European Union Youth Sounding Board 2023

Youth empowerment is a top priority for EU Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, and the EU believes that young people must be involved in shaping and implementing its external action. The Youth Sounding Board aims to create a real, fundamental, long-lasting change in how the EU engages with young people in its development cooperation.

The Youth Sounding Board (YSB) is a group of young people who advise the Commissioner and the Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) on youth participation and empowerment in EU external action. This allows young people to have an influence on EU external action and international partnerships and thereby contributes to make EU action more participatory, relevant and effective for young people in EU partner countries, across all political priorities:

• Climate, environment and energy
• Digital and infrastructure
• Gender equality
• Human development
• Migration and forced displacement
• Peace and governance
• Sustainable growth and jobs

Through their work, YSB members represent the views of as wide a range of young people as possible, by reaching out to young people within and beyond their networks to gather their opinions and views.

Members build links with similar structures and existing youth initiatives at international, regional and country level, both in the EU and in partner countries. They also respond to ad-hoc issues and requests, and take part in capacity-building activities in relation to their mandate.

The 2023-2025 cohort will be involved in the implementation and dissemination of the EU Youth Action Plan.

Members of the Youth Sounding Board are selected via an open call for applications. Applicants can apply as individuals, or be nominated by a youth organisation.

For the first cohort of the Youth Sounding Board (2021-2023), over 4 000 applications from more than 150 countries were received.

The 25 selected members are a diverse group of talented, committed and inspiring young people from Africa, the Middle East, Asia, the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as Europe.

The 2021-2023 cohort was engaged in the process of co-creating the Youth Action Plan in EU external action. They drafted a report, ‘Meaningful Inclusion of Youth: A Promising Future‘, prepared in the context of consultations for the Youth Action Plan that was published in autumn 2022. In the report, young people from around the world voice their opinions, share thoughts about the challenges they face and propose solutions.

The YSB members have also worked on their own long-term projects on four topics: diversity and inclusion, intergenerational dialogue, leadership and community-building and outreach to young people. The outcomes of the projects informed the design of DG INTPA actions and programming on youth.

Eligibility criteria

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Applications have to be submitted in English by 23.59 (CEST) on 26 April 2023 via EUSurvey. Receipt of applications will be confirmed by email.

As we expect a high number of applications, we advise you to apply well in advance of the deadline in order to prevent potential technical issues.

The selection process will be conducted in two stages according to the following indicative timeline

• First stage: all candidates will be informed of the outcome of the first stage (shortlist) of the application at the latest by 30 May 2023
• Second stage: shortlisted candidates will be invited for interviews between 1-20 June 2023
• Final results: all shortlisted candidates will be informed of the final results by 30 June 2023.

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The call for applications for the 2023-2025 cohort of the Youth Sounding Board is now open until 26 April 2023.