(Commonwealth)_ Over 200 Commonwealth young leaders convened in Windhoek, Namibia, at the first Youth Leadership Consultative Dialogue, organized by the Commonwealth Youth Council (CYC) and Namibia’s government. Their eminent and senior government officials, such as Namibia‘s Minister of Education, Innovation, Youth, Sports, Arts, and Culture, participated during the session, except for other members of the Commonwealth Secretariat.
The five-day discussion, which was planned for 4 to 8 August 2025, was a platform for youth leaders, policymakers, and other stakeholders to interact, share, and be informed about policy in order to make recommendations on policy. The summit aimed at fostering youth leadership and active participation on platforms of decision-making in the Commonwealth.
This memorial is coinciding with the wider Commonwealth Secretariat’s remembrance throughout August of young people’s precious work, with International Youth Day (IYD) on August 12, 2025, being marked with special focus. This IYD gains additional significance in the coincidence that it falls exactly on the 10th anniversary of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The 2030 Agenda is a global call to action to end poverty so that no one is left behind and to make the world safe and secure and to enjoy peace and prosperity for all. The youth banner under which the Commonwealth celebrations took place placed youth leaders in the limelight as change-makers, campaigners, and mobilizers to guide development into these paths in their communities.
At the Namibia dialogue, the young people negotiated to establish empowerment of young people, triggering additional regional action and policy implementation consistent with youth vision and expertise. Dialogue was to produce a visionary Windhoek Declaration—a youth-created pronouncement of policy for harvesting ideas and converting them into useful, hands-on reality across the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth Youth Council, an autonomous organization supported by the Commonwealth Secretariat, represents 1.6-billion-member states’ youth. In tune with the format of UN-like-minded consultative meetings, i.e., the Namibia dialogue, its purpose is to shape national and international policymaking and action through engaging youth voice.
The forum also facilitated the institutionalization of the emergent feeling that the youth do not wait to become leaders but are already leading. The forum, bringing together a diverse range of experiences and perspectives, was well-positioned to foster new partnerships, stimulate policy innovation, and reaffirm the Commonwealth’s role in creating conditions that enable the youth to flourish in their entirety.
The outcome of the Windhoek gathering will be conveyed directly to the Commonwealth youth development agenda in progress with a view to further enhancing the global momentum toward the realization of the SDGs by 2030.
