The OECD Youth Policy Toolkit supports the implementation and dissemination of the OECD Recommendation on Creating Better Opportunities for Young People (hereafter the “OECD Youth Recommendation”), which was adopted in June 2022 by all OECD countries. The Youth Recommendation promotes a government-wide strategy to improve youth measures and outcomes in all relevant policy areas, including employment, entrepreneurship, education and social policies, as well as civic engagement and public governance. The Toolkit has been produced as part of the OECD Horizontal Project “A Better Future for Young People in Ageing Societies,” led jointly by the OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs (ELS) and the Public Governance Directorate (GOV), in order to provide practical guidance to improve the design and implementation of policies for young people.

The Toolkit and OECD Youth Recommendation are linked to and build on other relevant work across the OECD. For example, the first three pillars of the Toolkit (skills, labour market and social outcomes) build on the long-standing series of Investing in Youth country reviews, which offer tailored recommendations to help improve the school-to-work transition in each country, drawing on good practices in other countries. The first pillar on skills and competencies also builds on the OECD’s work on vocational education and training as well as the work on effective career development and upper secondary pathways to facilitate young people’s transitions through education and training and into work. The second pillar on labour market outcomes benefits from work undertaken as part of the OECD-EU Youth Entrepreneurship Policy Academy as well as the biennial Missing Entrepreneurs publication and the 2022 report Unlocking the potential of youth-led social enterprises. The fourth and fifth pillars of the Toolkit on public governance are closely aligned with the Declaration on Building Trust and Reinforcing Democracy. They build on comparative evidence, benchmarks and good practices on effective governance arrangements for youth-responsive policies and services and promoting intergenerational justice, as presented in OECD country reviews on Youth Governance and the 2020 report Governance for Youth, Trust and Intergenerational Justice: Fit for All Generations?.

The Toolkit was jointly developed by ELS and GOV under the strategic guidance of Directors Stefano Scarpetta and Elsa Pilichowski, respectively, and under the auspices of the OECD Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee (ELSAC) and the OECD Public Governance Committee (PGC). The Toolkit has greatly benefitted from good practice examples submitted by countries and from the strategic guidance provided by delegates to ELSAC and PGC, as well as through the PGC Friends of Youth PLUS. The Toolkit has also benefitted from collaboration with the Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE), the Directorate for Education and Skills (EDU), and the OECD Centre for Skills (SKC), and consultations with the Centre on Well-Being, Inclusion, Sustainability and Equal Opportunity (WISE). This document was approved and declassified by the Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee and Public Governance Committee by written procedure on 25 October 2024 [COM/DELSA/ELSA/GOV/PGC(2024)1/REV1] and prepared for publication by the OECD Secretariat.

Participants from OECD YOUNG (Youth Organisations’ Sounding Board for Governance) as well as members of OECD Youthwise and young people from Europe, Latin America and the Asia-Pacific were consulted during the development of the Toolkit. They highlighted the significant potential of the Toolkit in fostering youth development by providing governments with long-term strategies and comprehensive policies for youth empowerment. They underscored the importance of maintaining the Toolkit as a living and practical document and of involving youth representatives in high-level policy discussions. They also noted that the Toolkit encourages a broader perspective, helping youth organisations connect their missions to overarching goals. Participants stressed that investing in young people is crucial for promoting inclusive prosperity and fostering intergenerational justice. They called for wide dissemination of the Toolkit as a leading resource for youth policy, with a focus on young people from marginalised and underrepresented groups.

The good practices outlined in the Toolkit aim to inspire and encourage innovation and reform within governments and beyond, fostering new ways to support young people.