The APFSD Youth Forum is an annual convening organised by ARROW and regional youth partners ahead of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development. Participants from across Asia and the Pacific discuss progress, gaps, and solutions related to the Sustainable Development Goals and help develop national, subregional, and regional Youth Calls to Action.
The 2026 forum brought together in-person and online participants in Bangkok from 18–20 February. Its outcomes were designed to inform regional and global sustainable-development review processes.
Benefits & funding
- Participants join a three-day hybrid forum focused on youth perspectives, peer exchange, and contribution to the Youth Call to Action.
- Selected contributors may present implemented research, programmes, projects, or advocacy work related to the SDGs under review.
- Funding is limited: the organisers stated that they could not fund every selected abstract presenter and that some presenters would participate on a self-funded basis. The official materials did not specify covered costs or funding amounts.
Eligibility
- Applicants must be 13–30 years old; for the 2026 cycle, the stated birth-date condition was on or after 21 February 1996.
- Applicants must be from the Asia-Pacific region. The organisers did not define this requirement specifically as nationality or residence.
- Applicants should support human-rights-based approaches, show understanding of the SDGs at country or regional level, and demonstrate strengths relevant to the goals under review.
- Applicants from marginalised or socially excluded groups and hard-to-reach places were prioritised, but this was a preference rather than an exclusionary gate. Previous contributors to APFSD Youth Forums or the intergovernmental APFSD also received consideration.
- No education level, work-experience minimum, gender restriction, or separate lower/upper experience limit was stated.
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Age requirement
13–30 yrs
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Application process
- 1When the next cycle opens, complete the general APFSD Youth Forum application form in English by the published deadline.
- 2An applicant proposing a session abstract must also submit the separate abstract form and upload a PDF covering the title, name and affiliation, rationale and objectives, aligned SDGs, methodology, and findings or implications.
- 3State any interpretation needs in the general application. A selected participant under 18 must later provide consent from a parent or guardian.
Program timeline
16 October 2025
The 2026 call was published.
Extended general application deadline.
16 November 2025, 11:59 p.m. Bangkok time
Planned notification date for selected abstracts.
30 November 2025
Forum started in hybrid format in Bangkok.
18 February 2026
Forum ended.
20 February 2026