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1. Existence of a national strategy to increase young people's political and civil society participation

2. Scope and contents

3. Responsible authority for the implementation of the strategy

4. Revisions/ Updates

Existence of a national strategy to increase young people's political and civil society participation

There is no separate strategy to increase young people's political and civil society participation in Romania. However, a special section of the Youth Strategy for 2015-2020, adopted in 2015 through Governement Decision no. 24/2015 refers to youth participation.

Scope and contents

The strategy aims to address national and local level participation, and public, civic and political participation.

The specific objectives of the Youth Strategy on youth participation are:

1. Increase youth participation in community life, in all its social, educational, cultural, economic and health aspects
2. Increase youth participation in political life
3. Increase participation of youth-led and youth-serving non-governmental organisations in the structured dialogue

The lines of action of the Youth Strategy on youth participation are:

• Create more opportunities for youth participation in community life;
• Support seminars, conferences and similar events to promote adolescent and youth participation;
• Promote successful models of participation to encourage youth to get involved in community life;
• Present to youth and parents the benefits, competences and skills they may gain through volunteer engagement;
• Reward the best initiatives and decisions involving youth participation at local level as part of project competitions;
• Set up research and consultation groups consisting of young people at the level of
• territorial and administrative divisions (communes, towns, counties);
• Increase youth motivation to participate in community life through project involvement;
• Create funding opportunities for setting up or improving sustainable youth facilities at local level;
• Develop civic education in the formal education system;
• Promote activities of interest for young people and tailor volunteering opportunities to various youth groups;
• Improve youth policy regulation, governance, transparency, and accessibility;
• Ensure that, at the level of youth centres, student cultural centres and leisure facilities for youth, strategic management is primarily conducted by YNGO representatives and that executive management is exclusively appointed based on competence and utmost transparency;
• Create platforms that enable young people to report cases of abuse, corruption and fraud in public institutions and run campaigns to encourage the use of such platforms;
• Measure the impact of volunteering on individual performance and the personal
• perception of gained experience from the economic agents’ perspective.
• Add political education notions to the civic education curriculum in the formal education system;
• Actively involve youth-led and youth-serving non-governmental organisations in working to introduce civic and political education in the formal curriculum;
• Increase voter turnout among young people with the help of mass media and information points;
• Ensure students’ right to vote in the community where they live throughout their studies;
• Encourage youth involvement in mock decision-making processes to facilitate their understanding of democratic mechanisms.
• Make transparent decisions in the areas that directly affect young people;
• Promote the involvement of youth-led and youth-serving non-governmental organisations in the co-management of youth work and programme implementation;
• Start and establish a dialogue with young people, allowing all stakeholders to contribute with ideas in order to develop, agree on, implement and monitor youth policies and programmes at all levels;
• Promote a structured dialogue between political decision makers and the civil society in order to effectively ensure youth involvement in the decisions that affect them.

The target groups of the lines of actions under the key area of intervention on participation and volunteering are:

• young people involved in the NGO sector
• volunteers and young people who developed skills outside recognised forms of education and need a recognition of their skills
• young people with low levels of  participation in associative, social and political life

No further targeting is envisaged at the level of the Strategy.

Responsible authority for the implementation of the strategy

The Ministry of Youth and Sports is the main government authority responsible for the implementation, coordination and monitoring of the national Youth Strategy. It is in charge with:

• drafting the Action Plan of the Strategy
• drafting and implementing a monitoring and evaluation plan of the Strategy
• designing and implementing the actions under the key area of intervention on participation and others

However, an action plan allowing systematic implementation of the strategy, monitoring and evaluation the strategy, was not adopted.

Revisions/Updates

No updates have been made to the present Youth Strategy concerning the chapter on youth participation (or other chapters).