International Youth Day should recognise young people’s common dissatisfaction

The global Gen Z movements expose a widening gap between young people and the institutions that claim to represent them, argues Prathit Singh on the occasion of International Youth Day on August 12.

Young people today live under very different political systems and face distinct national challenges. Yet recent youth-led movements point to a common experience: growing dissatisfaction with the institutions that govern their lives.

While the United Nations has chosen “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations” as this year’s International Youth Day themeExternal link, understanding this generation requires paying equal attention to what increasingly unites its frustrations. The Gen Z movements of the past years show that international organisations need to advocate strong and sustainable relationships with young people – beyond just consulting them.

From Bangladesh to India

Over the past few years, young people across Bangladesh, Nepal, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Tanzania, Morocco, and beyond have mobilised around issues that appear specific to their countries. In July 2026, students in India protested against examination paper leaks and demanded accountability for a system that determines access to higher education and employment. In 2024, demonstrations in Bangladesh over public-sector employment quotas grew into a wider movement. At the same time, in Kenya, opposition to the Finance Bill expressed deeper anger over taxation, corruption and the cost of living. Young people in Nepal, Madagascar and Tanzania have similarly mobilised.

>> Our interview with Geneva-based UN special rapporteur Irene Khan about the threats to freedom of speech in Bangladesh:

These movements arise in different environments; some in electoral democracies, others under governments where opposition, independent media and public assembly face severe restrictions. Ando Andrianaivoson, a youth leader and member of ‘Gen Z Madagasikara’External link, a group of young people carrying forward a Gen Z citizens’ movement in Madagascar, has noted that “across the African continent, young people are facing very similar challenges: corruption, high youth unemployment and political systems that routinely exclude us from decision-making”.

Despite different national realities, he argues, young people are united by “a shared impulse for dignity, agency and fundamental change”.

When participation moves to the street

At the same time, international institutions have developed youth strategies, advisory boards and consultations that have increased visibility and created genuine opportunities. Their influence on political decisions, however, is often difficult to identify.

Stéphanie Rakotomanga, a member of Gen Z Madagasikara, told me that “too often, young people are invited into conversations after the important decisions have already been made. We are asked to participate, but not necessarily to influence”. Her appeal to international organisations is simple: move “from symbolic youth engagement to meaningful youth participation”.

“Youth participation” is increasingly embedded in the language of governments and international organisations. Young people are encouraged to vote, volunteer, join consultations and youth advisory boards, and are invited to attend and speak at global forums. However, the distribution of political and economic power often remains untouched. When these channels produce visibility without influence, the street becomes one of the few places where participation carries political consequence.

‘Silence from the UN’

Young people have watched governments restrict civic space while retaining international legitimacy. They have seen democratic principles defended forcefully in some contexts and cautiously in others and heard promises of climate action while their communities face floods, droughts and lost livelihoods. “I was frustrated when there was silence from the UN as my friends were demonstrating on the streets. It prompted me to reflect on the distance I feel between my reality and organisations like the UN headed by people in Geneva and New York,” said an activist who I met in New Delhi after the protests.

If young people increasingly see national and international institutions as disconnected from their lived realities, then International Geneva faces a challenge, one that my own work is trying to address by connecting with these actors and bringing their voices to the multilateral ecosystem of Geneva.

A young person, who has been actively engaged in the Gen Z movement in Tanzania, in a context that is marred by state repression and surveillance, told me that these mobilisations demonstrate a departure of a generation from indifference to democracy. Young Tanzanians, the activist said, are “deeply invested in it”, but many feel excluded from decisions about their future. As frustration grew over elections, corruption, human rights violations and the misuse of public resources, demonstrations became “one of the few ways to demand accountability and democratic reform”.

New forms of political organisation

The pattern travels across borders. An examination leak in India becomes a question about whether merit still matters. An employment quota in Bangladesh opens a debate about inherited privilege. A tax proposal in Kenya becomes a confrontation over the relationship between citizens and political elites.

A specific grievance puts words on frustrations accumulated over years. These movements rely on loose networks of students, young professionals, artists and online communities. But importantly, their message is not that democracy has become irrelevant; it is that democracy, as currently practised, is failing to deliver.

These movements are also experimenting with new forms of political organisation. Many deliberately avoid hierarchical leadership, rely on decentralised digital networks and privilege collective ownership over formal structures. In doing so, they are not only challenging governments but also questioning inherited assumptions about how democratic participation itself should be organised.

Dissatisfaction with living costs and opportunities

This dissatisfaction driving the youth to the streets is rooted in the conditions under which this generation is expected to build a life. In countries that recently experienced Gen Z movements, education no longer guarantees secure employment, as wages fail to keep pace with living costs. At the same time, globally, housing is increasingly inaccessible while climate change is destroying livelihoods, and migration has become one of the few routes to economic mobility.

The dissatisfaction does not stop at national borders. One young person from Nepal, who played an active role in coordinating an agreement between the interim government and Gen Z groups across the country, pointed to a “global sense of distrust towards institutions”. That distrust cannot be repaired through institutional authority alone. “People won’t just trust you because you work in the UN and have 25 years of experience,” she said. International actors must understand the context, listen before prescribing recommendations, be proactive in understanding the lived realities of young people, work together with them and the governments in realising their demands, and remain engaged.

>> Before the protests, Nepal’s political landscape was shaped by figures who had played a role in the peace process following the civil war. Read our article on peace in Nepal:

A shift from consultation to co-creation

International Geneva now has an opportunity to create stronger connections between its multilateral institutions and the young people reshaping political life in their countries. This requires spaces where youth leaders can engage with each other, develop common positions and engage with international decision-makers. It also requires a shift from occasional invitations towards sustained political relationships. Miharisoa Rakotondravelo, a 28-year-old youth leader from Madagascar, told me that it’s time to include youth “not as a pawn or a tool, but as a real community who works and builds together”. There is a need for a shift from consultation to co-creation.

Across these movements, the demand is consistent. Young people are asking for fair public institutions, accountable political leaders, economic opportunity which is not determined by privilege, and democratic participation offering genuine political influence. They want international institutions to uphold the principles they champion and to engage more seriously with the realities in which those principles are defended.

For young people, political agency requires more than an invitation to speak. Democratic renewal depends on the connection between voice, collective organisation and political power, which multilateral spaces like Geneva can grant.

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl/vm

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Swissinfo.

The author wishes to emphasise that his views do not necessarily reflect the views of any institution with which he is affiliated.

>>Also read our article exploring the question when a democracy stops being a democracy: