Under the theme “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations”, this year’s International Youth Day (12 August) celebrates the aspirations of young people to live with dignity, contribute to their communities, and build a more equal, peaceful, and sustainable future.

For young women and girls, that means equal opportunities to learn, lead, and thrive.

Across the world, young women and girls are advancing climate action, expanding economic opportunities, driving digital innovation, and transforming their communities. Yet too often they are still held back by structural inequalities that limit access to education, technology, decent work, and public life.

Every young woman should have the opportunity to be healthy, access education opportunities, as well as the resources and services she needs to shape her own future.

Yet for millions of young women and girls around the world, where they are born and the circumstances they face still determine the opportunities available to them.

Globally, young women are more than twice as likely as young men to be outside education, employment, or training, with particularly high levels of exclusion among young women in the world’s Least Developed Countries. In low-income countries, around 90 per cent of adolescent girls and young women remain offline.

These inequalities not only hold back young women and girls, but also economies, communities, and progress towards gender equality.

They are not the result of a lack of ambition. They reflect persistent structural barriers, including discriminatory laws and social norms, unequal care responsibilities, violence, and limited access to finance, technology, and political power.

Yet young women continue to lead even in the face of these barriers. They are leading change, building peace, and strengthening their communities. Across countries and contexts, young women are turning hope into action through community-based initiatives that build resilience, strengthen financial independence, and foster trust amid conflict, crisis, and instability.

As Shirley Njoroge, a member of UN Women’s Youth Steering Committee from Generation Equality Kenya, said, “We are not asking to be invited into the future; we are already building it. What we need now is for institutions to trust us, resource us, and share power with us.”

On this International Youth Day, UN Women calls on policymakers, governments, institutions, partners, and movements to move faster and go further; to support and empower young women and girls; to protect their rights; to fund their solutions; to open decision-making spaces for them, and to invest in their leadership and power.

Happy International Youth Day!