The evaluation of UN-Habitat’s youth empowerment program identifies the need to expand the normative work of UN-Habitat’s work with youths. In order to do this there needs to be an expansion of capacity regarding relevant research so as to better enable the seamless transformation of experience from the operational work to the normative work. The specific capacities required are in the area of research and youth policy.

A key component of UN-Habitat’s youth research program is the engagement of its partners in the academic and civil society sector through the Urban Youth Research Network (UYRN), and the dissemination of the knowledge generated there.