UN Network of Young Peace Builders

UNOY Peacebuilders is a global network strengthening sustainable youth-driven peacebuilding. We connect 80 youth peace organizations across 50 countries.

Our goal is to create a world where young people have the opportunity and skills to contribute to peace. We work to strengthen youth-led peacebuilding initiatives, facilitate a safe space for dialogue and conflict transformation, develop the organizational capacities of our members and to bring the voices of young people to policy makers on a regional and global level.

Global Forum on Youth, Peace and Security

The Global Forum on Youth, Peace and Security, held in Amman, Jordan, on 21-22 August 2015, gathered hundreds of participants – from Member States, the United Nations, civil society, youth organizations and academia – to discuss the vital role that young people play in sustaining peace. The Amman Youth Declaration was adopted during the Forum. It calls on the Security Council to adopt a resolution on Youth, Peace and Security, and highlights four key areas where the international community should partner with young people:

• Participation and leadership in peace and security issues;
• Preventing violence and building peace;
• Promoting gender equality; and
• Young people’s socioeconomic empowerment.

The Declaration was drafted through a consultative process involving more than 10,000 young people from around the world, and adopted by over 200 young peacebuilders from more than 100 countries who attended the forum.

The Global Forum was hosted by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan under the Patronage of His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II, and co-organized by the United Nations represented, on behalf of the Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development (IANYD), by the Office of the Secretary-General Envoy on Youth (OSGEY), the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), UNDP and UNFPA, in partnership with Search for Common Ground and the United Network of Young Peacebuilders. PBSO undertook the overall coordination for the substantive organization of the Forum.

Click here for the final report of the Forum.

For the full text of the Declaration and for more information about the Forum and its follow-up, please see www.youth4peace.info.

Guiding Principles on Young People’s Participation in Peacebuilding

Photo: Search for Common Ground

The Guiding Principles on Young People’s Participation in Peacebuilding, presented by PBSO and Search for Common Ground, were officially launched on 24 April 2014 at the International Peace Institute in New York. The release of these Guiding Principles marks a concerted effort by the United Nations and non-governmental organizations to promote youth as active stakeholders, participants, leaders and partners in peace processes. Please visit www.sfcg.org/guidingprinciples for more information.

Practice Note on Young People’s Participation in Peacebuilding

The Working Group on Youth and Peacebuilding, co-chaired by PBSO, Search for Common Ground and UNOY, developed a Practice Note on Young People’s Participation in Peacebuilding that is being released in January 2016. The primary objective of this Practice Note is to inform policymakers and donors of key strategic and programming considerations for supporting young people’s participation to peacebuilding. Specifically, this Note has been developed to:

• offer evidence-based, promising practices in youth peacebuilding in the field;
• advance the understanding of donors and policy-makers of complex and often interconnected policy and programme considerations for more holistic support to youth peacebuilding interventions, and;
• enhance the effectiveness of policies and funding strategies of bilateral and multilateral donors and agencies supporting youth peacebuilding interventions.

The Note explores promising practices and provides overarching recommendations for donors, policy-makers and planners.