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1. Existence of a National Youth Strategy

2. Scope and contents

3. Responsible authority for the implementation of the Youth Strategy

4. Revisions/updates

Existence of a National Youth Strategy

The Youth Strategy 2030 (Estrategia Juventud 2030) is currently in force, approved by the Council of Ministers on the 17th of May 2022. This plan is the result of the activities of the General State Administration (AGE), the Spanish Youth Council (CJE), civil society and the autonomous communities.

The Youth Strategy 2030 takes into account the provisions of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (Plan de Recuperación, Transformación y Resiliencia (PRTR)) in all of its Axes. The PRTR adopts challenges and commitments that will have a significant impact on the entire population in general and on youth in particular. In this sense, the Youth Strategy is complementary to the PRTR, as it also aspires to be a reference framework and to establish the roadmap for youth policies over the next decade.

It covers three different Action Plans: the first Action Plan encompassed the years 2022 to 2024 (Plan de acción 2022-2024), the second Action Plan includes the year 2025 to the year 2027 and the third Action Plan 2028 to 2030. The 2022-2024 Action Plan will develop, update and verify the degree of compliance with the lines and strategic objectives set by Strategy 2030 for this period, through the compilation and evaluation of the actions related to youth of the different ministries, especially youth-related actions of the different ministries, especially through sectoral plans  (Youth Employment Shock Plan, Plan for Adolescence and Childhood, Housing Plan, National Poverty Strategy National Poverty Strategy, National Health Strategy, Action Plan on Addictions, etc.)

Scope and contents

Youth Strategy 2020

The new Youth Strategy 2030 "A new social contract with youth" is a cross-cutting inter-ministerial initiative promoted by the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 (Ministerio de Derechos Sociales y Agenda 2030), in collaboration with all ministries through the Interministerial Commission for Youth.

The main target group of the strategy is the Spanish population between 15 to 29. However, this general section is sometimes altered to take into account sectoral specificities. For example, Axis 1 (Education) analyses the situation of adolescence from the age of 12, as this is the way to prevent risks in early adolescence. In Axis 3 (Housing and life project), the age is increased to 35 years due to the increase in life expectancy and the delay in the age of emancipation and having children. In Axes 3, 4, 7 and 8, which deal with research and rural youth, the limit is raised to 40 years of age, according to the EU notion of young farmer, and the time it takes for a young researcher to enter a stable employment situation.

The Strategy has a particular focus on young people with fewer opportunities and recognises the heterogeneity of young people, which is why lines of action have been established to address the diversity of groups and collectives that often experience greater difficulties in accessing opportunities and face multiple types of discrimination: women, young people, LGBTIQ people, young immigrants, gypsies, young people with some kind of disability, among many other vulnerable groups addressed in this Strategy and about which knowledge is expected to increase in the coming years until 2030.

Its goal is to give coherence and a sense of mission to the various actions of the ministries in the field of youth or with relevance to youth, through their coordinated implementation, a new social contract that guarantees, now and in the immediate future, the right of youth to design and develop their own projects, fostering the conditions for their full social inclusion within a socio-economic model that is egalitarian, just and sustainable for humans and the ecosystem.

Axes of action

The 2030 Strategy (Estrategia 2030) establishes 12 Axes of Action. Its goals are also defined.

• Axis 1 Inclusive, equitable, quality education and training and lifelong learning
  • Goal 1.1 Guarantee universal, inclusive and comprehensive education in compulsory secondary education, high school and special education.
  • Goal 1.2 Guarantee a public, accessible and quality university: priority to the student body.
  • Goal 1.3 Promote international mobility programs for formal education.
  • Goal 1.4 Promote a single system for quality, inclusive, flexible and lifelong vocational training.
  • Goal 1.5 Ensuring universal access to lifelong learning
  • Goal 1.6 To develop, attract and retain scientific, technological and innovative talent. Encourage the training of new generations of scientific, technological and innovative personnel.
• Axis 2 Self-reliance, decent employment and youth entrepreneurship
  • Goal A Regulatory development and strategic framework to ensure quality youth employment.
  • Goal 2.1 New public policies for a dynamic, resilient and inclusive labor market.
  • Goal 2.2 Cooperation with the competent ministerial department for the implementation of the Youth Guarantee + 2021-2027.
  • Goal 2.3 Development, together with the relevant ministry, of the Youth Employment Shock Plan.
  • Goal 2.4 Collaboration with the relevant ministerial department to increase the employability of researchers, technologists and innovators and to promote the consolidation of their professional careers.
• Axis 3 Emancipation, housing, birth rate and life project
  • Goal 3.1 Guaranteeing young people's access to stable rental housing, regulating the national housing stock as a social, affordable, efficient and healthy service
  • Goal 3.2 Promoting home ownership among young people
  • Goal 3.3 Generate sufficient, affordable and energy-efficient social rental housing for young people.
  • Goal 3.4 Guarantee immediate access to housing for homeless, evicted or at serious risk of social exclusion individuals and families.
  • Goal 3.5 Facilitating access to decent housing in rural areas for all young people
  • Goal 3.6 Implement policies that contribute to increasing the birth rate among young people.
  • Goal 3.7 To make the reconciliation of work, family and personal life and co-responsibility in working time effective.
  • Goal 3.8 To provide young people with guidance on support for emancipation, housing, childbirth and work-life balance.
• Axis 4 Integral health and quality of life
  • Goal 4.1 Promote the mental wellbeing of young people, prevent suicide and end the stigmatization of mental health problems.
  • Goal 4.2 Preventing drug use and addictions among young people
  • Goal 4.3 Adapt public services to the specific needs of adolescents and youth to improve their quality of life.
  • Goal 4.4 Promote actions aimed at fostering healthy lifestyles and environments and promoting healthy culture and social leisure among the young population.
  • Goal 4.5 Promote youth empowerment and sexual health: healthy affective and sexual relations, prevent sexual and gender-based violence and sexually transmitted infections, and facilitating free choice of motherhood.
  • Goal 4.6 Promote comprehensive digital competences of youth and prevent behavioural addictions and online violence.
• Axis 5 Young people and adolescents at serious risk of social exclusion or subject to double discrimination.
  • Goal 5.1 Promote comprehensive care for youth and young families through a system of improved legal, social and economic protection for families and the recognition of family diversity and the development of the minimum living income.
  • Goal 5.2 Promote the care and protection of all adolescent girls and young women who are victims of male violence.
  • Goal 5.3 Support the full inclusion of young people and adolescents with disabilities and guarantee the right to independent living.
  • Goal 5.4 Promote the protection and inclusion of LGTBIQ+ youth and adolescents and fight against all types of discrimination and hate speech.
  • Goal 5.4 (b) Support the protection and inclusion of young people belonging to vulnerable groups and fight against all forms of discrimination and hate speech.
  • Goal 5.5 Working for the full social inclusion of Roma youth.
  • Goal 5.5 (b) To promote the full social inclusion of African and Afro-descendant, Asian, Arab, Latin American, Amazigh or Indo-Pakistani youth, and to fight against all forms of discrimination and hate speech.
  • Goal 5.6 To provide homeless youth with appropriate accommodation and services in order to promote their social inclusion.
  • Goal 5.7 Promote the human rights and full inclusion of young and adolescent migrants, migrants in care, unaccompanied and separated migrant children and adolescents, fostering fair and supportive immigration policies.
  • Goal 5.8 Promote the development of comprehensive treatment programmes for young people deprived of their liberty.
• Axis 6 Youth and global transformation, participation and volunteering
  • Goal 6.1 Promote youth associations and participation, adapted to the digital environment.
  • Goal 6.2 Promote volunteering and the values of solidarity associated with its practice.
  • Goal 6.3 Consider lowering the age for active and passive suffrage to 16 and 17 years of age, balancing the demographic and electoral weight of young people and promote their leadership.
  • Goal 6.4 Bringing the European Union closer to young people and developing international volunteering, training and employment programmes.
• Axis 7 Youth mobility: emigration and return
  • Goal 7.1 Encourage the free movement of Spanish youth to other countries and help young people to develop their migration project.
  • Goal 7.2 Encourage and facilitate the return of young people who have emigrated and recover their talent for our country.
• Axis 8 Youth and the rural world
  • Goal 8.1 Ensure equal opportunities for young people, regardless of whether they live in rural or urban areas.
  • Goal 8.2 To foster a technological, business and working environment that is conducive to the professional development of young people throughout the territory.
  • Goal 8.3 Enabling environment for rural women.
  • Goal 8.4 Promote the active participation of young rural people in decision-making processes and policy co-creation by enabling appropriate public-social cooperation channels.
• Axis 9 Knowledge management on youth reality and youth services
  • Goal 9.1 Develop Injuve's Youth and Young Women's Observatory as a national centre for knowledge management on youth.
  • Goal 9.2 Elaborate a state system of youth indicators to provide an overview of the youth reality with basic data.
  • Goal 9.3 Improve monitoring and knowledge transfer between the fields of research, policy and practice by collecting, monitoring, retrieving and disseminating information on youth in Spain and its environment.
  • Goal 9.4 Diffusion and dissemination of knowledge on youth.
  • Goal 9.5 Strengthen and promote the Injuve's ecosystem for sharing knowledge on youth, seeking synergies and optimising resources.
  • Goal 9.6 Evaluation and systematisation of data and information on programmes,
  • policies and services aimed at youth.
  • Goal 9.7 Promoting youth research in the field of youth.
  • Goal 9.8 Incorporation of the youth perspective in all research in the field of the GSA.
  • Goal 9.9 International cooperation in youth knowledge programmes.
• Axis 10 Youth governance and institutional cooperation
  • Goal 10.1 To ensure synergies, coherence and effective practices in the field of youth in the effective practices in the General State Administration (AGE).
  • Goal 10.2 To facilitate and make effective the right of young people to participate in the
  • the monitoring and development of policies related to the GSA's youth agenda.
  • Goal 10.3 To inform the Autonomous Communities of the National Government's youth policies and and actions in the field of youth of the National Government.
  • Goal 10.4 To coordinate, from the Injuve, the youth perspective in the strategies, plans and regulations of the National Government.
  • Goal 10.5 Promote international institutional cooperation in the field of youth.
  • Goal 10.6 International cooperation for the participation of Spanish youth in the monitoring and development of youth policies.
• Axis 11 Young women and equality
  • Goal 11.1 Young women and education.
  • Goal 11.2 Young women and autonomy, decent employment and entrepreneurship.
  • Goal 11.3 Emancipation, housing, birth rate and life project in young women.
  • Goal 11.4 Young women: health and quality of life.
  • Goal 11.5 Young women at particular risk of social exclusion.
  • Goal 11.6 Women and global youth. Participation and volunteering.
  • Goal 11.7 Women and rural life.
  • Goal 11.8 Knowledge management on young women's groups.
• Axis 12 Youth, the environment and sustainability
  • Goal 12.1 Participation. Leading sustainability and environmental policies, from the activism of young people and adolescents.
  • Goal 12.2 Education. Empowering youth to develop a shared environmental awareness from which they can act as agents of change for environmental and sustainable development.
  • Goal 12.3 Housing. Promote sustainable social renting, housing rehabilitation and rural repopulation.
  • Goal 12.4 The rural world and the environment. Commitment to sustainability.
  • Goal 12.5 Production and mobility model. Curbing the consumption of natural resources.

It has been developed in a participatory manner throughout 2021, convening for the first time for its design all the ministries of the General State Administration, the Directorates-General for Youth of the autonomous communities within the framework of the Interterritorial Youth Council, and a broad representation of youth civil society, made up of the CJE and more than 40 national youth organisations or those with a direct interest in youth; it also incorporates the contributions of the participants in the EU Dialogues With Youth programme.

The collaboration of the Spanish Youth Council (CJE), the body representing youth in our country, is particularly relevant for the development and monitoring of this Strategy. The Council guarantees the incorporation of the youth perspective in the situation analysis, guidelines, areas of interest and specific measures of the EJ2030, through its membership in the Interministerial Commission for Youth and its participation in the 8 permanent working groups of this commission.

Responsible authority for the implementation of the Youth Strategy

The Strategy refers to those actions related to youth taken or to be taken by the General Government Administration, through the different departments. This Strategy was conceived by the Ministry of Social Rights and 2030 Agenda.

The Youth Strategy 2030 (Estrategia Juventud 2030) is implemented through Action Plans including actions related to youth from the different Ministries. Thus, an assessment mechanism to quantify the success of the Plan has been established.

At the end of each year, the Youth Institute will produce a report on the follow-up of the actions taken, which shall be used as the basis, in order to partially asses each Action Plan and to encourage the development of new measures.

Revisions and updates

Although the Youth Strategy 2030 is not exactly a revision of the Youth Strategy 2020 (Estrategia Juventud 2020), but a different plan, a continuation, we introduce it in this section.

One of the main changes is the incorporation of two cross-cutting Axes: 11- Young women and equality and 12- Youth, environment and sustainability, because all areas of life are considered to be affected by the consequences of inequality and the climate emergency.

The main goals of the YS2020 were:

• Consolidate among young people the values linked to democracy, such as tolerance, solidarity, entrepreneurship and effort.
• Promoting the personal autonomy and the social and economic integration of young people by adjusting and increasing job training, enabling the growth of youth employment and facilitating their access to housing.
• Improve the channels for young people's participation in society so that they can play a greater role in crucial times such as the present, when social and technological changes are taking place.

The main goals of the YS2030 are:

• Social justice. Recovery of civil, economic and social rights for adolescents, youth, women and other discriminated groups.
• Democratic renewal and a new sustainable and ecological socio-economic model. A new social contract requires the participation of the classes most disadvantaged by the current socio-economic structure, and therefore most vulnerable, to become more committed to the progressive transformation of the system.

As we can see, the feminist perspective and climate concerns are introduced.