This is a really interesting question and I'm afraid there is no simple answer to it.
Youth congresses, youth councils, parallel structures—there are some amazing examples of where these are truly represented. They provide genuine access for young people into the political process, and the stepping stone, especially if there is a creative, reciprocal relationship between the formal political structures of parliaments and the youth parliaments or youth structures, youth congresses, that sit below that. I think it requires very careful design.
It's challenging because we need to recognize that youth is a transitional status, that we constantly need to reproduce youth leadership. These may be very powerful tools for doing that, for cultivating youth leadership that is then channelled into other arenas of political participation. The channel has to be clear and open.
If it's seen by young people as an alternative to the real thing, they will distrust it. And worse than that, there are some instances in which young people, for very good reason, are allergic to youth councils or to youth congresses because they are seen as a deliberate strategy of oppressive and undemocratic governments to cultivate their youth, to create a youth voice that reflects their political control and manipulation. So I am afraid there is no one-size-fits-all.
I've been encouraging youth councils themselves that do have these credentials, in Finland and in Denmark, to work with youth councils in other societies that are conflict-affected, in order to help them strengthen the independence of those structures. I have to say, I think it would be a mistake to think beyond the relevance and importance of this, and to consult young people in our country on it at any country level. I think the one-size-fits-all runs the risk of empowering structures that are an alternative to the empowerment of young people and it corrupts them, rather than the opposite.