Enhancing youth resilience to agri-food system shocks: a pathway to climate justice.

Abstract

Meaningful youth engagement in climate policy, resilience-building, and agrifood system transformation is vital to ensuring that young people are prioritised in national and global agendas. This review situates youth resilience within the context of climate justice, recognising that those in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) disproportionately experience climate-related shocks due to systemic inequalities. Guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic and Meta-Analyses Protocol framework, a scoping review was undertaken to examine how youth in LMICs experience and respond to agrifood system vulnerabilities arising from climate change, economic disruptions (including COVID-19), and conflict, with a focus on education and employment outcomes. Systems thinking served as the central analytical approach to identify interdependencies, feedback loops, leverage points, and resilience pathways. The findings reveal limited research quantifying youth-specific vulnerabilities and resilience strategies within agrifood systems. While broad impacts are recognised, youth agency and adaptive capacities remain underexplored. The interactions among climate impacts, contextual vulnerability, health-productivity constraints, food insecurity and governance conditions create compounding risks that exacerbate food insecurity and social inequity among rural and urban youth. To address these gaps, the study proposes a conceptual framework that integrates climate justice principles into resilience-building strategies, promoting equitable access to resources, inclusive governance, and youth-led adaptation. By mapping interconnections across agrifood systems, climate, equity, education, and employment, the study charts resilience pathways toward socially inclusive, climate-adaptive, and economically sustainable food systems, underscoring the need for policies and research that centre youth agency and lived experiences.