The Youth Network on Beyond GDP’s Policy Recommendations

As part of the "Youth Moving Beyond GDP" initiative, we are pleased to present the Youth Network on Beyond GDP’s recommendations, co-developed through a global, youth-led process to redefine how progress is measured. These recommendations place people and planet, across current and future generations, at the heart of economic systems and reflect the insights, expertise, and lived experiences of young people worldwide.

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Our Process and Methodology

The recommendations were co-created through an inclusive, participatory process designed to ensure legitimacy and diversity:

• Initial survey: Over 250 submissions from youth worldwide helped identify priorities.
• Second survey: Used to refine and validate the emerging ideas.
• Consultation calls: Enabled deeper discussion and collective sensemaking, ensuring that the final recommendations reflect both global relevance and local realities.

This iterative approach, inspired by grounded theory principles, ensured that the framework emerged from lived experiences and collective priorities, not prescriptive templates.

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What’s Inside the Recommendations?

Our framework is built on three guiding principles that act as lenses for the interpretation of the subsequent domains:

1. Human Rights-Based: Upholding dignity, equality, and justice.
2. Intergenerational Justice: Safeguarding well-being for current and future generations.
3. Country-Owned yet Globally Relevant: Respecting local realities while contributing to shared global goals.

The recommendations focus on five core domains, each with detailed subdomains and actionable ideas:

1. Participatory & Fair Governance: Youth inclusion, fiscal justice, and intergenerational budgeting.
2. Equity, Inclusion & Knowledge Justice: Addressing disparities, future-proof education, and digital inclusion.
3. Resilient Well-being: Mental health, social cohesion, and crisis preparedness.
4. Planetary Boundaries & Environmental Justice: Circular economy, regenerative capacity, and valuing nature.
5. Spillover Accountability: Monitoring transboundary impacts and ensuring global fairness.

The full recommendations, including the subdomains and more concrete proposals, can be downloaded below to explore how the Youth Network envisions a world where progress measurements truly reflect what matters.

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A Warm Note of Appreciation to the Youth Network

We extend our heartfelt thanks to the Youth Network on Beyond GDP for your exceptional engagement and contributions in shaping a youth-led vision for redefining progress beyond GDP. Your voices were heard at the highest level: these recommendations were presented to the Co-Chairs of the UN Secretary-General’s independent High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP during the World Social Summit.

This official Solutions Session, “Emerging Pathways Beyond GDP: Presentation of the High-Level Expert Group’s Emerging Recommendations and Intergenerational Dialogue with Youth Moving Beyond GDP,” marked both the first public presentation of the Expert Group’s interim report and the Youth Network’s recommendations. It highlighted the power of intergenerational collaboration in shaping new global measures of progress. Additionally, our recommendations were delivered to the UN’s Deputy Secretary-General, Amina J. Mohammed, and the Expert Group Co-Chairs, Professor Emerita Nora Lustig and Professor Kaushik Basu, who carefully listened to the Youth Network’s intervention.

This achievement is more than a milestone as it is a testament to your commitment, creativity, and belief that youth are not just the future, but active co-creators of the present. Thank you for showing the world what intergenerational collaboration can achieve.

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‍About the Youth Network on Beyond GDP

The Youth Network on Beyond GDP serves as a collaborative platform for young economists, activists, and innovators to contribute directly to global dialogues on measuring sustainable development beyond GDP. By fostering intergenerational dialogue, educational leadership, and collective learning, it institutionalizes the principle of intergenerational equity and ensures that youth-led ideas help shape new, forward-looking measures of progress that truly capture what counts for both present and future generations. With a diverse membership of over 1,000 young people from 90 countries, the initiative reflects a truly global and inclusive community, strengthened by an open registration process disseminated to ensure broad and equitable participation.

The Youth Network is part of the "Youth Moving Beyond GDP" initiative, a partnership between the Beyond Lab, Rethinking Economics International, and UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Learn more: Youth Moving Beyond GDP

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