Bureau International Jeuness will continue coordinating Democracy Reloading in 2026, and work together with the Erasmus+ Youth national agencies of the following countries: Belgium (French and Dutch speaking communities), France, Italy, Portugal, Norway, the Netherlands, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Greece, Cyprus, Iceland, Bulgaria, and will also cooperate with a civil society organisation of Armenia. We continue close cooperation with Europe Goes Local, the Council of Europe Youth Department, DYPALL Network, SALTO Participation and SALTO Euromed.
Democracy Reloading Website
We started working on the new Democracy Reloading website in 2024 with the aim of making it more informative, more structured, and easier to use, and in 2025, we continued this work by creating a new e-learning tool for those municipalities that have challenges in involving young people in municipal decisions. The e-learning tool will be published in the beginning of next year. The tool will provide a learning and experimenting space for municipal task groups involving local actors and stakeholders in relation to engaging young people in municipal decision-making. A municipal authority can register as a lead user, and this user can invite several local stakeholders to join the online team and learn collectively how they can develop municipal youth participation.
In the second half of next year, as the third phase of the website development, we will make it possible for the registered municipal teams to see each other’s results, communicate with each other, so that they can learn from each other, cooperate, and also prepare joint activities or projects.
Publications, communication, and webinars
Next year, we will print more copies of the DR Reflection Cards, and we will review the DR Workbook and print more copies. We are planning to produce a DR Trainers’ Handbook to support trainers and facilitators who train municipal officers and their local partners in the field of local youth participation in municipal decisions. You can expect 3 DR Newsletters: a spring, an autumn, and a December edition. We will organise 4 Democracy Reloading webinars, in March, May, October, and November, similar to those in previous years, one for each key competence of the Reference Framework. We are going the select the presented municipalities and announce the call for participants on SALTO in February. We keep on managing the Facebook page and the Workvivo profile, and continue moderating the Community of Practitioners (182 members) with the participants of previous training courses, and the Expert Pool (40 members) of trainers and youth participation experts. And in 2026, we will connect the two communities and establish 4 tailor-made Service Packages (one for each key competence) provided by experts to municipal authorities.
Impact Research
Each year since 2021, independent evaluators - based on data collection from national agencies, online questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups - have written an impact report about the challenges and achievements of Democracy Reloading. You can find here the previous reports between 2021-2024, the report for 2025 will be available from June next year. For the years 2026 and 2027, we are planning a biannual report that will also reflect on the 7 years of Democracy Reloading. This report will be published in the second half of 2027, so there will be no yearly report for 2026.
Activities in co-production with host agencies and partners in 2026
We are planning to organise 8 activities in 2026, and 3 other training courses are also likely to happen next year. The calls for participants of these events will be published on the Democracy Reloading website and on SALTO.
- Youth4Municipalities training course for youth representatives of municipal youth councils will take place in Italy in the spring of 2026.
- Municipalites4Democracy Euromed edition will take place in the summer, most likely in Morocco (for the municipalities of Morocco, Tunisia, involving some European municipalities too).
- An Erasmus4Democracy ProjectLab will be organised for municipal youth policy officers in Bulgaria in the autumn,
- A joint event with the Council of Europe Youth Department, based on the new European Charter on the Participation of Young People in Local and Regional Life, will be organised for municipal youth policy officers in Strasbourg in November
- A Municipalities4Democracy training course for municipal youth participation officers will take place in Portugal towards the end of the year
- An Expert Seminar for the members (trainers and youth participation experts) of the Democracy Reloading Expert Pool will take place in Italy in the autumn.
- In cooperation with DYPALL Network, we are planning a special pilot course for municipal politicians in the second half of next year
- A Spanish edition of Municipalities4Democracy will be organised for Spanish municipalities next year in Cordoba, Spain.
We are still looking for a host country/host municipality for the training module Youth&Municipalties4Democracy, which invites tandems of municipal youth officers and local youth representatives. We are also searching for a municipality with inspiring youth participation practices to be visited in a Study Visit in 2026. And the Icelandic Erasmus+ Youth agency is planning a national Democracy Reloading training course that may also invite a few European municipalities.
Besides, we are planning to make 2026 the pilot year of the adaptation of Democracy Reloading to the school sector, specifically for student councils. We plan to work with some Erasmus+ Education national agencies in order to adapt the tools and activities for the development of students’ participation in the decisions of schools.
These are the plans for next year. We hope that you find something interesting and relevant to improve your knowledge and skills in relation to youth participation in municipal decision-making.