Young people’s participation in public policy-making: the case of Valle del Cauca, Colombia

From the early 1990’s various mechanisms and spaces for young people’s participation in public policy-making have been implemented around the world. Nevertheless, the literature reviewed about specific experiences in this area does not provide significant evidence about their impact and benefits. Some important criticisms of participatory development and youth participation have also arisen in the last decade, pointing out arguments such as the lack of results from participation experiences and providing evidence of some harmful participatory practices. The purposes of this paper are to examine the experience of the Regional Youth Council at Valle del Cauca, Colombia and to explore whether this youth participation mechanism has been useful for putting into practice youth participation in public policy-making. It applies analytical tools such as the critical dimensions of participation and the power cube, and combines qualitative research techniques in order to analyze this particular case. Special attention was paid to young people’s perspective. A meaningful youth participation process has been developed in Valle del Cauca from the beginning of the last decade, allowing young people to have important influence in public policy-making. In this context, the Youth Council has been a useful experience for promoting youth participation, although this participation is being constrained by different internal and contextual factors. Young people´s influence in policy-making is not only attributable to this particular mechanism, but it is the result of several institutionalized and non-institutionalized youth participation mechanisms existing and working in tandem in the region. It was also possible to observe that changes in departmental governments from term to term changed priority levels for youth participation and policies during the policy-making process. Moreover, it could be argued that youth participation and policies have at some moments been only a governmental discourse, lacking any real experience of participation.