The landmark Security Council resolution 2250 (2015) on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) recognized the important role of young people in maintaining and promoting international peace and security. It identified five key pillars for action: participation, protection, prevention, partnerships, and disarmament and reintegration. Since then, advancing the YPS agenda has become a UN priority. From 2018 to 2023, the Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) invested over $291 million in 161 projects across 48 countries, focusing largely on local-level engagement.
A common critique of youth programming is that it too often treats “youth as a homogeneous group”, even though youth represent the full diversity of interests, perspectives, needs and vantage points of the population as a whole. This research brief summarizes the results from a select cohort of projects supported by the Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) between 2018 and 2022 that appeared to incorporate more intersectional approaches and analysis into the programming design and implementation, as part of a larger year-long Thematic Review of the PBF’s support for youth programming and advancing the YPS agenda, in particular as relates to the participation pillar.
Access the brief here.
Suggested citation: Luisa Kern. Youth participation in peacebuilding through an intersectional lens : UNU-CPR, 2025.
