How policymakers can turn Gen Z into policy partners

This article is authored by Ananya Raj Kakoti, scholar, international relations, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

If governments want Gen Z to engage meaningfully, they must move beyond token consultations and build participation into the architecture of policymaking. Young people do not lack opinions; what they often lack is access to institutions that can translate those opinions into decisions. The policy task, therefore, is not merely to include youth, but to redesign the State’s listening habits.

Gen Z as policy partners (Representational image/Unsplash)

A useful starting point is to treat youth participation as a governance function. In India, the proposed youth policy framework and the MY Bharat platform point in that direction by creating a digital ecosystem for volunteering, feedback and engagement. That is promising, but digital portals alone cannot carry the burden of representation. They work best when linked to formal decision-making processes: Pre-legislative consultation, departmental review, municipal planning and budget allocation.

One practical reform would be statutory Youth Advisory Councils at central, state and municipal levels. These should have a defined consultative role on issues where Gen Z will bear the consequences most directly: Education, skilling, climate adaptation, digital rights, public transport, mental health and urban design. Councils could be mandated to review draft policies and submit reasoned feedback before finalisation. That would not transfer power away from elected institutions, but it would improve the quality of policy inputs.

A second reform is participatory budgeting. Local governments could allocate a small but meaningful portion of funds for youth-led proposals in libraries, sports spaces, safe public transport, environmental projects and community tech initiatives. Participatory budgeting works because it turns abstract citizenship into concrete responsibility. A young person who helps decide whether a neighbourhood gets more street lighting or better drainage is not just engaged; they are learning how public priorities are negotiated.

Third, governments should create structured fellowship and internship pipelines inside legislative and administrative institutions. India already has a large cohort of educated, policy-literate young citizens who understand social media, data and rapid research workflows. Embedding them in ministries, district administrations, parliamentary research units and local bodies would improve policy design and strengthen civic trust. It would also help the state move from intuition-based governance to evidence-informed governance, which Gen Z tends to value.

Examples from India and abroad show the value of doing this well. The national youth policy architecture in India recognises participation and self-reliance as pillars of a long-term development vision. Internationally, youth activism has helped shape substantive outcomes: The Malaysian Undi18 movement contributed to lowering the voting age, while climate activism has pushed governments to tighten their public commitments. These are not sentimental victories. They show that young citizens, when organised and heard, can alter policy trajectories.

India also has examples of constructive youth contribution at city level. Youth-led or youth-informed climate and urban initiatives have shown that young people can move from protest to problem-solving, especially in areas like waste management, heat stress, mobility and public awareness. That is important because local governance is where participation is most visible and where policy can be tested quickly. If a young person can help design a safer cycle lane or a better waste-segregation campaign, they are already contributing to governance in a practical way.

However, involvement must be inclusive. Policymakers should not confuse Gen Z participation with social media virality. The loudest voices online are not always the most representative. Effective inclusion requires offline consultations in colleges, industrial training institutes, rural youth clubs, and community spaces, with translation across languages and attention to caste, class, disability and gender barriers. Otherwise, the policy process will simply reproduce existing inequalities in digital form.

The larger lesson is that Gen Z should not be invited into policy only when governments want validation. It should be involved because today’s young citizens are tomorrow’s administrators, judges, entrepreneurs, journalists and voters — and because many policy choices made now will outlive the officials who make them. A serious democracy does not fear younger voices; it institutionalises them.

The strongest governments will be those that recognise a simple truth: participation is not a concession to youth, but a condition of good governance.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Ananya Raj Kakoti, scholar, international relations, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.