Over recent years, youth has become a policy priority for governments and international organisations around the world. The European Union (EU) recognises the importance of providing a positive and inclusive future for young people in Europe and around the world. The Council of the European Union has invited the European Commission, the High Representative and the Member States ‘to devise, where appropriate, a coherent and comprehensive approach to youth in external action, one which seeks greater complementarity among all the relevant policies, programmes and instruments, and which ensures that youth is meaningfully involved in shaping EU policies and actions’. Against this backdrop, this report supports youth-related activities in the EU’s external action by showing that there is a large and growing body of international data on youth across a range of thematic areas which can support policymaking, monitoring and evaluation, and research. And yet at the same time, it also highlights significant limitations in the available data.