The Youth Engagement Platform (YEP) of the UNOPS offers an exceptional opportunity for dynamic young leaders to bring youth-driven ideas, perspectives, and energy to the heart of global development planning. As a member of this platform, you will serve as a youth advisor helping to shape policies, strategies, and projects within UNOPS by contributing lived-experience insights, creativity, and a fresh generational lens. This platform aims to integrate the priorities, concerns, and aspirations of young people into decision-making processes, advancing the mission of sustainable and inclusive development worldwide.
Although this role is not a standard staff appointment, being part of YEP allows you to influence strategic thinking, advocate for youth-centred approaches, and collaborate with a diverse cohort of peers from around the globe. As such, it offers a meaningful way to contribute to the global agenda, while gaining experience in areas such as policy analysis, advocacy, and cross-cultural collaboration all within the context of a major UN institution. The term lasts for one year, during which you will engage in various advisory, analytical, and representational tasks.
Core Responsibilities & Expected Impact
Youth-Led Analysis and Insight Generation
As a member of Youth Engagement Platform (YEP), you will help UNOPS anticipate and respond to emerging global and regional developments that disproportionately affect young people. This includes identifying trends, risks, and opportunities in domains like infrastructure, climate resilience, procurement, project management, fragility, and beyond. By offering a youth-informed perspective, you will provide rapid feedback and contribute to foresight exercises, strategic analyses, and internal reviews ensuring that the realities and needs of younger generations are visible in organizational decisions.
Strategic Advisory to Leadership and Programme Design
Youth Engagement Platform (YEP) serves as a consultative advisory body to UNOPS’s senior leadership and core initiatives. In this capacity, you will review policies, strategic frameworks and flagship programs through the lens of youth inclusion, intergenerational equity, diversity, and inclusion. You will offer practical, creative recommendations to make UNOPS’s work more relevant, legitimate and impactful for young people. In collaboration with leadership and thematic teams, you will help integrate youth-friendly solutions that encourage meaningful participation, promote equity, and reflect the aspirations of younger demographics.
Representation, Advocacy, and External Engagement
Members of the Youth Engagement Platform (YEP) platform also play an ambassadorial role representing UNOPS’s youth perspective in selected internal briefings and external forums, including regional or international events. You may contribute to talking points, engage in panel discussions, and help craft advocacy messages that amplify youth priorities. Through this representation, you help position UNOPS as a credible, youth-engaging actor in global dialogues around development, sustainability and equity.
Supporting Youth-Inclusive Implementation & Project Delivery
Beyond advisory functions, Youth Engagement Platform (YEP) members contribute to operational design and project delivery by offering guidance on how programmes can better engage, benefit, and empower young people. This includes providing feedback on project management practices, suggesting mechanisms for youth participation and benefit sharing, and helping identify good practices from youth-oriented initiatives that can be institutionalized across UNOPS. Your input will help shape projects so that they meaningfully reflect youth voices and ensure inclusive impact.
Who Should Apply — Ideal Profile & Eligibility
- Young individuals aged 17 to 29, with a deep commitment to sustainable development, equity, and social inclusion.
- Demonstrated experience or strong interest in youth engagement, community service, volunteer work, student organizations, youth networks, or advocacy whether at local, national, regional, or global levels.
- Strong communication and interpersonal skills, including ability to work with diverse groups, engage stakeholders, conduct research, and articulate ideas clearly and respectfully.
- An ability to think critically, analyze trends, and propose practical, youth-informed recommendations.
- Familiarity with global development issues, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and a willingness to contribute creatively and thoughtfully to policy and programme design.
- A mindset rooted in inclusion and respect for diversity recognizing the value of input from different backgrounds, identities, regions, and perspectives.
Through this role, Youth Engagement Platform (YEP) aims to include young people from all walks of life, especially those from underrepresented or marginalized communities, to ensure broad representation and equity within the advisory body.
What You Gain by Joining YEP
- A rare opportunity to influence a major UN agency’s strategies and operations your insights will help shape how UNOPS approaches development, sustainability, and youth inclusion.
- Valuable experience in policy analysis, advocacy, advisory work, cross-cultural collaboration, and high-level representation skills that are highly relevant for a future career in international development, public policy, or community leadership.
- Networking and collaboration with global peers, experts, and decision-makers offering you exposure to different regional perspectives and global challenges, while building relationships across borders.
- The chance to bring youth-centred and intergenerational perspectives into global development discussions. By contributing to project design and strategic planning, you help ensure that young people’s voices, realities and needs are considered.
- Personal growth through engagement, learning, and meaningful contribution empowering you to make a tangible difference, while developing leadership, communication, and advocacy capacities.
