CLA News / The Role of Youth in the Fight Against Corruption: The Young Commonwealth Lawyers Association Committee
As the world marks International Anti-Corruption Day 2025 under the powerful theme “Uniting with Youth Against Corruption: Shaping Tomorrow’s Integrity,” the spotlight is firmly on young people. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and its partners recognize a simple truth: today’s youth are not just tomorrow’s leaders, they are today’s most potent force for change in the battle against corruption.
Corruption remains one of humanity’s most stubborn obstacles to progress. It drains public resources, erodes trust in institutions, widens inequality, and blocks sustainable development. The World Bank estimates that bribery alone costs the global economy more than $1 trillion annually. In many countries, young people bear the heaviest burden: they face corrupt hiring practices, pay bribes for basic services like education and healthcare, and inherit systems that reward connections over merit.
Yet, where others see entrenched problems, youth see opportunities for disruption.
Why Youth Are Uniquely Positioned to Lead the Fight
- Young people grew up with smartphones and social media. They can expose corrupt practices faster than any previous generation. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and X have turned ordinary students and activists into whistleblowers reaching millions overnight. Movements such as #EndSARS in Nigeria (2020) and the Sudanese Revolution (2018–2019) showed how youth-led digital campaigns can force accountability even in repressive environments.
- Today’s 16–30-year-olds will live longest with the consequences of current corruption such as, crumbling infrastructure, ballooning public debt, and broken education systems. That long horizon gives them both urgency and persistence.
What More Can Youth Do?
- Demand and Use Transparency Tools such as supporting open contracting, open budgets, and freedom-of-information laws. When young people actively request public data, governments learn that someone is watching.
- Run for office and encourage peers to do the same. The average age of parliamentarians in many countries is over 50. Youth candidates bring new energy and are harder to co-opt into old patronage networks.
- Educate and mobilize at the grassroots. School clubs, university anti-corruption societies, and community theater can change social norms faster than laws alone. When paying or accepting a bribe becomes socially unacceptable among peers, behavior changes.
- Boycott brands linked to corruption scandals and reward companies with strong anti-bribery programs.
The 2025 theme is not just a slogan; it is a recognition that the fight against corruption will be won or lost in this generation. Young people are not waiting for permission. From viral videos exposing bribe-taking officials to court cases filed by law students, from blockchain voting pilots to campus chapters of Transparency International, they are already rewriting the rules.
Corruption thrives in silence and apathy. Youth bring noise, creativity, and an uncompromising belief that a better world is possible. If we truly want tomorrow’s integrity, the wisest thing older generations can do is step aside, amplify youth voices, and follow their lead.
On this International Anti-Corruption Day, the message is clear: unite with youth, or be left behind by the future they are building – one honest transaction, one exposed scandal, one new solution at a time.
Esther Hadassah Igoche-Agbaje Esq. on behalf of the The Young Commonwealth Association Committee
Read more about the work of this Committee here
