Around the world, civic spaces are shifting. There are growing restrictions on free expression and public participation, and it’s increasingly difficult for people to organise and speak out. For youth-led movements in particular, these shifts add new barriers to advancing vital community work and holding those in power to account.

Despite this, the youth remain a rising force. Across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific, young people have consistently demonstrated leadership in climate and environmental solutions, and they’ve worked intergenerationally with other change making movements. From playing a critical role in advocating for the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27, to mobilising legal action in South Korea and Germany, young people are driving meaningful progress on some of the world’s most urgent challenges.

Most recently, young students and peers from the Pacific led a historic campaign at the world’s highest judicial authority, the International Court of Justice, defending their right to a healthy climate. Their efforts resulted in a watershed ruling that, for the first time, affirmed the right of developing nations to seek damages and compensation for harm caused by climate change.

These examples—and many others—underscore the critical role youth-led movements play in advancing climate action and rights, not only within their own communities but on a global scale, showing the importance of funding youth-led climate movements.

Funding Youth-Led Climate Movements: The Pace of Change

Three years after the first Youth Climate Justice Study revealed how limited philanthropic funding was for youth-led climate movements (in relation to the scale of their impact)—the landscape is finally beginning to shift. This change remains uneven and is happening all too slowly, but funding to youth-led groups has      doubled, rising from $42.5 million between 2019 and 2021 to $85.9 million between 2022 and 2024.

This growth is encouraging, but there’s still a long way to go. Youth-led movements remain severely under-resourced, and for most funders, supporting youth-led movements constitutes a niche focus rather than a core funding priority.

Read the full article about funding youth-led climate movements by Nathan Méténier, Joshua Amponsem, and Helen Mountford at Alliance Magazine.