Youth for Social Development (YSD)

YSD has established the Centre for Local Government Budget and Policy Research, which focuses on researching governance issues affecting vulnerable communities. The centre aims to provide knowledge and objective analysis of local government budgets and policies to various stakeholders, including government agencies, students, civil society organizations, elected representatives, and the public.

The specific objectives of the centre are to assess the impact of local government budgets and policies on vulnerable communities, promote good governance and social accountability through research-based information, and improve the quality of public expenditure through discourse among civil society, government agencies, and the public.

The strategies employed by the centre to achieve its objectives include conducting research, establishing a resource centre for policymakers and the public, building strategic partnerships, and enhancing internal capacity.

"YSD promote a participatory and dialogic relationship between citizens and the government to strengthen social justice processes, service provision, policy-making, and responsive governance. Key steps taken by YSD include empowering service providers, frontline workers, and local elected officials through training, raising awareness among people about their entitlements and responsibilities, analyzing policies and budgets together, and facilitating dialogues among stakeholders to bring people's voices and suggestions to the government.

YSD's priority themes revolve around civic entitlements, social security measures such as pensions, public distribution system (PDS), and employment guarantee schemes (NREGS), along with basic services like health, education, water, sanitation, and housing. They work in fragile geographies, including remote rural and tribal areas, informal settlements in urban areas, coastal regions, and marginalized communities.

"Following are the three major initiatives aimed at empowering young individuals and creating a child-friendly ecosystem
1. Education- foundation learning: YSD works to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for children aged 6 to 18 years at the elementary and secondary levels. Their efforts target the most disadvantaged backgrounds, including children in slums, remote rural and tribal areas, and those with disabilities. The initiative emphasizes foundation literacy and numeracy, social-emotional learning, social leadership skills, leveraging technology in learning, and collaborating with government schools and teachers.
2. Kishori Shakti- adolescent empowerment program: Designed for children and youth aged 10 to 19 years, this program focuses on employability skills, life skills, health, hygiene, nutrition, protection from harmful practices, and gender-based violence.

"YSD's strategic objective revolves around empowering communities to tackle climate change and disasters, promoting climate adaptation, and advocating for sustainable growth and development that respects nature and people. They believe that the climate crisis is a result of human choices and that the most vulnerable, especially the poor, suffer the most. YSD emphasizes systemic and behavioral change and focuses on children and youth to bring positive transformations in their communities.

To achieve this, it undertakes major steps such as awareness building on sustainable production, waste management, renewable energy, afforestation, and disaster risk reduction (DRR). It also engages in risk-informed planning, create Village Disaster Management Plans (VDMP), and conduct policy and budget analysis to influence renewable and climate policies through discussions with policymakers and civil society.