Sudanese youth make up over 70% of the population and have consistently proven themselves as peaceful agents of change: as leaders of the 2018/19 revolution which toppled the 30-year dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, to today providing frontline humanitarian assistance in the context of total war despite being abandoned by the international community. However, these same youth have been violently excluded from all processes of social change, including politics, peacebuilding, and transitional justice. This paper calls for the recognition of Sudanese youth as vital stakeholders in Sudan’s future and for youth inclusion in Sudan to be more than seats at the table. Rather, the paper calls for the embracing of Sudanese youth as co-designers of processes of social change to construct a durable peace and deal with the legacies of past conflict. Decades of overlapping conflicts in Sudan have affected all facets of life, creating significant mental health and psychosocial impacts on successive generations of Sudanese youth. To achieve a durable peace, this paper argues that Sudan requires a transformative approach that deals with root causes of conflict and the legacies of conflict that most affect civilians, such as mental health and psychosocial impacts.

In October 2019, Chile experienced widespread protests triggered by an increase in subway fares. What started as student-led fare evasion quickly grew into a national movement demanding a new social contract and addressing broader discontent with Chile’s democratic transition. This Policy Brief examines youth participation in these protests and the subsequent constitution-making process, drawing on interviews with four young Chileans who were actively involved.  The Brief highlights the importance of a youth-centred approach to constitutional change, detailing both the opportunities and challenges faced by young people as well as their perception of the process's relevance in addressing the legacy of authoritarianism and shaping Chile’s democratic future. The paper emphasises that meaningful youth engagement involves more than just representation; it requires substantial influence throughout the process. The paper also explores how a youth-centred approach can enhance democratic participation and constitutional transformations.

This policy brief provides both reflections and recommendations on the United Nations Youth Delegate Programme, from the perspective of a former UN Youth Delegate for Ireland. While regarded as one of the strongest pathways for youth representation to the UN, the Youth Delegate programme is not without flaws. As with many other avenues, key issues include disparities in regional and cultural representation, a lack of funding and widespread tokenism, and limited institutional acknowledgement. UN Member States, along with UN agencies and bodies, must urgently begin to implement their own commitments in relation to young people, recognising them as compulsory partners and key stakeholders in our collective future, in line with intergenerational equity and solidarity.

This policy brief, drawing on available data and interviews with youth peacebuilders from six country cases, assesses youth participation in the relatively early national implementation phases of the Global YPS agenda. The brief addresses the role of young women and men in the design, implementation, and evaluation of national action plans and national YPS coalitions, and provides insight and analysis on participation, leadership, and ownership of young people in YPS implementation efforts. The brief notes that the efforts to include young people in the development of a YPS policy have not translated into meaningful and comprehensive youth involvement in the implementation of YPS policy at the national level and includes recommendations for correcting an imbalance which threatens to undermine the core objectives of the YPS agenda.

This policy brief presents an analysis of the dangers and challenges posed by the “securitization” of the YPS agenda, addressing both hard counter-terrorism approaches that target youth in the name of countering violent extremism (CVE), and the increasingly pervasive influence of ‘softer’ securitization through the guise of preventing violent extremism (PVE). It draws attention to the fact that instead of cultivating and investing in the role of young peacebuilders, young women and men are still subject to forms of ‘policy panic’ which result in them being endangered not only by terrorist organizations, but also by the counter-terrorist strategies of their own governments. This brief concludes with recommendations for how stakeholders supportive of the YPS agenda can confront the  securitization of young people, and strategize to protect the rights of young men and women at both the drafting and implementation stages of counterterrorism policies and programs.

This paper explores the key issue of mental health and psycho-social services (MHPSS), from a youth-specific perspective. Drawing on the assertions and recommendations of the YPS Progress Study, and coupled with the increasing attention to MHPSS within the sustaining peace agenda, this policy brief pays special attention to the role of youth-specific psycho-social services as a vital dimension of transformative youth resilience, essential to both addressing the consequences and prevention violent conflict.

This paper points to the gap (noted in the YPS Progress Study’s recommendations) on masculinity and masculine identities as part of the gendered approach to implementing the YPS agenda. This policy brief focuses attention on supporting the development of alternative and positive masculine identities. While the paper draws on lived experiences in Northern Ireland, it derives lessons and recommendations, captures stories, and offers a narrative with wider relevance for other contexts.

This brief, by a young author from Mauritius, sheds light on the under-explored nexus of YPS, climate justice and social cohesion, speaking to the topic from the experience of a small island country, and applying the lens of resilience. Her paper draws attention to the need for inclusive governance and a political system that can meaningfully accommodate the concerns of young people when it comes to effects of climate crises. She demonstrates the links between environmental risk, and the weakening of social cohesion, trust in the state, and a weakened resilience to conflict when these youth concerns are not prioritized.

This brief, co-authored by a young analyst and a colleague from UN Habitat, addresses the nexus of the YPS, climate change, and rapid urbanization. The paper pays special attention to the gendered impacts of climate change on urbanization and on young women in urban centers in particular and draws attention to both the importance and the prevailing deficits of young people’s inclusion in urban planning and governance, including the implications for youth resilience in relation to climate related conflict and potential violence. The brief concludes by stressing the need to involve youth as “inheritors of the future” in answering these challenges and includes recommendations for Member States, multilateral institutions and other political bodies.

This paper captures the voices of young women and men from two cities – Nairobi, Kenya and Stockholm, Sweden – in a facilitated dialogue on their experiences of living in urban neighborhoods that are often defined by those outside them as ‘vulnerable’, ‘unsafe’ and ‘at-risk’. The brief offers a rich exploration of the universality of the YPS agenda across very different contexts, through the voices of young people from these different settings. Sustaining the thematic focus on youth resilience, this paper offers rich comparative reflections on the sources of youth resilience for peace, based on dialogue between young women and men across these different settings.

This brief, written by a young Colombian scholar and based on interviews with youth, is the first of two briefs addressing a specific aspect of youth inclusion and leadership in peace processes. The brief addresses this topic from the perspective of DDR (and particularly social reincorporation programs), noting that while youth were severely under-represented in the Colombian peace negotiations, they nonetheless played a crucial role in the peace plebiscite, and made up the majority of those in DDR processes. The brief pays particular attention to those who – although they were part of the political movement and organized in urban centers – were nonetheless not part of the formal military arm of the FARC, and who were consequently excluded from the DDR and reintegration processes.

This brief, written by a young Kenyan human rights lawyer who works in the transitional justice and international criminal law field, provides an overview and road-map of the ways that youth-centered and youth-inclusive transitional justice efforts can advance durable peace and transformative peace processes. Drawing on the recommendations and findings of the YPS Progress Study, this policy brief points to the vital gap in the inclusion and participation of young people in transitional justice initiatives – a key dimension of peace processes and sustaining peace efforts. It argues that the gap in young people’s participation and inclusion undermines the potential efficacy, legitimacy, and durability of peace processes, as well as of truth, accountability, reconciliation, and prevention efforts, and further marginalizes young people wishing to transform conflict-affected and post-conflict societies.