Amid the challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC)—from the advance of climate change to the weakening of the social contract and the urgent need to rebuild trust between citizens and institutions—a vibrant opportunity is emerging to reinvent the bond between institutions and society. With 165 million young people—one quarter of the region’s population—this generation is demanding to be active players in shaping solutions, not merely recipients of public policies, but co-creators of a new social pact. Even in the most uncertain contexts, young people stand at the center of this transformation.

Recent data shows that support for democracy is lowest among those aged 16 to 25, and nearly 40% of youth express distrust in government. This underscores the urgent call to renew the social contract, building more inclusive, transparent, and participatory models for a generation that insists on being heard and being part of the change. This skepticism is framed within what the upcoming Regional Human Development Report defines as a “new complexity of uncertainty”—a context where polarization and planetary shifts compound daily insecurities, creating volatility and widespread distrust.

This complexity signals a paradigm shift in development thinking—one that demands new policy approaches to address overlapping and interconnected threats. It places public sector integrity, government openness, participatory spaces, service quality, and equity as decisive factors shaping youth trust in democratic institutions.

It is a call to recalibrate—equipping societies with tools to navigate change, designing institutions that adapt to shifting contexts, and investing in communities’ capacity to imagine and build better futures.

Participation and Innovation: Between the Gap and the Opportunity

Currently, 45% of young people in the region lack internet access at home, exposing them to deep exclusion from educational, employment, and civic participation opportunities (Latinobarómetro cited in Serie Desafíos, 2024). The digital divide remains a structural barrier that deepens inequality among youth. Yet young people are responding with resilience and ingenuity: they are harnessing digital tools and transforming them into instruments for change, creating a more open and inclusive public sphere. They use social media platforms to mobilize, expose injustices, and weave solidarity across borders.

The Artificial Intelligence Atlas for Latin America and the Caribbean highlights the potential of technology—especially artificial intelligence (AI)—to build more transparent and reliable channels for participation, oversight, and decision-making within institutions. When designed with a people-centered approach, these technologies can counter disinformation, manipulation, and the erosion of institutional trust.

In this scenario, anticipatory governance offers tools for foresight and futures analysis so that institutions and citizens—particularly youth—can co-create public policies more proactively. Tools like the “Futures Wheel” or “Future Images” exercises, featured in the Democratizing Futures Guide, allow young people not only to react to the present but also to articulate and plan, identifying risks and opportunities to shape the futures they aspire to.

Blending the energy of youth movements with digital tools and anticipatory methodologies can help redesign institutional practices and processes, making them more inclusive and attuned to the demands of our times. This means building capacities that prepare public institutions to be future-ready—to anticipate scenarios, adapt with agility, and respond proactively to emerging challenges. It also means integrating participatory mechanisms that amplify youth voices and adopt new forms of communication, with technologies serving the public good.

From Event to Movement: Towards Institutions for the Future

The more open, inclusive, and forward-looking institutions are, the greater their capacity to generate trust and lead meaningful transformations. Across the region, inspiring examples abound:

• Honduras: The development of the local Youth, Peace, and Security Plan in San Pedro Sula—incorporating participatory tools and anticipatory governance—marks a regional milestone, showcasing the transformative role of youth in co-creating peace and development solutions.
• Peru: The Weaving Citizenship(Tejiendo Ciudadanía) initiative and the Redpublica platform leverage technology to strengthen youth participation, generating dialogues to build a new social pact that integrates innovative strategies to address democratic governance and sustainable development challenges.
• Brazil: Youth and democracy workshops, held as part of the participatory municipal planning process (PPA) in Osasco, engaged public-school students in listening exercises and solution-building, using anticipatory governance to reinforce democracy and trust at the local level.
• Colombia: The Transformative Youth initiative, supported by UNDP and UNFPA, strengthens youth participation, recognizing their role as agents of change in peacebuilding across territories historically affected by armed conflict.

These initiatives demonstrate that strengthening democracy requires strengthening youth institutionalization and creating genuine channels for participation. This is not about symbolic spaces—it is about ensuring youth have real influence in decisions that affect them, from policy design to implementation and evaluation.

The future of Latin America and the Caribbean remains a horizon under construction. The challenge for institutions is monumental: to move from rhetoric to action, transforming structures and processes to shift from symbolic consultation to genuine co-creation—with, by, and for youth.