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The United Nations General Assembly designated 12 August as International Youth Day to celebrate the role of young people as agents of change as well as to raise awareness of the challenges and problems facing the world’s youth.  This year, International Youth Day comes at a difficult time with the COVID-19 pandemic having had an unprecedented impact on young people’s education, employment, rights and mental health. At the same time, youth have been spearheading change and working towards mitigating the socio-economic impacts of the pandemic through their social activism.

Recognizing both the integral part young people have to play in the solution and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and their vulnerability to its effects, the Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth seeks to draw attention to young people’s actions and their views on fighting the crisis and the road to recovery. With this common objective in mind, the International Labour Organization, the United Nations Major Group for Children and Youth, AIESEC, the European Youth Forum, the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights have joined forces to conduct an online survey on youth and COVID-19.

The survey focused on four areas of impacts on young people (aged 18–29): namely, employment, education and training, mental well-being, and rights and voices. The survey ran online in 23 languages between 21 April and 21 May 2020 and any person over 18 years of age could choose to participate. The analysis is based on over 12,000 responses received by survey participants from 112 countries.