A persistent attitude pervades society: the older generation knows best. But did they know best during the emergence of the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, or the rise of AI? Perhaps it’s time to admit that the future is so uncertain that no one holds the answers. If that is so, the argument for excluding young people on the basis of knowledge needs to be dismantled.

When Alliance magazine’s Youth and Philanthropy issue landed on my doorstep in early June, it found me reading a report in The Lancet. The Second Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing was published in 2025 and its call to action was as follows:

‘Ensuring [adolescent’s] health and wellbeing—now and in the future—is one of the strongest mechanisms available to safeguard the collective future of humanity and to secure a more just society and a healthier and more productive planet.’

The Commission points out, however, that while adolescents make up 24 percent of the world’s population, they receive just 2.4 percent of global development and health funding. The Alliance special feature seemed to respond to this fact.

A New Narrative

‘All too often, young people are framed abstractly as ‘the future’; their present knowledge, leadership and situatedness ignored or underestimated.’ That is the baseline Stephen Ucembe, one of the Alliance guest editors, describes in his lead article and it makes me reflect on my background as a non-profit management specialist.

I have worked in the Indian development sector for nearly 25 years—specifically, in education—and in making the case for school-to-work investment, it is common to hang appeals on future-facing ambitions. We tell stories about the demographic dividend, economic growth, GDP, nation building, and a raft of multiplier effects.

Yet, if you speak to any young person, they have very present reasons to secure their own education. These motivations solve problems, overcome challenges, and teach us all something about reimagining what’s possible in the here and now. Two examples from India remind me of this fact, and what youth agency can achieve when given the opportunity to shift power itself.

Read the full article about shifting power to youth by Alison Bukhari at Alliance Magazine.