What We Know about “What Works” in Youth Civic Engagement and Voice, Youth Organizations, Youth Leadership, and Civic Education

This literature review is part of USAID's Youth and Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) Research and Learning Project. The objective is to seek answers to the broad question of "what works" in youth programming. The review focused on evidence of impact of interventions in four areas: youth civic engagement and voice, youth organizations, youth leadership, and civic education for youth. Particular attention was given to interventions in conflict and violence-affected areas and in the context of countering violent extremism.The purpose of this project was to review the academic empirical literature to discover what is known about "what works" in youth civic engagement and voice as an input to evidence-based programming. In addition to looking at interventions to promote youth civic engagement and voice more generally, this project focused specifically on interventions to support youth organizations, youth leadership, and civic education for youth. Although it searched in particular for research on the impact of interventions in conflict and violence-affected areas and for countering violent extremism, little was identified.