Promoting youth volunteering and civic service engagement

Youth volunteering and civic service programmes can foster young people’s confidence for further civic engagement, skills development, and association with democratic institutions, while also promoting solidarity, social inclusion, and resilience. Although programmes differ in their objectives and features, this paper maps national and international youth volunteering and civic service programmes across OECD countries and the European Union, providing comparative insights and highlighting good practices from a public governance perspective. The paper also gathers key lessons to support further work in this area, promote peer-learning and inform countries’ policy options and reform efforts.