Despite a growing ecosystem of youth-responsive indicators and expanding corruption measurement tools, youth perspectives remain unevenly integrated into anti-corruption frameworks.
Following the 2nd Global Conference on Harnessing Data to Improve Corruption Measurement, governments, international organizations, academia, and civil society renewed commitments to strengthen corruption data and called for greater multidisciplinary collaboration.
This momentum raises a key question: Where are young people in corruption measurement?
Young people under 30 make up more than half of the global population according to UN population data, and constitute the largest demographic group in many developing countries. As such, not only are they the “leaders of tomorrow” – but also key stakeholders today, engaging in education, labor markets, governance, all aspects of civic life both offline and online. In these pivotal moments and spaces, youth also face distinct corruption risks that differ from other age groups. According to the report Stolen Futures: How Corruption Hurts Young People, derived from the findings of the YouthLED Integrity Advisory Board and consolidated by UNODC’s Global Resource for Anti-Corruption Education and Youth Empowerment (GRACE) Initiative, young people not only face distinct corruption risks but also perceive corruption as particularly pervasive in access to education, employment, and public services.
Despite this reality, youth perspective and engagement remain largely absent from systematic corruption measurement efforts. Most global datasets are not age-disaggregated, youth participation in surveys is limited, and few indicators measure corruption’s specific impact on young people. In one Survey of States parties only 8 of 39 reported collecting youth-specific corruption data, and just one surveyed young people’s attitudes toward corruption. The data gap mirrors the participation gap: until CoSP10 in 2023, youth had never formally addressed the plenary of the Conference of the State Parties, the UNCAC´s highest global decision-making body.
Embedding youth perspectives into corruption measurement is urgent, especially amid declining institutional trust among young people. Doing so would support Youth 2030 Strategy and COSP 10/10 Resolution commitments to meaningful youth engagement and disaggregated data collection, while also improving corruption measurement validity, preventing legitimacy gaps, strengthening predictive capacity and the identification of emerging risks in areas such as digital services, AI, education, and labor markets.
Precedents exist. Youth perspectives and experiences are measured across development, education, democracy, and employment indices. Several countries including Bangladesh, Cambodia, South Korea and Sri Lanka have conducted Youth-led Integrity Surveys. These efforts are, however, often one-off and not institutionalized. Youth-focused anti-corruption programming, particularly engaging youth for advocacy, is widespread, while youth are still relatively absent in those anti-corruption programmmes that focuses on measuring corruption and anti-corruption.
With this in mind, UNDP´s Global Anti-Corruption Team, in collaboration with UNODC and the UNODC GRACE Initiative, recently hosted a webinar on youth and anticorruption, providing a platform of knowledge exchange between youth and corruption measurement expert. The goal was to facilitate knowledge transfer, and particularly to gain actionable insights from youth on how the global corruption measurement community can uphold the New York Recommendations and Doha Declaration 2025.
From the discussions, three key takeaways in advancing youth inclusive corruption measurement arose:
- Develop youth-responsive data and indicators.
Youth-responsive indicators must be integrated into corruption measurement frameworks. Existing corruption surveys should incorporate specific questions designed for understanding youth-specific corruption risks and experiences. Where possible, age-aggregated data should be routinely published, to help tailor anti-corruption strategies to youth specific needs. New standardized surveys focusing directly on youth experiences of corruption should be institutionalized and regularly generate comparable and longitudinal datasets. Incentives should be set up to ensure regular implementation of existing one-off surveys. Aligned with global calls for multidisciplinary collaboration and methodological pluralism, youth focused data should also utilize insights from bothquantitative as well as qualitative tools, ensuring rich insights into youth-specific corruption dynamics and risks.
- Accelerate youth involvement through digitalization.
Digitalization could be more firmly utilized to reach youth in online spaces where they live, learn and interact . Utilizing digital forms of data collection such as online surveys, mobile-based reporting tools, AI and social media outreach can help reach more diverse groups of young people, including those who may not participate or be reached through traditional data collection methods. Online data collection platforms and other digital tools can lower participation barriers particularly in low and middle-incomecountries. Use of adaptive data systems are also necessary to track emerging corruption risks in digital governance.
- Ensure meaningful and sustained participation.
Meaningful and sustained participation should be the guiding principles of youth-focused anti-corruption work. Young people must be recognized as essential partners – ensuring that their voices contribute towards designing, validating and implementing newmethodologies. Participants called for the establishment of youth councils and advisory boards, as well as increased leveraging of existing youth networks and expertise. While many positive initiatives exist, participants consistently emphasized that sustained impact of these Initiatives are often lacking; thus, Youth Forums, youth delegates, and similar platforms should be convened regularly with clear mechanisms for accountability.
As corruption measurement evolves, there is a timely opportunity to systematically embed youth perspectives in data frameworks. Because anti-corruption policy is data-driven, and improving youth inclusion will strengthen the legitimacy, accountability, and resilience of institutions.
By: Mai Tenhunen and Eline Storaas Naess, Interns at UNDP Global Anti-Corruption Team
