Buidling Youth Agency through Participatory MEL Methods in LAC

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

Youth in Latin America and the Caribbean between the ages of 10 to 29 make up approximately 35% of the population who, in recent years, have been more widely involved in politics and protests, becoming their own agents of change. The recent 2022 USAID Youth Policy update reestablishes the donor's commitment to youth and youth participation while incorporating a new element and focus toward system changes. Nonetheless, we can only achieve changes in the macro system with the active and genuine participation of the youth.

As one of this year's Rwandan Youth Delegates stated in the Commission on Status of Women, "It is time to walk the talk by meaningfully engaging the young people." The role of youth is indeed a necessary and vital one for developing a prosperous society. Without young people's active participation and insights, programs and policies will continue to miss the mark on what is needed to appropriately address some of the stressors and shocks experienced by youth in today's environment. Additionally, youth as potential and current young citizens need to be recognized to the highest possibility for their unique vision, and, therefore, we must consciously integrate youth to the highest levels of Hart's ladder (Hart, 1998).

This panel presents lessons and findings from three approaches to incorporate youth in understanding the enabling environments that provide insights for improved and tailored programming. Each approach focuses on an aspect of the human-based approach for youth resilience as outlined in UNICEF's 2013 Guide for Children and Youth Resilience; provision as in what are the necessary conditions, protection is in what are protective measures and customs are in place for constant stressors, and participation as in their involvement in each initiative designed or directed for them. These three panels will focus on each approach through monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) methods to establish a performance and context baseline for resilient youth programming aligned to the Positive Youth Development and Youth Violence Prevention frameworks.

The MEL approaches used are designed to incorporate youth's voices and active participation in providing contextual and performance insights to assess better the programs designed for them. The first method seeks to understand what provisions are available in their communities via a community mapping exercise and focus groups that score each of the known services on a rubric for age-appropriate friendliness and their perceptions of safety based on evidence-informed metrics. The second method captures the youth's perception of protective and risk factors across their socio-ecological dimensions, where youth are involved in various parts of the design and can decide which factors are of focus. The last method seeks to involve youth in the evaluations of the programming, and organizational capacity, building up their agency via creating space at the table for their participation. All these methods are part of building the context for a tailored youth-resilient program design.

It is also essential to define what is meant by Youth resilience. For the work conducted through the USAID/ Youth Led Activity in the Dominican Republic and the USAID/Youth Resilience Activity in Colombia, the definition of resilience depends on the balance of both reducing risk factors and strengthening protection factors across a continuum that transcends the socio-ecological dimensions. The socio-ecological dimensions can be summarized into the following levels: the individual level, relationships, and societal or cultural (Bronfenners, 1974). While positive and negative levers may affect an individual, subsequent levers are also found in youths' relationships, interpersonal dimensions, and the cultural and societal space where youth reside. These components and frameworks may also face external shocks and stressors that directly impact youth, for which it is not enough that youth, individually, possess the agency and assets needed to overcome the issue. However, also the enabling environment must be supportive to provide a buffer.

In conclusion, the panel seeks to present three different experiences that
highlight youth involvement, in varying capacities, in the development of tools and their implementation to understand the existing system for youth resilience in the LAC region. Each panel focuses on one of the fundamental components mentioned by UNICEF's Guide to Resilient Children and Youth.

Provisions: Community mapping of the enabling environment in the DR
Protection: YRAT - Assessing youth's perspectives on risk and protective factors of resilience
Participation: YPAT – Building youth agency and organizational capacity through program assessment.

Sub Unit

• Monitoring and Evaluation SIG

Chair

• Ana K Gonzalez, American Institutes for Research

Individual Presentations

• Assessing youth’s perspectives on risk and protective factors of resilience - YRAT - Mauricio E. Estrada Matute, American Institutes for Research

• Building youth agency and organizational capacity through program assessment. - Ana K Gonzalez, American Institutes for Research