At the UN, young people push to make sure the generational shift is faster — and more substantial

As a big young cohort comes of age in a troubled world, it’s coming with ideas about inclusion, participation and authority in the United Nations and other organizations. Those ideas are nudging the hierarchical, bureaucratic ways of an international order set up when young people's grandparents were kids or not even born. But it's not easy to change in a global system and governments largely run by older people. A wide-ranging new “Pact for the Future” includes pledges to spend more on youth services, to create jobs and to promote “meaningful youth participation." To young activists, that means they don't want just to be invited to speak at events — they want to be listened to.