Public policies are created on the basis of medium- and long-term strategies that aim to achieve specific effects in a particular area of public life. Proposed solutions very often, due to their long-term effects, directly and indirectly affect young people, including outside the areas that are most associated with this age group (educational law, social law, higher education). In recent years, both in Poland and around the world, a new field of public policies has emerged – youth policy, which is a kind of metadiscipline that collects various aspects of public life and state policy-making with regard to impacts affecting only those under 29.
Therefore, in view of the decisive activity of public authorities in the field of youth policy and the increasing long-term nature of individual solutions in public policies, the introduction of a youth criterion as a mandatory element of the OSR is postulated. The postulated solution can be a very good contribution to the global discussion on how to implement ambitious youth policies at the UN and in the discussion of these public policies inside the EU. In addition, similar solutions are already in place in a significant number of European Union member states – Austria, Belgium, France and Germany, as well as in the world – e.g. Canada and New Zealand.
The concept of the youth criterion in assessing the impact of individual regulations is also being discussed at the United Nations, as reflected in the Be Seen Be Heard Global Youth Survey report prepared in cooperation with the Office of the UN Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth. It points out, for example, the need to include in public policies long-term solutions and processes that affect youth participation in national policy spheres, and to create strategies and legislation that actively support youth policies.
Therefore, the introduction of the youth criterion in the attached form will be an important first step in the important integration and implementation of youth policy into the process of lawmaking and preparation of national strategies within the framework of specific public policies.
Author: Jan Zapolski-Downar