Written by Diego Calderon, Network Coordinator, SDSN Youth Bolivia

Bolivia is facing the most severe environmental crisis in its history, driven largely by huge forest fires over the past decade, reaching peaks in 2010, 2019, and breaking historical records in 2024. These fires have burned millions of hectares of forest, caused the death of billions of animals and plants, and affected hundreds of thousands of people through pollution-related illnesses and direct fire impacts.

In this critical context, youth voices have been gathering strength and visibility, demanding and driving action towards addressing this crisis. Several youth-led movements, protests, policy proposals, social initiatives, and even direct participation in groups such as volunteer firefighter squads have been gaining momentum, through the ever-growing youth climate movement in the country. Furthermore, young people, alongside women and indigenous peoples, have been the most vulnerable groups in this climate crisis.

This increasing concern and call for action have motivated the development of the Local Conference of Youth - LCOY Bolivia 2024, aiming to articulate all these movements and empower the youth voice in an inclusive, plural, and participative event. LCOY around the world is the officially recognized space for youth voice empowerment in the World Climate Agenda established and fostered worldwide by YOUNGO. The conference fostered efforts towards establishing a national youth climate agenda, reflecting on the needs, proposals and strategies developed by youth-led initiatives, and laying the groundwork towards a long-term strategy of youth advocacy, which, alongside the continuity held through the LCOY Bolivia 2025 process, being a direct follow up to the agenda and results obtained in the present document, will lead up to the presentation of the results of the process in the COP 30, to be held in Belem do Pará, Brasil in November 2025. 

The following document includes the report and infographic materials synthesizing the main results and outlining the general implementation methods of the LCOY Bolivia 2024 process, which has been designed to promote collaborative work around a single agenda, thereby generating a sense of belonging among the country's young people. The main results of the process have been the empowerment of 1,400 young people from all regions of the country and a multi-level agenda expressed in a set of needs, proposals, and strategies put forward by young people, with special emphasis on vulnerable groups like indigenous people, women, and rural communities, as well as the establishment of the Network of Leading Climate Organizations (ROC) at the national level. 

This document was an effort funded by the World Wildlife Fund WWF – Bolivia, through the program Voices for Just Climate Action VCA.

Access the document here.