Barcelona has launched its new Children and Teenagers’ Council, creating a dedicated space for people aged 8 to 17 to participate in the decisions and public policies that affect them. Open to all children and teenagers across the city, the Council aims to ensure that their voices are heard and that their participation becomes a regular part of Barcelona’s democratic life.

The new Council forms part of Barcelona’s broader ecosystem of youth participation initiatives, alongside spaces such as the Children’s Agenda, Grup Altaveu, the Children’s Proclamation and “Volem decidir”. Its ambition is to establish a permanent and representative mechanism through which children and teenagers can express their views, develop proposals and contribute to shaping the city.

A key feature of the model is its combination of open and representative participation. Participation begins at neighbourhood and district level, allowing children and teenagers to engage in open spaces and choose representatives who will bring their proposals into district commissions. Representatives from each neighbourhood will then participate in the city’s full Council session, creating a pathway through which ideas can move from the local level to dialogue with municipal representatives.

This structure is designed to reflect the diversity of children and teenagers’ experiences and realities across Barcelona. By creating participation spaces at different territorial levels, the Council seeks to make youth participation more accessible, inclusive and representative, while ensuring that participation is not limited to consultation but can contribute to municipal decision-making.

The initiative also has an important rights-based dimension. The Council contributes to making effective the right of children and teenagers to participate in matters that affect them, as recognised by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, relevant legislation and Barcelona’s Regulation on Citizen Participation. It therefore represents not only a new participation mechanism, but also an institutional commitment to recognising children and teenagers as rights-holders and active participants in democratic life.

The creation of the Council follows a participatory process carried out between 2025 and 2026, involving children, teenagers, experts and municipal representatives. This process helped define the Council’s model, functions and participation spaces, demonstrating the importance of involving young people not only as beneficiaries of participation policies, but also in designing the mechanisms through which they participate.

The Council is also part of Barcelona’s recently approved Citizen Participation Plan 2026–2028, particularly its commitment to promoting diverse and universal participation and strengthening the involvement of children, adolescents and young people. In this context, the initiative illustrates how local governments can adapt democratic institutions to broaden participation and create opportunities for groups whose voices have traditionally been less visible in public decision-making.

For OIDP, Barcelona’s Children and Teenagers’ Council is particularly relevant as an example of how local governments can strengthen participatory democracy by recognising children and teenagers as active democratic actors. Its multi-level structure, representative dimension and rights-based approach offer an interesting model for cities seeking to make participation more inclusive, intergenerational and, ultimately, meaningful.

The success of the Council will ultimately depend on its capacity to ensure that children and teenagers’ contributions have a real influence on municipal policies and decisions. Beyond creating a new space for expression, its ambition lies in building lasting channels through which younger generations can participate in shaping the city they live in. In this sense, Barcelona’s new Council represents an important step towards making the right to participate effective from an early age and towards building a more inclusive and intergenerational local democracy.

To learn more about the Barcelona Children and Teenagers’ Council, read the official information here and register through Decidim Barcelona here.

To learn more about Barcelona’s Citizen Participation Plan 2026-2028, read the latest news here