The YNA Story
The social and environmental crises we are facing are intergenerational. They cannot be solved by one individual, one institution, or one generation alone, and they affect all beings and the futures of those who are young now, as well as those who are yet to be born. This gives us the immense opportunity and responsibility to be part of the stewardship of our only home, mother earth. And to do this respectfully, meaningfully and effectively we need to have a seat at the decision-making tables
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"Young people must also be at the table - as designers of their own future, not as recipients of decisions of elders who have, let’s be honest, failed them in so many key respects."
... António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, 2021​
April 2022
With these aspirations in mind, Heeta Lakhani, Sophie Daud, Veena Balakrishnan and Marie-Claire Graf, four young women from Asia and Europe, co-founded YNA on Mother Earth Day, April 22, 2022.
Vision
While they were all differently impacted by the social and environmental crises, they were all eager to be part of the urgently needed change and the plurality of solutions. Little did they know about each other and the vastness of the multilateral world, yet they were driven by their curiosity to explore the mystery of the multilateral environmental negotiations.
April 2026
Four years later, YNA continues to build a strong and diverse pipeline of effective negotiators to co-lead the world’s most important processes, while also working to redress the systemic inequality of young people’s representation in decision-making. It has grown into a global, intergenerational initiative with the ambition of driving systems change to ensure long-term meaningful youth leadership in multilateralism and diplomacy.
Fiscal Hosting
The Youth Negotiators Academy is fiscally hosted by interalia. interalia is a female-led not-for-profit organisation based in Germany aimed at breaking down barriers for civil society and empowering members of civil society working at the intersection of tech and social justice, by taking care of their operations and finances as they evolve.