UNODC Strategy for 2021-2025 underscores youth empowerment as a cross-cutting commitment of the Office. Youth empowerment means involving young people in problem-solving and uplifting their voices in decision-making processes. To meaningfully engage youth, young people need to be involved in every step of the programme cycle. Initiatives should not only be implemented “for” youth, but also “with” youth, to allow for co-creation.

 

In order to support this cross-cutting commitment, UNODC launched the Youth Empowerment Accelerator Framework - or the YEA! Framework. The YEA! Framework maps out UNODC's youth-focused initiatives and proposes key youth mainstreaming actions to accelerate the impact of young people across the Office.

 

The YEA! Framework further demonstrates that UNODC is committed to working with youth to build more resilient societies and find solutions to problems related to drugs, crime, corruption and terrorism. 

 

More specifically, UNODC has the mandate to support the Member States in engaging youth in crime prevention efforts and in evidence-based drug use prevention as well as ensuring that youth and children are better served and protected by justice systems.