V. Kharchenko, MA in International Affairs, PhD Student at the Moscow State Institute of Foreign Affairs (University), Vice-Chairman of the National Youth Council of Russia

The article turns to the analysis of current international youth cooperation, existing problems and ways to solve them on the bases of system approach. Actuality of the touched questions is explained by the fact that international youth cooperation is a colossal resource of the government institutions as well as non-government organisations in development of long-term cooperation and mutual understanding between society and government. The overall national development depends on the way how the youth work is structured.

The article reveals problems which face government institutions and non-government organisations by realisation of international cooperation, provides the system description and analysis of the current state and perspectives of the development of the international youth cooperation on the government level. It is the fist attempt to describe international youth cooperation integrally, to define problems in complex in this field on the bases of analysis of accessible home and foreign sources, official publications, documents and reports of international and intergovernmental organisations. The main sources for analysis were materials from official sites of the Council of Europe (www.coe.int/youth), European Union (www.europa.eu.in), Council of Barence Euro-Arctic region (www.beac.st) and Council of Baltic See States (www.cbss.org).