EVIDENCE
Between September and December 2025, we mobilized across five regions to assess how young people are actually experiencing the Humanitarian Reset. We consulted youth-led organizations and frontline entities to understand their baseline knowledge, track their level of direct engagement, and consolidate their concrete recommendations for systemic reform.
REGIONAL CONSULTATION AND REPORTS
WHO WE ENGAGED
Global Survey Participants
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
Level of awareness of the Reset
This data represents a global network of 107 young leaders and activists. While the insights are heavily weighted toward Africa (84%), this reflects the geographic reality of the world’s most acute humanitarian crises. These are not just “participants,” but seasoned responders with a wealth of underutilized expertise.
While a slight majority (51.9%) report being very familiar with the Humanitarian Reset, nearly half the movement remains in the dark. Awareness is a precursor to power; this chart proves that information is still being held within international agency silos rather than being structurally relocated to youth spaces.
Regional consultations participants
Representation
Beyond the survey, 360 young people engaged in deep-dive regional consultations. By organizing across time zones and languages, we have captured a cross-section of insights from the Americas (3.4%) to Asia-Pacific (18.9%) and the MENA region (13.7%), ensuring that the demand for reform is not a monolith.
Our movement is defined by those the system often leaves behind. Half of our engaged representatives are Internally Displaced Persons (50%), followed by Ethnic and Religious Minorities (27.1%) and Refugees (22.9%). This data is the evidence that the Reset must be developed with these leaders, not merely for them.
GLOBAL YOUTH MANIFESTO
Synthesized by a team of young researchers using direct evidence from our frontline consultations, this Manifesto provides a clear, uncompromising roadmap for shifting power and resources in the Humanitarian Architecture.
-Mandate Inclusion: Guarantee formally reserved seats for young people in key coordination spaces and ensure shared decision-making.
- Sustainably Fund: Create accessible, youth-friendly funding with quotas in pooled funds and multi-year support for youth-led organizations.
- Share Power: Mandate the co-leadership of young people across the full arc of humanitarian action, from design to implementation.
- Build Capacity: Ensure young people have the skills, tools, and mentorship structures to engage meaningfully.
- Ensure Accountability: Enforce the collection of disaggregated data and transparency in the reset process.
ADVOCACY
Global Humanitarian Youth Summit 2026
The Global Youth Humanitarian Summit is the sector’s turning point to look backward at the broken promises since the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS), and look forward to co-designing the new architecture, moving from token consultation to structural co-leadership.
The Summit employs a dynamic hybrid model that directly links frontline realities with global policy processes:
Global Online Plenary (7 May 2026): High-level digital convening bringing together UN principals, donors, humanitarian agencies, and youth advocates to negotiate and adopt commitments.
In-Person Local Hubs (20–30 April 2026): Youth-led physical gatherings in selected crisis-affected contexts. These hubs will surface unfiltered grassroots priorities and feed them directly into the global plenary.
Aligning with the priorities of the HUmanitarian Reset, the Summit is designed around the following three key themes-
DEVOLVE (Shifting Power & Resources): Tackling financial bottlenecks to negotiate specific access tracks, simplify due diligence, and secure fair overheads for youth-led organizations.
DELIVER (Accountability & Participation): Upgrading Accountability to Affected People (AAP) by co-creating transparent feedback loops and grievance mechanisms.
DEFEND (Protection & Civic Space): Addressing severe risks by establishing joint protocols for youth safety and defending civic space.
JOIN OUR
COMMUNITY
More Than First Responders (MTFR) is a digital community of young humanitarians, established and facilitated by ActionAid Global Platform. It brings together young people from diverse humanitarian contexts into a collaborative space to connect, learn, and lead.
Through MTFR, members engage in continuous learning, peer exchange, and mentorship to strengthen their knowledge and practice. The community fosters co-creation of tools, sharing of best practices, and development of innovative approaches to advance youth leadership in humanitarian action. MTFR is open to young people and practitioners committed to strengthening youth leadership, collaboration, and innovation across humanitarian, development and peace agendas.
If you are passionate about advancing youth leadership in humanitarian action, this community is for you. Join the community and be part of a growing movement to strengthen youth-led humanitarian action.
Join Us 📣
Trusted Voices,
Powerful Support
Global Survey Voices
We are quantifying the power of local leadership. Join over 250+ young humanitarians who have already shared their expertise to rewrite the humanitarian program. Help us reach our 500+ voice milestone to turn individual stories into a global movement for change.
LOCALIZATION
Global Action
CTC actively support local young leaders to infiltrate global spaces and share their experience through their presence.
– CSW 70, “Bridging the Climate, Disaster, and Gender Nexus: Grassroots Storytelling for Policy and Empowerment”
– Save/Plan/NRC HNPW event: 10th March: Children and Young People Tell Us What They Need. Response Plans Reflect Some of What They Said. Funding Reflects None of It with Global Education Cluster & Geneve EiE Hub.
Decoding Policy
The humanitarian policies and frameworks are often ladden with jargon and exclusionary terminologies. Through accessible, youth-friendly blogs, we translate heavy policy language into plain, actionable language. We equip young advocates with the knowledge they need to hold power-holders accountable.
Frontline Voices
Authored and curated by young humanitarians, our newsletter captures the lived realities, urgent challenges, and grassroots innovations of youth responders navigating crises worldwide.
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Change the Code is a Global Platform youth-led movement working to reshape how humanitarian decisions are made. We connect young people, networks, and partners across regions to ensure that those closest to the realities of crisis are shaping the systems meant to support them. Through collective action, shared evidence, and collaboration, the movement is driving a shift toward a more accountable, responsive, and people-centered humanitarian system.