Conference “Digital Participation Tools for Youth Engagement in Local Governance”

Enabling youth participation with digital tools is mentioned as one of the innovative practices in youth work in a publication of the European Commission (Developing digital youth work – Policy recommendations, training needs and good practice examples for youth workers and decision-makers: expert group set up under the European Union Work Plan for Youth for 2016-2018). Digital tools can be used to support the already existing structures and processes of youth participation or incentivize e-participation in online environments or a combination of both that can be complementary.

Although some work has already been done in exploring digital youth work in Europe and e-participation in general, there is still not enough systematised information about digital tools for youth participation in decision-making processes in particular. Therefore, a European consortium led by DYPALL Network has decided to conduct this Study on digital participation tools for youth engagement in local governance in order to collect practice examples of digital tools that strengthen youth participation in decision-making processes at the local level. These tools and practices were gathered from around Europe, with a particular focus on the countries of the project consortium, Belgium, Italy, Portugal and Slovenia, and are meant to serve as a resource for youth workers, organisations and municipalities in their work on fostering local youth participation.