The World Programme of Action for Youth (WPAY) is a blueprint for national action and international support to foster conditions and mechanisms to promote improved wellbeing and livelihood among young people.

The WPAY covers fifteen priority areas: education, employment, poverty and hunger, the environment, drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, leisure-time activities, health, girls and young women, HIV/AIDS, information and communications technology, inter-generational issues, armed conflict, the mixed impact of globalization, and the full and effective participation of youth in society and in decision-making.

In each of these areas, the Programme looks in depth at the nature of the complex challenges and presents proposals for action. The WPAY thus seeks to assist governments in responding to the aspirations and demands of youth for a better future for all.

These priority areas are interrelated and intrinsically linked. For example, juvenile delinquency and drug abuse are often direct consequences of insufficient opportunities for education, employment and participation. Education for girls and young women can delay the age of marriage and first birth, thus decreasing maternal mortality. Investing in one area affects other areas of the programme of action as well thereby creating a multiplier effect in the lives of young people. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has urged Governments to take the World Programme’s recommendations seriously, and to work together with young people for its implementation.

The WPAY’s 15 priority areas are grouped into three clusters of issues in which young people grow up and become active members of their societies. Taken together, the clusters form a comprehensive environment for young people, despite differences in cultures, societies and communities. The three clusters are described as:

(a) youth in the global economy, including the issues of hunger and poverty, education, employment, and globalization;

(b) youth and their well-being, encompassing the priority areas of health, drug abuse, girls and young women, delinquency, conflict and HIV/AIDS;

(c) youth in civil society, related to concerns of information and communication technologies, environment, leisure, participation in decision-making and inter-generational relations.

(source: Guide to the implementation of the WPAY, DESA: 2006)

See Documents:
Resolution (A/Res/50/81): World Programme of Action for Youth to the Year 2000 & Beyond (1995)
Resolution (A/RES/62/126): Youth in the Global Economy; Supplement to the WPAY (2007)
Guide to the implementation of the WPAY, DESA, 2006
Making Commitments Matter: A Toolkit for young people to evaluate national youth policy