Shillong, May 13: The inaugural roundtable of the Young People’s Action Group (YPAG) was held on 12 May in Shillong, marking the launch of Northeast’s first formally institutionalised platform for youth participation in climate and health policymaking.
Convened by UNICEF India’s Field Office for Assam and Northeast States and the Centre for Policy, the roundtable brought together young people, practitioners, researchers, artists, and non-profit leaders alongside senior government and institutional representatives.
“Stakeholder discussions are essential, because solutions emerge when we engage with all stakeholders. Equally important is the inclusion of youth in decision-making, since the choices we make today will directly shape their future,” said Mr. Wailadmiki Shylla, Minister for Health and Family Welfare and Sports & Youth Affairs, Government of Meghalaya, who opened the session.
“Participation is a cornerstone of Meghalaya’s Youth Policy ,it seeks to expand youth involvement in policymaking, create opportunities for young people to step into leadership, and empower them to shape their own future.
The Young People’s Action Group, initiated by UNICEF India in partnership with the Government of Meghalaya, reflects this vision,” said Agatha K. Sangma, Chairperson, Meghalaya State Commission for Protection of Child Rights and co-convenor of the YPAG roundtable.
Dr. Shakil P. Ahammed, IAS, Chief Secretary to the Government of Meghalaya stated, “any policy that lacks the touch and feel of the community is meaningless. True policy cannot come from the heart unless it is shaped through work with people, no matter how small the effort.
In Meghalaya, the most remarkable aspect is that every initiative — whether it reaches 10 people or 100 — touches the community. That reflection of lived experience makes policy serene, pure, and forward-looking”.
“I have been in many rooms where young people are asked to participate. In most of them, participation means being consulted at the end of a process, whether as adults we got it right. This was different. Meghalaya has created a structure through which the voices of young people are connected to climate and health policy before those policies are written.
That is rare. And it sets a standard that others will look to,” said Ms. Soledad Herrero, Chief of Field Services, UNICEF India. “The YPAG seeks to create a platform for young people from diverse communities across Meghalaya, especially those most affected by climate change, to understand its impacts not only on the environment but also on access to healthcare and community wellbeing.
By working together with peers and institutions, they can address these challenges and ensure no one is left behind. This is the first time such a platform is being institutionalized in India, reflecting Meghalaya’s leadership in partnering with communities to build a healthier, more sustainable future for generations to come,” said Jade Lyngdoh, Director of the Centre for Policy.
The roundtable, themed ‘From Consultation to Influence’ produced a set of concrete commitments to ensure YPAG functions as a genuine policy input mechanism, with guidance to be developed for the formal functioning of the group.
YPAG the Young People’s Action Group was endorsed by the Government of Meghalaya under the MPOWER project in 2025 and formally launched in March 2026 by the Mr. Lahkmen Rymbui, Hon’ble Education Minister, Government of Meghalaya.
Developed through a partnership between UNICEF India and the Centre for Policy, the platform is designed to give young people in Meghalaya a structured, institutionally-backed voice in decisions on climate change and health at the point when those decisions can still be shaped.
Unlike conventional youth consultation exercises, YPAG operates through cohorts of young people equipped with primary data, policy knowledge, and institutional access, engaging government departments at the drafting stage. The platform’s mandate is grounded in UN General Comment No. 26 (2023) on children’s rights and the environment, which establishes that states are obligated to involve children meaningfully in climate and health decisions.
YPAG builds on a wider UNICEF partnership with the Government of Meghalaya in health system strengthening. UNICEF, in partnership with the National Health Mission (NHM) Meghalaya and the State Health Systems Resource Centre (SHSRC), is implementing a Human-Centred Design (HCD) programme to improve Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) services in Umling Block (Ri-Bhoi District) and Amlarem Block (West Jaintia Hills District).
The programme has engaged community members and produced community-validated tools addressing barriers rooted in cultural practice and lived experience. “In Meghalaya, UNICEF’s approach to health system strengthening is grounded in a single principle: that communities hold knowledge no policy document can fully capture.
Through our Human-Centred Design programme with NHM Meghalaya and the SHSRC, we have worked directly with families in Ri-Bhoi and West Jaintia Hills to understand what actually prevents people from accessing maternal, newborn, and child health services and to co-design tools that reflect those realities. YPAG extends that same logic to the policy level.
Young people in this state are not stakeholders to be consulted at the margins of a process. They are partners in designing the systems they will live with. That is the standard UNICEF is committed to holding in Meghalaya,” said Dr. Madhulika Jonathan, UNICEF Chief of Field Office, Assam & Northeast India. Themes discussed
The roundtable drew a deliberately diverse set of voices from across Meghalaya, including students, a filmmaker, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, legal and policy researchers, community cooperative leaders, disability inclusion advocates, and non-profit organisation leaders.
Six themes emerged from the youth plenary as priority areas for YPAG’s first cohort, climate anxiety and mental health; gendered health impacts; disability exclusion from healthcare and emergency systems; the impact on agrarian and informal livelihoods; and the incorporation of indigenous knowledge.
