When the ECOSOC Youth Forum convened on April 16, 2026, the conversation turned to something that rarely gets center stage at global economic meetings: putting young people in charge of designing the financial tools that will shape their futures. The session, held from 17:30 to 19:00 GMT+2, gathered stakeholders to explore how multi-stakeholder partnerships under SDG 17 can reshape financing for development and expand decent jobs for youth everywhere — particularly young women and gender-diverse youth. The forum examined the connections between reforming the global financial architecture, managing debt sustainability, improving taxation systems, and creating policy spaces that guarantee young people's rights while advancing gender equality. Rather than treating youth as beneficiaries of development programs, the forum positioned them as equal partners in co-designing solutions that can work in the formal economy and the informal one alike. Country-level and youth-led initiatives took center stage as examples of how public and private finance can be leveraged to create real employment opportunities. The forum also connected its work to the broader 2030 Agenda, the Sevilla Commitment, and the Doha Political Declaration, grounding the discussion in existing international frameworks that many governments have already endorsed. What emerged was a clear message: the financial systems that govern jobs, growth, and opportunity cannot be reformed without young people at the table — not just as observers, but as architects of the policies that will determine their economic lives.