The 2025 Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) Thematic Review on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS), led by UNU-CPR and commissioned by the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) in partnership with UNFPA, UNICEF and the Climate Security Mechanism, outlines programmatic best practices and lessons learned on youth participation in peacebuilding. It draws on examples from 41 projects supported by the PBF spanning 33 countries and territories between 2018-2022.
The Thematic Review demonstrates how PBF-supported programming on YPS helped expand space for youth participation and engagement in decision-making at local, national and regional levels by establishing or supporting youth councils or other representative bodies and promoting linkages and dialogue among key stakeholders.
The projects fostered youth networks or YPS coalitions and facilitated the development of National Action Plans on YPS or other national strategies or policies on youth. PBF funding also helped support the active engagement of young people in key peace and security processes, including involving youth networks in conflict monitoring and local mediation.
Key findings and recommendations in the Review include:
- Create opportunities for youth to lead, and to showcase their abilities: Whether involving youth in community planning or other public works or giving youth the chance to spearhead conflict resolution or community awareness, allowing youth, especially young women, to “show by doing” is important in dismantling stigmas and barriers to further participation.
- Consider socioeconomic needs and components in nearly all youth peacebuilding programming: for greater catalytic effect and impact. Socioeconomic concerns are often central to youth exclusion and vulnerability, and economic participation can enable other forms of youth participation.
- Build from adequate local foundations when establishing or supporting national or regional youth platforms or strategies: Otherwise, there is too high a risk of the national or regional mechanisms and initiatives not coming together or doing so only in a tokenistic way.
- Ensure greater investment of staff time and resources for supporting an intersectional approach to YPS programming: including more time at the outset of the project for outreach and trust-building with participants, their families and surrounding community figures, and for adequate budgeting and development of safeguards and protection measures.
- Include youth directly in monitoring, learning and evaluation exercises: This will help enhance accountability and increase young people’s influence in shaping youth programming.
Read the "2025 Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) Thematic Review on Youth, Peace and Security" here.
The standalone Executive Summary of the Thematic Review is available here.
Suggested citation: Gaston Erica, Imane Karimou, Luisa Kern and Emma Bapt. 2025 Peacebuilding Fund Thematic Review on Youth, Peace and Security : UNU-CPR, 2025.
