It’s a Monday afternoon. Work is slow.

You open LinkedIn. Check your invitations. “ABC has invited you to follow their page, Climate XYZ.”

You click. It’s an earnest effort – a platform run by a twenty-something activist passionate about climate action and trying to make a difference. Tomorrow, there will be another invitation. And another.  

At some point, you begin to wonder: how many such initiatives exist? Who are these young people working, often independently, to tackle climate change? And what does this growing ecosystem look like beneath the surface? 

Youth-led civil society organizations (CSOs) in Pakistan, whether formally registered or not, likely number in the thousands. While there is no definitive estimate, the number is large enough that the National Adolescent & Youth Policy 2025 recommends recognizing youth work as a profession and creating a more supportive ecosystem for youth-led organizations.

As a Youth Economic Officer working at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Pakistan, my work involves regular engagement with young people and youth-led organizations. From this vantage point, their scale is far from abstract. Through its programmes, UNDP has worked with hundreds of youth-led CSOs across various capacity building programmes and engagement activities. And as these young activists increasingly appear – on LinkedIn, on Instagram, at events and panels – I can’t help but wonder: Can we map them? Can we learn from them? And most importantly, can we engage them more meaningfully as partners in development?

Based on my engagement with over 400 youth-led CSOs during my work at UNDP, three distinct observations emerge:

• A strong “green” orientation
  
  Among the 79 applications received under UNDP’s #MySDGAction campaign for youth activists in October 2025, 42 percent of youth-led CSOs were working in the “green” space, including climate awareness, waste reduction, recycling, kitchen gardening, and biodiversity. This aligns with broader trends: as per the “South Asia Research on Perceptions of Young People on Climate Change and Action: Pakistan”, 70 percent of young people aged 18 to 25 view climate change as the biggest threat to Pakistan, while 80 percent believe raising awareness about climate change is a shared public responsibility.
• New platforms for engagement
  
  There has been a visible upsurge in both international and national platforms for youth climate engagement in Pakistan – from Local Conference of Youth and COP simulations to initiatives like the Green Youth Movement and the National Youth Council. Many of these did not exist a few years ago and reflect growing demand for youth participation. While questions around the depth and quality of youth involvement in policymaking continue to be discussed, these platforms represent an important step toward more structured and sustained inclusion of young voices in climate-related policy processes.
• Hungry for action
  
  While 46 percent of youth-led startups cite lack of funding as their primary constraint, interest in engagement remains high. When UNDP Pakistan launched the Youth Empowerment for Climate Action Platform (YECAP) ‘Shakers’ Fellowship without financial incentives, we received an overwhelming 300 applications from across the country. Despite some attrition over the duration of the eight-week fellowship, the sheer volume of interest signals something deeper: a strong intrinsic motivation to act.