Municipal governments across Europe adopt youth policies and no matter how these are called or what form (action plans, strategies, etc.) these policies take, the basic idea is: improve the quality of life for local youth population (especially the disadvantaged ones) and possibly by this action supplement relevant national and where applicable EU-level youth policies such as the EU Youth Strategy. At least this is how things should be.

However, many local governments fall behind “meant-to-be” youth policy goals. Some local authorities adopt a local youth policy, some do it not actually asking young persons of their needs, and then they don’t implement it (at all or fully and properly), thus no benefits come for the youth population and grass-root youth organizations. Some local authorities let previous youth policy expire and show no interest in adopting a new one. Some just don’t think young people are that important and/or this is the job for the central government and don’t adopt any policies at all. Variations of possible situations are extensive.

On the opposite part of the spectrum, grass-root youth organisations based in such local communities, as well as young people themselves, especially the under-represented groups of young people who in even more favorable circumstances it’s very difficult to motivate them to get involved in any public-level process, feel normally left out of political and social processes and completely demotivated to try and influence and/or participate in any of them. This unfavorable situation also negatively affects the grass-roots prospective aspirations to “upscale their activities” and bring it up to the European level. Logically, how can they presume to make an impact at the EU-level youth policies when “back home at the local level all is not right“?

The project „Policing the policies – grassroots advocacy initiative for EU-level aligned and inclusive local youth strategies“ is answer to these and some other issues with municipal-level youth policies. At least in 8 local communities in 4 countries involved in the project: Serbia, Finland, Germany and Poland.

This 24-months long project being implemented until end of January 2024 is partnership between Association „People’s Parliament“ from Serbia, Association of cultural heritage education in Finland from Finland, Crisis simulation for peace (CRISP) from Germany and Field of dialogue Foundation from Poland.

Project „Policing the policies“ is the European Youth Together initiative of the Erasmus+ programme.

Inquiries regarding the project implementation can be submitted via our contact page: https://parlament.org.rs/kontakt/

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.