oxfam’s work and yet value the diversity of approaches and capacity among
confederation members. This has been reflected in an operational change, whereby each of the
country programs will integrate under one country strategy and come under the management of a
single lead Oxfam affiliate. This change process has been absorbing, of both time and resources
and will continue to be significant in the coming years. This means that structures for governing
and managing regional and global programming, including that which is focused on active
citizenship, are still emerging in some instances. For many countries in this first round of country
analysis and country strategies, this has resulted in incorporating and consolidating the existing
country programming of all active Oxfam affiliates, rather than developing new strategic directions
and initiatives. There are of course exceptions to this. In 2012 the confederation has been focused
on developing its future Oxfam Strategic Plan, and as countries review their country strategies in
the future, they will align further to the confederation’s direction and priorities.
The change process, called the Single Management Structure (SMS) change is mentioned here as
something that could constrain Oxfam’s programming and strategic vision now, but is projected to
create further opportunities in the future (in some cases the immediate future).
Due to the cascading impact of the global financial crisis in 2009 many Oxfam affiliates are
experiencing resource constraints. Again, this is a constraining factor in regards to new,
exploratory areas of programming, although it can be seen as a significant motivation to find new
and efficient ways of working that maximizes synergies and resources.
Oxfam’s mode of working predominantly with and through civil society partners can be a
constraint. If there are few available partners who are youth-led, or are working in the area of youth
active citizenship, then country teams may be reluctant to engage young people directly. The key
exceptions here perhaps are Oxfam Hong Kong, Oxfam India and Oxfam Mexico who are all
based in emerging economies. The signal towards new partnerships with an expanding group of
civil society actors, as discussed above, represents an opportunity.
Oxfam’s advocacy and campaigning model, at the global and regional levels particularly, has
historically given Oxfam a mediator role (or proxy role as discussed above) where Oxfam have
represented the voices of those they work with. At least civil society partners have taken that role,
if not Oxfam. Recognising some of the external pressures discussed above, the new strategic plan
signals change in this regard with an emphasis on an enabling, connecting and brokering role with
a broader range of actors, both new and established. As Oxfam transitions away from the proxy
role and more firmly into an enabler role this may move from being a constraint to being an
opportunity to embrace youth active citizenship.
Furthermore, until this point, there has been limited capacity within Oxfam Australia (and arguably
Oxfam more broadly) to working effectively with young people. Although there are pockets of
excellent work, it has never been under the umbrella of a clear, organisation (or confederation)
wide framework or strategy. In Oxfam Australia, experience has shown that young people have not
been effectively engaged as participants in programming and operational decision-making, but
instead young people have found Oxfam to be largely impenetrable in that sense. These are
barriers to effectively supporting young active citizens that will need to be overcome in the near
future.
5. Youth active citizenship strategies and areas of engagement
This section provides an overview of the key strategies for youth active citizenship relevant to
INGOs and includes opportunities currently explored in Oxfam’s programming and strategies along
with examples of other key players in these areas. These strategies are distinct from, although at
times overlap in approach and membership, with those adopted by government, institutional
bodies, education and the private sector. These strategies are also distinct from a number of

13. January 2013 Page 13 of 24
health, education and livelihoods strategies that have service provision as their primary objective,
although there may be a link to these initiatives contributing to youth active citizenship.
i. Rights of young people to participate:
Supporting young people to know and enact their rights as citizens is addressed at the grassroots,
community level as well as in national and international institutional processes. These strategies
respond directly to growing legal restrictions, oppression and growing inequality. Young people’s
right to be heard is often conceived of through participation in formal structures and processes
seeing young people contributing to policy and governance of youth groups, youth councils and on
youth-specific issues. The rights agenda also includes having access to information, technology
and justice; access to accountability mechanisms; and spaces to organize.
The formal structures for youth participation are often separate from the mainstream spaces for
decision-making and have different degrees of influence on actual policy and governance. Young
people in representative roles for youth policy and governance are typically people with greater
access and influence, often reinforcing the status quo.
Examples of key players include the:
 Youth Empowerment for Africa: a youth-led research and advocacy organisation, aimed at
promoting youth participation in good governance focused on transparency, budget advocacy
and promoting research into issues affecting African youth.
 Youth Commission of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies:
the Youth Commission is the governance body for advising on youth issues and contributing
the views of young people from their own constituencies, representing each region the
federation works in.
Oxfam current engagement
The new active citizenship change goal heralds the opportunity to engage with the ‘citizenship
rights’ of young people at all levels of programming. Oxfam has invested in citizenship rights in
more than 60 countries, and in many cases these would be directly affecting the lives of young
people.
The active citizenship change goal suggests opportunities in the areas of:
 Setting up an experimentation/learning fund to test what works, to develop new models of
engagement with a-typical partners
 Consolidating Oxfam’s knowledge and expertise base on active citizenship, and providing
advice and practical tools to all change goals across the confederation
 Setting up minimal confederation architecture to support concerted and coordinated
programming
 Investing in ‘political crisis preparedness’ whereby a flexible pool of staff with political expertise
could offer support in times of political crisis
Oxfam Novib and Oxfam Great Britain see an opportunity for this type of programming in the Africa
region. Oxfam Quebec has a continuing interest in youth participation and active citizenship in the
broadest sense.
Oxfam’s South Asian programming has a strong focus on active citizenship and ‘citizenship rights’
more generally, although not all countries have specified youth as a target population. Oxfam India
has signalled a desire to innovate and develop programming in youth engagement and active
citizenship.

14. January 2013 Page 14 of 24
At the country level Oxfam in Vanuatu’s ’Governance, Leadership and Active Citizenship’ program
concentrates on strengthening civil society nationally, regardless of sector and Oxfam seeks to
play the role of “convenor of networks, facilitator of dialogue and engagement, and broker of
agreements and collaborative engagement.” (Vanuatu JCAS, p.4). Young people are mentioned
explicitly in the program’s goals.
The Pakistan JCAS identifies two pillars relevant to this area of engagement. The first, pillar 1,
aimed at improving effective citizenship and responsible governance with a strategy to engage
youth groups and organisations. Pillar 7 is aimed at reducing urban poverty, exclusion and
vulnerability and identifies urban youth as a cross cutting issue and population group to specifically
target.
Pacific country programs have worked on youth participation at community, provincial and national
levels, as undoubtedly other country programs have too. In the Pacific Oxfam has historically
partnered with youth councils and congresses whose aim is to represent the voices and issues of
young people in policy and decision-making at the provincial and national levels.
ii. Leadership and youth development programs
INGOs invest in the leadership development of young people with the dominant assumption that
this will contribute to transformative change in policies and practices at the local, national or global
level. Leadership initiatives are located and driven at all these levels and while can be youth-led,
they are predominantly not. It is also generally assumed that leadership development will lead to
positive outcomes, although this assumption also needs to be questioned (Leftwich 2010).
Leadership and youth development strategies are typically at risk of reinforcing the status quo and
the dominant power structures with a limited few explicitly challenging the systemic drivers of
poverty and injustice. The DLP suggests this distinction is related to the over emphasis of many
leadership development programs on developing individual leaders rather than leaderships –
coalitions and networks formed to engage in the politics of change (de Ver and Kennedy 2011).
Individual leader development:
Opportunities for young people to access funding, build skills and increase their networks through
a wide range of interventions, is underpinned by assumptions that individual self-actualisation will
lead to greater collective changes. Initiatives include a focus on one or a blend of the following
approaches:
 Working with the elites: shaping likely influential leaders through exposure, education and
identification with elitist networks. This tactic taps into the power of peer to peer networks
for influencing the identity and behaviors of individuals. Tactics include internship programs,
alumni networks and provision of scholarships and education opportunities.
E.g. Yale World Fellows Program: whilst this is not an initiative of an INGO, it does highlight
the opportunity and approach for working to shape young elites. The Yale World Fellows
Program currently has 100 ‘emerging’ leaders from lower, middle and high-income
countries world-wide. Fellows represent a range of approaches to affecting change
including: government officials, journalists, artists, business executives, and grassroots
activists. The program has two key elements: formal academic study and leadership
training at Yale followed by applying their leadership skills as mentors.
 Supporting social entrepreneurs: individual and collective models of supporting young
people to create innovative business solutions for societal problems within the existing
economic paradigm.
E.g. YES Campaign: formed out of the Youth Employment Summit in Egypt, 2002. The
campaign is based on the premise that young people, if given access to the right resources,

15. January 2013 Page 15 of 24
can effectively create their own advancement opportunities for the betterment of broader
societies. Through 83 country based networks across Latin America, Middle East, Africa
and Asia, YES provides entrepreneurship training and connects young people to partner
organisations, government and donors.
 Sport for development: sport can be seen as an important channel for engaging young
people as active participants in civil society. It is based on the assumption that sport
provides opportunities for building individual leadership attributes as well as being a
mechanism for connecting individuals to civic institutions and processes. A significant
proportion of sports for development programs are in post-conflict countries or also focus
on young people living with HIV and AIDs.
E.g. Care’s Sport for Change Initiative operating in West Africa, East Africa and Latin
America, uses sport as a vehicle to promote leadership, critical thinking and teamwork to
contribute to individual and societal change. Care operates through partnerships with local
organisations, such as the Mathare Youth Sports Association, Nike Inc. and the Kenyan
American Soccer Exchange.
 Volunteering and immersion: strategies that involve volunteering and immersion
opportunities tend to attract relatively affluent young people from the global North. Centered
on the assumption that experience living or working in an overseas community will lead to a
global citizenship, many of these initiatives also present themselves as viable contributions
to development. There is less literature and examples of volunteering and immersion
programs that connect young people across the global South, even though there has been
a proliferation of volunteering and immersion programs, particularly for western countries,
ranging from volun-tourism to long-term community development initiatives.
E.g. Restless Development: a youth-led development agency that provides training and
support for young overseas volunteers and local young people to implement social change
initiatives. There are more than 16,000 alumni across India, Nepal, Sierra Leone, Zambia,
South Africa, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, UK and USA. Restless Development have
recently formed an online alumni network aimed at facilitating peer to peer advice on
careers and enabling values-led change as alumni members reach positions of influence.
 Education and training: a prolific strategy for leadership development focusing on practical
skills, knowledge and understanding of young people. It involves experts transferring
knowledge to young people in local contexts, regional workshops, issue focused workshops
or global forums, online and face to face.
E.g. Transparency International anti-corruption workshops: a series of workshops run
across Asia and the Pacific designed to empower citizens, in particular young people, with
knowledge, skills and confidence to demand greater transparency and accountability of
decision-makers and leaders.
Support for leaderships: the central focus is on building and supporting coalitions and
networks to engage in the formal and informal political processes of change. These
strategies view leadership in context of the environment they are influencing, often linking
localised responses to interconnected and systemic causes. The DLP view this as a critical
strategy for affecting developmental outcomes, noting that not all leaderships are positive in
nature (Leftwich 2010).
E.g. Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD): works with influential young
people in Africa from a range of sectors and cultures. The program provides skills and
knowledge development and supports their leaders to mobilise through the support of a
network which connects members working across a spectrum of issues and with various
forms of influence to work together in contextually appropriate and strategic ways.

16. January 2013 Page 16 of 24
Oxfam current engagement
Oxfam International Youth Partnerships (OIYP) program is a standout example of a global network
focused on youth development.
Oxfam Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program has a focus area on youth, with a
strong active citizenship and youth participation focus. The program “aims to enable positive
energy and empower strong young Indigenous Australian voices... [and to] provide Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander young people with the opportunities and skills that will enable them to be
active players within their own communities and throughout all sectors of Indigenous and non-
Indigenous societies.”17
Program strategies include: support and capacity building for Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander organisations, groups, youth networks and alliances through training,
e.g. workshops in areas such as media, public speaking, campaigning, communications and
strategy development; networking and information sharing; support in the OIYP program;
mentoring and other opportunities through OAus’ Youth Engagement Program; building a group of
young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander human rights advocates through training, networking,
advocacy and lobbying support; and conducting research and provoking debate.
A number of Oxfam affiliates including Oxfam America, Intermon (Spain), Quebec, Canada, India,
Great Britain and Hong Kong have youth participation/engagement strategies in their home
countries. These range in focus from education to engagement in campaigning, fundraising and
much more. Oxfam Australia’s Youth Engagement Program is well established with historical links
to the Oxfam International Youth Partnership Program. (See below regarding local to global links.)
iii. Youth activism
Youth participation in movements, while not a new phenomena, has increased dramatically with
the rise of the internet, creating new spaces for global activism along with a rising ethic of global
interdependence. There is a proliferation of global activism strategies engaging mass numbers
across the global North and South. These strategies are providing young people with opportunities
to take action on issues of national, regional and global significance, across traditional geographic
and state boundaries. Previously, collectives and groups working on international issues have
needed to build separate constituencies for each issue and each country in order to reach the
scale required for real change.
Global activism strategies tend towards fostering a global citizenship through online and offline
mobilisation to create political pressure, fundraise for global campaigns and change behaviour of
consumption choices, such as purchasing of Fair Trade products. Issues are generally prescribed
by the organising body (e.g. Make Poverty History) or crowd-sourced (e.g. change.org) and are not
predominantly youth specific issues.
Single NGOs and coalitions are increasingly investing in online popular mobilisation initiatives to
build these constituencies of support, often targeting the middle classes. While young people are
often the key targets of these strategies it is generally not to the exclusion of other age groups.
Whilst criticised in some corners of civil society for promoting a passive form of citizenship called
clicktivism, there is some evidence for online activism leading to more informed, active
engagement at the local level.
E.g. Avaaz: a platform for demonstrating mass citizen support for diverse issues of national and
global significance. With over 16 million members across 194 countries, Avaaz is purely member
funded. It claims to have equal proportions of young people to other age demographics; a
consistent trend with other similar global activism models. Campaign issues are set by weekly
member polls and random samples with a focus only on issues at their ‘tipping point’. Avaaz finds
17 Oxfam Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People’s Program Strategic Plan, 2007 - 2013

17. January 2013 Page 17 of 24
that people who join on one campaign issue generally continue to take action online on other
issues of significance.
Oxfam current engagement
Oxfam’s campaigning and advocacy continues to provide opportunities to engage young active
citizens at multiple levels. For instance, the GROW campaign in Indonesia has engaged young
people in awareness raising about the inequities of the global food system. GROW has also
involved young people in Australia in multiple ways.
The worldwide influencing network model is prominent in the draft Oxfam Strategic Plan. It
underlines the need for a new approach to global citizenship and introduces a new way of making
campaigns for Oxfam. It seeks to join and facilitate movements’ cross-border collaboration
including poor, middle and high income countries.
Oxfam Great Britain manages the ‘My Rights, My Voice Program’, funded by Swedish International
Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). My Rights, My Voice is a global initiative that will run
until 2014. It aims to engage marginalised children and youth, especially girls and young women,
as active citizens in their rights to health and education services. The programme has a number of
key objectives: To increase children and youth's awareness of their rights to health and education
services; to strengthen their and allies' skills and capacity to claim these rights; to facilitate
opportunities for children and youth to engage with duty bearers (e.g. health and education
ministries, teaching and medical professionals, religious leaders) which lead to specific actions
delivering better health and education services; to strengthen Oxfam and our partners' capacity to
work on youth agency and for our global campaigning force to facilitate youth claiming and
accessing better health and education. The program is being implemented in eight countries: Mali,
Niger, Tanzania, Georgia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and Vietnam18
.
Oxfam Novib has recently commissioned a study looking into youth as active citizens focusing on
their rights to education and sexual and reproductive health rights; and has a programming interest
in these areas. The Pakistan JCAS, building on the ‘My Rights My Voice’ program, specifies a
pillar (3) aimed at enhancing education and sexual and reproductive rights with a focus on women
and girls. It aims to improve women and girl’s access to information, their skills and their active role
in pressing for their rights.
Emerging economies and their increasingly prominent young people are an opportune place for
Oxfam to engage with youth active citizenship. East Asia, with its high number of emerging
economies is a possibility for a regional focus of this work. A regional initiative is being developed
in East Asia that focuses on disenfranchised urban residents claiming their rights to livelihoods and
economic justice more broadly. Oxfam Belgium is leading this initiative.
iv. Supporting local youth-led initiatives
Strategies supporting young people to create and implement local social change projects are
generally for the purpose of ‘learning to be active by doing’. Some programs recognise the
potential for actual change beyond the individual agent(s) and invest in more long-term capacity
and resources required to take initiatives to scale. There is much cross-over between these
strategies and those that focus on leadership development.
Approaches to supporting youth-led initiatives include: seed funding for new pilots and scalable
innovations; skills and funding for social enterprises; and skills training, funding and mentoring for
individual and collective youth initiatives. Access to financial resources for start-up initiatives, in
particular outside of formal organisational structures and those working politically, is a significant
gap that still exists across all regions (Open Society Foundation 2011).
18
See the following link http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/our-work/water-health-education/my-rights-my-voice

18. January 2013 Page 18 of 24
E.g. Ashoka’s Youth Venture: primarily concerned with young people learning through doing, the
program supports young ‘change makers’ to work together on local projects from design to
implementation in their own countries. Ashoka Youth Venture grew out of Ashoka, a global
association of social entrepreneurs working for systemic changes. It is based on the premise that
leadership and action as a young person is a prerequisite to be an effective leader as an adult.
Oxfam current engagement
The JCAS review suggest there are many opportunities for supporting the local and sub-national
initiatives of young people, particularly in the regions of West Africa, Middle East and Maghreb,
Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean.
The Pacific remains a key region for supporting young people’s initiatives and East Asia is
signalling an interest in developing this area of work, particularly in Timor Leste.
Oxfam International Youth Partnership (OIYP) program is Oxfam’s current model for supporting
youth development and youth initiatives globally.
v. Networks and coalitions for individual young change agents
There is a plethora of networks and coalitions led by young people and/or involving large cohorts
of young people, enabling collective youth voice and action. Networks and coalitions often include
a number of the strategies previously outlined, in particular leadership development, support for
local initiatives, youth policy development and linking the local to global.
Trocaire (2011) holds that there is a key opportunity – and need – for INGOs to shift their models
of partnership to more effectively respond to civil society actors in the South. Investment in these
networks and coalitions with more integrated alliances across issues, promoting diverse voices,
particularly from the global South, are suggested to be important strategies for dealing with the
complex global and localised nature of many large-scale issues.
The nature of networks and coalitions tend to be:
 Geographically based: operating at the local, country or regional levels, concentrating on
context specific issues and approaches to change.
E.g. The Mano River Union Youth Parliament (MRUYP): a sub-regional network of young
peace builders, students, journalists, development practitioners and human rights activists
within the Mano River Union Basin (Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea). It is focused on
advocacy for peace, human rights and the development of young men, women and their
communities by young people.
 Issue focused: at the local, national and sometimes global level on issues that transcend
geographical boundaries. A significant number of issues based youth networks are
concerned with issues specific to young people including sexual and reproductive health,
education, employment, HIV and AIDs, climate change and peace-building (UNICEF 2011).
E.g. Global Youth Coalition on HIV and AIDs (GYCA): an open youth-led global network of
over 7000 young people and adult allies from over 170 countries. The group is focused on
providing young people with skills, knowledge and opportunities to scale up HIV and AIDs
intervention initiatives through a rights-based approach to change.
Oxfam current engagement
OIYP has been supporting a network of young change agents for twelve years. Networks of these
change agents or Action Partners have developed regionally in the Pacific for instance, at a
thematic or country level in Vanuatu, PNG, Sri Lanka and Malawi. These networks operate with
and without support from Oxfam.

19. January 2013 Page 19 of 24
The home country youth engagement/participation programs of a number of affiliates, as well as
global campaigning, provide an opportunity for linking young change agents across low, middle
and high income countries, for skills share and mutual support.
vi. Linking the local to global
Strategies that aim to bridge local level societal change with global change recognise the necessity
for both levels of action to bring about sustainable change. Gaventa (2010) argues that connecting
the points of change from the local to the global is a key challenge for today. The other challenge
that civil society is grappling with is: who mediates and convenes these connections (Edwards
2011). INGOs have a unique role to play as intermediaries in facilitating connections between local
level change processes and global advocacy. However bridging between the local and global
requires integrity in the mediation, respecting the necessity for change on both levels (Citizenship
DRC, 2011).
A number of opportunities exist to build, expand and maximise the interconnections between
young people. Firstly, foster connections between young people in the global North and global
South, each focusing on their respective zones of influence (Trociare 2011). For INGOs concerned
with the “mile wide, inch deep support for aid”, investing in northern domestic constituency building
through global solidarity - rather than reinforcing the North-South mindset - could serve to expand
the depth and breadth of support, building a global movement for change grounded in local
realities (Danton and Kirk 2011).
Secondly, the changing nature of citizenship with increasing people movements is accompanied by
new technologies. This is enabling more effective communication between the local to global,
creating opportunities for diasporas able to support local communities in their country of origin
whilst advocating for international policy change from their country of residence.
Thirdly, opportunities exist to connect young people working at the grassroots level with global
level decision making processes for example, across emerging economies and strengthening
changes at both levels. This would require a shift in the role of Northern based INGOs - who
predominantly take the proxy role of speaking for citizens, including young people, to facilitating
collectives operating at the local level to access global processes, unmediated by dominant large
players (CIVICUS 2012).
E.g. Peace Child International: supports young people working for sustainable change in their own
communities and provides pathways to engage with global governance and policy processes. They
also produce research and host international forums to promote the voices of active young people.
The organisation works through affiliate organisations in East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa
and South Asia that provide contextually driven programs linked to the global network.
Oxfam current engagement
Given Oxfam’s considerable network of partnerships, linking the local to the global is understood to
be one of Oxfam’s distinctive elements of value. This is recognised in the draft Oxfam Strategic
Plan, which explains that “as power relations shift between governments, corporations, civil society
and other actors, Oxfam’s ability to convene and connect is increasingly important.” (p.14)
This is also recognised at the regional level. For instance this added value of “Oxfam bring[ing]
interaction and connection with regional and global players” was mentioned by partners from the
Pacific during the Pacific Youth Program’s Reflection. The reflection participants go on to note that
to date active citizenship and youth programming have operated at the individual and community
levels and there is now a need to link these efforts nationally, regionally and globally.
The youth participation/engagement work of Oxfam affiliates in their home countries provide
opportunities to link young people, including between poor, middle and high income countries.
Linking up could be for the purpose of awareness raising, campaigning, fundraising and skills

20. January 2013 Page 20 of 24
share. Oxfam Intermon with support from the Oxfam International Education Group, have been
leading an initiative linking schools in Spain with schools in the countries in which Oxfam works to
fight poverty and injustice.
OIYP has been trialling ways of linking with the Oxfam Australia domestic Youth Engagement
Program (YEP) under the GROW campaign where OIYP Action Partner blogs and videos were
shared as content on the YEP website and forums.
The worldwide influencing network model discussed above emphasises cross-border collaboration.
vii. Supporting youth organizations
There are numerous strategies that explicitly aim to build the capacity of youth organisations. This
is typically through direct partnerships, provision of funds or convening coalitions and networks.
Partnerships with youth-focused NGOs and CBOs are generally although not exclusively, centered
on the provision of funds and program support. Linking like-minded and diverse youth
organisations through networks and coalitions helps to promote their common agendas, maximise
knowledge and resources, and at times open new spaces for change. Approaches include:
 Building the capacity of youth organisations through conferences, trainings and mentoring;
supporting the advocacy agendas through research and policy and direct partner
development.
E.g. World Assembly of Youth (WAY): an international coordinating body of 120 country
level youth organisations and councils across all regions. WAY actively promotes young
people and youth organisations in community development, human rights, youth
employment and the environment through: a) representing its member organisations in
global and regional forums; and b) organising member events on pertinent youth issues to
that region, country or time.
 Larger organisations and coalitions create separate forums, specifically for young people
and youth organisations. Often intended as a means of providing a safe space for young
people to participate in wider forums, a critique of these strategies is that the separateness
can further reinforce the marginalisation of young people from formal organisational and
decision making spaces.
E.g. The Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) 2012 Forum, Young
Feminist Activism (YFA) program: a deliberate space and series of events designed to
support young women to contribute to the forum and ensure their visibility and meaningful
participation. Young women were invited to represent their organisations or communities
and were supported through initiatives including a one day pre-forum workshop, Young
Feminists Corner, and presentations during the forum.
 Partnerships supporting youth organisations: INGOs, trusts and foundations are some of
the key actors supporting youth organisations through provision of funds and in some
cases, network brokering.
The concentration of funding is generally on the service delivery programs, education and entry
level participation initiatives, rather than more transformational political and economic active
citizenship of young people. However, strategies for participation such as education and youth
group meetings do have a critical role in many oppressive contexts and have the potential to be
transformative in nature. For example, a large INGO operating in Myanmar is now actively
supporting the economic and environmental political activism of young people at the community
and national level. This activism has grown out of their support for youth education and leadership
initiatives as part of their development programming, such as hosting youth group meetings to talk
about non-political matters; initiatives that were critical and pertinent to the political context at the
time.

21. January 2013 Page 21 of 24
E.g. Frida – the Young Feminist Fund: aims to increase the capacity of young feminist
organisations through funding and advocating to larger donors and allies. It is ultimately concerned
with building multi-generational feminist movements, inclusive of young people.
Oxfam current engagement
Partnership is a key way of working for Oxfam, with a global emphasis on building the capacity of
partners. Although partnerships with youth focused and youth led organisations do not figure
strongly in the strategic documentation, they do exist at all levels.
For instance, in South Africa and the Pacific Oxfam has partnerships with youth focused
organisations. In Vanuatu, Oxfam is both supporting youth focused organisations and seeking to
act as a convenor and facilitator of civil society where appropriate, with a focus on young people’s
active citizenship. Oxfam Novib has partnerships with global organisations focused on youth.
There is a great amount of interest among Oxfam country programs from a number of countries in
involving young people more effectively in development work, particularly in the area of economic
justice given the confederation’s body of work in that area. There are already examples of the
involvement of young people in HIV awareness raising in a number of countries, but in the majority
of countries there is a desire to develop new strategies.
In Oxfam’s development work across all change goals, there is general move from service
provision to work focused on active citizenship and the accountability of governments. This
provides real opportunity to engage with young people as active citizens. In the Pacific for instance
there is a desire to link their work on inclusive decision-making and ‘citizenship rights’ at the local
level with thematic programming in economic justice and essential services.

22. January 2013 Page 22 of 24
Annex 1. Oxfam Affiliates, November 2012
1. Oxfam America
2. Oxfam Australia
3. Oxfam-in-Belgium
4. Oxfam Canada
5. Oxfam France
6. Oxfam Germany
7. Oxfam Great Britain
8. Oxfam Hong Kong
9. Oxfam India
10. Intermon Oxfam (Spain)
11. Oxfam Ireland
12. Oxfam Mexico
13. Oxfam New Zealand
14. Oxfam Novib (Netherlands)
15. Oxfam Quebec
16. Oxfam Italy
17. Oxfam Japan

23. January 2013 Page 23 of 24
References
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Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability, Brighton
CIVICUS (2012). State of Civil Society 2011, CIVICUS, Johannesburg
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poverty, Bond for International Development, London.
de Ver, H. L. & Kennedy, F. (2011). ‘An analysis of Leadership Development Programmes working
in the context of development’, Research Paper 11, Developmental Leadership Program.
Edwards, M. (2011). Thick Problems and Thin Solutions: how NGOs can bridge the gap, Hivos.
Evans, A. (2011). 2020 Development Futures, A report for ActionAID.
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Shirky, C. (2011). ‘The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and
Political Change’, Foreign Affairs.
Sumner, A. (2010). ‘Global Poverty and the New Bottom Billion: What if Three-Quarters of the
World’s Poor Live in Middle-Income Countries?’, IDS Working Paper.
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References - Oxfam Documents
Draft Oxfam Strategic Plan 2013 – 2019, October 2012
Supporting detail RTBH External Change Goal, July 2012
Oxfam Solomon Islands Youth Program Review and Redesign, July 2012, by K. Dicker
Oxfam Strategic Plan Context Analysis May 2012
Dunne, M. and Durrani N., (with Kathleen Fincham and Sara Humphreys) Study on Youth as
Active Citizens for their rights to education and SRHR, Centre for International Education
University of Sussex, March 2012
Oxfam Australia, Management Response to the 10 Year Impact Assessment of OIYP, 2012
A Review of Oxfam Joint Country Analysis and Strategy document December 2011, by Sanchez
de Ocaña, M.
Pacific Youth Program Reflection Report, April 2011
Post Kaleidoscope Workshop Report, Vanuatu, December 2010
Oxfam Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People’s Program Strategic Plan, 2007 –
2013
Joint Country Analysis and Strategies reviewed – Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan,
Indonesia, Timor Leste, South Africa