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Recognizing the challenges youth faces and in support of YIS' mission, the organization has adopted three, mutually reinforcing Strategic Directions to guide its work over the next five years (2009-2013).

YI realised the need to foster young people's participation in civic and political affairs of the nation. Meaningful participation of Youth in Civic Leadership, democratisation, promotion and protection of human rights, and upholding peace and non-violence would contribute to realise the dream of a ‘New Nepal’.  One of the reasons behind political instability and underdevelopment of Nepal is absence of participation of youths in decision-making processes. Civic leadership is vital for any democratic society to involve youths in those processes, to tackle the challenges that the Nepalese society is facing today, and to ensure that the human rights of all people are realised by the state. Investment in fostering democratic practices, peace and human rights amongst the young population of Nepal is an urgent need to address the current complexities of transition as well as to establish sustainable peace and inclusive democratic system.

A lot of challenges persist in front of Nepal’s governance. It has a long way to go to be inclusive, participatory and effective in addressing concerns of young people. Still a big gap is governing the stakeholders, including the state agencies, in their thinking and practices causing biasness against young people. Youths, even due to their large size of population, should generally be considered as key players of local governance but the reality is different.  Recognition of young people as such players provides a new dimension to local governance processes and structures and ensures good governance if internalised and reflected in practices by all concerned. Involvement of youths in decision-making processes of governance leads to better policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. Youth forums at national and sub-national levels could play decisive role in assisting development and political processes of governance, if trained and encouraged, in peaceful ways. Opportunities of having a larger proportion of young people, enthusiastic in involving in the nation-building process, could be materialised through their capacity building, bringing them together for collective initiatives and facilitating their zeal for internalising and reflecting peaceful cooperation for the better future. The neglected and/or marginalised communities and groups of young people, including females, have to come forward and lead the process. This approach of governance could sustain the better results and open up avenues for a more peaceful, human rights promoting, democratic and forward looking system of governance in Nepal.

Capacity development of young people, facilitation of their collective efforts and critical engagement in development process primarily requires young people’s readiness to come forward. This is the point of departure for enhancing their quality and strengthening collective power. Such a power can be built in and strengthened only when the ‘dividers’ are challenged and the young people create bonds of cooperation amongst their groups and constituencies. Crossing the dividing lines and building a ‘platform’ of cooperation is foundation for promoting dialogue amongst youths, taking collective steps and influencing better policies. YI has a plan to strengthen the current Youth Resource Centre (YRC) in 10 strategic locations to contribute to the above process. These Centres will be the common platform for all youths and students to learn, share information and promote dialogue and cooperation for the common cause. Special measures will be taken to develop institutional capacity of YI and its partners in strategic locations. Such a three-tyre approach to strengthening common platform will be instrumental in developing quality of young people’s knowledge and skills as well as fostering democracy, human rights and good governance through dialogue and cooperation.