The Youth Action Plan (YAP) in EU External Action 2022–2027, adopted in October 2022, aims to promote meaningful youth participation and empowerment in EU external action for sustainable development, equality, and peace. The global objective of this evaluation is twofold:

• To provide the relevant EU services and stakeholders with an independent assessment of the performance of the YAP, ensuring accountability by examining results at different levels against expected objectives and analysing the factors underpinning those results.
• To identify key lessons learned, conclusions, and recommendations regarding the YAP in order to inform decision-makers on how to improve current and future interventions on youth mainstreaming in EU policies, dialogues, and actions, notably within Global Gateway initiatives.

The specific objectives are:

• To assess the performance of the YAP to date in achieving its objectives and expected results, identifying best practices and gaps in implementation.
• To assess the relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and prospects for impact of DG INTPA’s youth-targeted actions and youth mainstreaming (at country, regional, and global levels) in relation to YAP objectives.
• To assess the relevance, coherence, efficiency, effectiveness, sustainability, and prospects for impact of EU initiatives undertaken to enhance institutional youth engagement.
• To inform decision-making on the implementation and further development of youth policy and priorities in EU external action up to 2027 and into the next programming cycle (possible YAP II), contributing to EU priorities and, in particular, the implementation of Global Gateway.