“Youth Should Lead the Way”: Lessons from Ten Years of Programming on the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda

This blog was originally published by ENSURED.

Ten years on from UN Security Council Resolution 2250, we have seen some key benchmarks in advancing the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda it established. Since 2015, the Security Council has adopted two additional YPS resolutions – 2419 in 2018 and 2535 in 2020 – reinforcing the YPS agenda as a cross-cutting issue across the UN architecture. We have also seen significant progress at the national and local levels. Building on Resolution 2250’s call to better integrate youth into decision-making and peace and security situations at all levels, six regional or subregional organisations have adopted YPS strategies, action plans, or regional policy frameworks – including the African Union, League of Arab States, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, the Southern African Development Community, the European Union (through its external action), and the Economic Community of West African States. So far, seven countries have adopted a dedicated National Action Plan on YPS: Finland, Nigeria, the Philippines, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and – most recently this year – The Gambia, Cameroon, and Liberia. Another seven National Action Plans are underway, with notable leadership coming from countries in West Africa.

All of this represents meaningful advancement of the YPS policy framework. But what young people have been demanding – and what peacebuilding outcomes ultimately require – is both a seat at the table and meaningful engagement in the peace and security processes that impact their lives. Getting there will take more than resolutions and strategies: it requires real advances in youth inclusion and participation on the ground, sustained efforts to open space for youth leadership, and concrete opportunities for young people to demonstrate what they can do at local, national, and international levels.

Peacebuilding and the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda

Peacebuilding funding has helped fuel practical advances in the YPS agenda over the past decade. As part of the 2025 Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) Thematic Review on Youth, Peace and Security, my organisation – UNU-CPR – examined 106 youth-focused peacebuilding projects over the last five years (41 projects in depth, 105 as part of a larger issue mapping). These projects offer a snapshot into how peacebuilding funding has supported youth inclusion – what has worked so far, and what remains to be done.

On the positive side, peacebuilding funding has been key to advancing the commitments of Resolution 2250. Among the 41 PBF-supported projects we examined in depth, we saw multiple examples where peacebuilding programming had helped to coalesce and sustain YPS coalitions and youth networks, as well as anchor YPS actors and initiatives at the local and national level. These projects had a wide scope: some expanded meaningful and nationwide youth participation in consultations on National Action Plans; others enabled youth engagement in a range of peace and security situations, from peace processes and transition in the Central African Republic to active conflict and ceasefire monitoring in the ongoing conflict in Sudan.

Most importantly, these projects created space for young people to showcase what they can do. When given the opportunity via peacebuilding programming, young people established community service initiatives in Tunisia, helped ease community tensions in Guinea, and advocated for community interests in engagements with extractive companies in the Solomon Islands. Young people played pivotal roles in local reconciliation and demobilisation efforts in the Central African Republic, and in leading community dialogue and development initiatives in countries like Mali, Mauritania, and Tunisia.

One of the most dynamic areas of youth engagement is programming at the intersection of climate, peace, and security. Natural resource scarcity, which in many areas is increasingly affected by climate change, can be a major driver of conflict as well as a threat to livelihoods. Decisions around land, water, livelihoods, and resource governance speak directly to young people’s socioeconomic concerns, and also to those of their communities and families. Thus, involving young people in decision-making on these issues puts them at the heart of local governance. Young people have also proven to have a lot to offer climate governance: in contexts such as Cote d’Ivoire, the Lake Chad Basin, and across the Sahel, young people emerged as leading voices in their communities on these issues. They were often the most savvy and sophisticated in their understanding of climate impacts, according to those working in these communities, and were early adopters in climate change adaptation measures – whether that meant adopting more sustainable agricultural practices or embracing new green jobs.

Across these examples, the most impactful programmes were those where youth could take initiative – programming that allowed them to establish community service initiatives, act as messengers of peace, or design and lead their own peacebuilding campaigns. When young people were given opportunities to prove themselves in practice, it proved far more successful at dismantling youth stereotypes than sensitisation or messaging about the importance of YPS or advancing youth inclusion. In addition, where youth led the way, their engagement often had a catalytic effect, opening new pathways for peacebuilding and reshaping relationships at the community level. In many of the countries where these projects took place, young people made up more than 50 percent of the population – and in some communities, as much as 70 percent (depending on how youth was defined). As a result, when included, young people transformed not only individual initiatives, but community relationships and the broader social contract in ways that supported more peaceful pathways.

Outstanding Barriers and Challenges

However, there are still significant barriers and challenges to the YPS agenda. Across both expert interviews and consultations with young people themselves, concerns about gaps in funding and sustained support came through clearly and consistently. While there has been progress in establishing local and national mechanisms – such as YPS National Action Plans and national or local youth councils – many of these structures struggle to function or dissipate over time due to lack of funding. Of the 33 countries and territories in which the Review examined projects, 25 had a National Youth Council; however, several were inactive or criticised by youth representatives as tokenistic. The lapse or deterioration of these Councils was largely due to insufficient financial support and a lack of sustained political commitment. Absent of continued support, they were unable to advance the YPS objectives they were created to deliver.

Securing funding for youth organisations remains a persistent challenge. Globally, there is no systematic tracking of how much YPS-related funding actually reaches youth organisations or translates into initiatives led by young people. Youth organisations also report that the funding they have received was often very limited, short term, and insufficient to advance their own ideas, exercise meaningful agency, or invest in long-term organisational development.

Finally, many peacebuilding initiatives struggle to connect youth engagement more effectively to young people’s economic realities. At the local level, socio-economic barriers remain the most significant constraint on young people’s full participation. While many projects attempted to address this, they were often less successful in linking peacebuilding activities to broader development processes, economic reforms, or longer-term livelihood opportunities.

The Next Decade of Youth, Peace and Security

Overall, our review of YPS programming in action reinforced the important role that these initiatives can play – both in advancing the principle of youth inclusion and in transforming opportunities for peace. To build on this work will require not only continued support at the international framework level – with instruments like the YPS resolutions – but also continued and sustained support for youth engagement on the ground.

While youth should lead the way, peacebuilding programming such as those we examined can be critical for creating entry points and opportunities that allow young people to take the YPS agenda forward. Investments in youth leadership, youth organisations, and youth-led coalitions, as well as dedicated, sustained programming that can work on this systemic challenge iteratively over time, are critical for continuing to make real advancements on the YPS agenda. Protecting funding for youth peacebuilding will be particularly important in the current context of system-wide resource constraints.

The projects illustrated that youth inclusion is not a nice-to-have add-on, but an essential component of effective peacebuilding. Youth involvement will be essential for fully addressing the drivers of conflict, and young people are uniquely positioned – at the local, national, and international level – to be drivers of change, opening up new pathways for peace.