Young people make up a greater proportion of the global population than ever before. Almost half (48%) of the world’s people are under 24 years old, yet they face a range of critical challenges. These include: accessing quality education and health care; finding secure employment; risks of involvement in conflict or negotiating the consequences of living with conflict; and being most affected by violent extremism, transnational and organized crimes.
Although the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250 on youth, peace, and security has been hailed as the first of its kind to recognize young people as meaningful drivers of change through its explicit encouragement of youth leadership at all levels of conflict prevention and peacebuilding, the questions that has continued to burden global actors are whether young people are giving the opportunity to play such an integral role in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.
Integrating young leaders into not just peacebuilding, but broader policymaking in general will require decision-makers to give up “a huge chunk of our own power,” Murabit said, and the political inertia against power sharing in some places will be a challenge to the resolution’s success.
The Generation Peace Club at the Global Coalition for Peace and Security seeks to address these issues faced by young people, we believe that global youths today can have a real meaningful impact on the big issues if they are rightly supported and engaged. We also have underscored one of the many challenges on the part of national governments who sees these young people through a lens of fear and insecurity, often pushing the ugly narrative that the youth are drivers of conflict and creators of instability as opposed to partners of peace.
We work hard every day to inspire, engage and motivate young people to learn how to solve conflicts peacefully. Imagine if violence was turned into peace where you live.
How much would that be worth to you and others?
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