CO-AUTHORS & RESEARCHERS: Ali Altiok

CO-AUTHORS & RESEARCHERS: Ali Altiok | Irena Grizelj

An integrated approach to youth-

inclusive peace processes

WE ARE HERE:

Foreword 3

Acknowledgements 4

The Co-Authors 5

Acronyms 6

Executive Summary 7

Introduction 9

Policy Relevance 10

Research Approach 11

Framing of the Paper 13

Deﬁning Youth and Peace Processes 13

Understanding and Analyzing Youth Participation and Inclusion 15

What do we Know About the Role of Young People in Peace Processes? 17

Layer 1 – In the Room 17

Negotiating teams/Part of Delegations 17

Technical & Thematic Committees/Teams 19

Witnesses & Observers to Peace Agreements 20

Participation through Partnerships 21

Resource Support Persons 21

Layer 2 – Around the Room 22

Youth Committees/Delegates/Representatives 22

Formal Consultative Forums/Sub-national Dialogues 25

Ceaseﬁre and Civilian Protection Monitoring 27

Local/Sub-national Mediators 28

Layer 3 – Outside the Room 29

Mass Mobilization for Peace 29

Building Momentum for Reconciliation 31

Advocating Humanitarian Concerns 33

Key Messages 34

Recommendations/Entry Points 36

CONTENTS

Contents

April 2019

Foreword

FOREWORD

Implementing United Nations Security Council resolutions 2250 (2015) and 2419 (2018) on

Youth, Peace and Security involves many tasks, but making progress on youth-inclusive peace

processes is arguably where progress is needed most urgently. This paper presents important

perspectives on translating our normative commitments into practice.

Young people are often the majority of the population in countries with ongoing peace processes.

Their political, social and economic exclusion frequently exacerbates the collective mistrust

in governments and multilateral institutions meant to serve and protect them. Emerging

evidence shows that youth participation can increase the legitimacy and sustainability of

peace processes. But to move from exclusion to meaningful inclusion, we must transform

norms, practices, approaches and attitudes, and recognize young people as equal and powerful

actors who can positively contribute to all steps and all aspects of peace processes.

This policy paper, “We Are Here: An integrated approach to youth-inclusive peace processes”,

helps us understand where and how young people engage in peace and mediation processes. It

analyses how young people can inﬂuence such eﬀorts using diverse and innovative approaches.

From monitoring ceaseﬁres to addressing local-level disputes, from drafting and shaping

peace deals to using technology and social media to reach broader constituencies, young

people’s energy and commitment to building and sustaining peace are playing invaluable roles

and giving us much to build on.

Around the world, young women and men are striving for justice, inclusion, gender equality and

human rights. We must make the most of their power as drivers of a culture of peace. I urge

policy makers, mediators, community leaders and peacebuilders to consider this paper’s key

messages and recommendations as a source of guidance and inspiration in their eﬀorts, as

we collectively strive towards youth-inclusive peace processes through an integrated, multi-

layered approach.

António Guterres

Secretary-General of the United Nations

This is an independent paper, commissioned by the United Nations Oﬃce of the Secretary-

General’s Envoy on Youth, with the ﬁnancial support of the Government of Finland. The paper

is a joint civil society, youth-led and United Nations initiative, in partnership with the African

Union Commission and European Union mediation units.

We would like to extend our sincere and heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed in

supporting and shaping this policy paper. We are particularly grateful to the Oﬃce of the

Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth (OSGEY) for playing a lead facilitating role in bringing

this policy paper to life. Michael Imasua, thank you for your generosity in time and guidance

throughout this process.

We are highly appreciative of the unwavering support from friends and colleagues at the UN

Department of Political and Peacebuilding Aﬀairs, United Nations Population Fund, United

Nations Development Programme, United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY), and Search

for Common Ground (SFCG). We oﬀer our sincerest appreciation for trusting and collaborating

with us in this journey. We would like to extend special thanks to Saji Prelis for the advice,

mentorship and leadership he has provided over the years - a true champion of youth.

We are particularly grateful for the support from the Governments of Colombia, Finland

and the State of Qatar, whose timely support enabled this paper to come to fruition. The

collaborative spirit from the African Union Commission, European Union mediation units and

the Intergovernmental Authority on Development further consolidated the foundation of this

process.

Finally, we would like to thank the young people and all the other stakeholders who gave their

time to be interviewed for this paper; your contributions, insights, and expertise signiﬁcantly

shaped and strengthened the substance of the paper. We hope we have captured your wisdom

adequately and have done justice to highly complex issues shared.

A note that this paper builds on a tremendous ﬁeld of expertise and academia within the ﬁelds of

peacebuilding, conﬂict transformation, conﬂict management, peace and mediation processes,

among others. The paper skims the surface of the vast body of literature and research that

inspired us to follow this path. We hope the paper can set a precedent for further research and

expertise in the nascent ﬁeld of youth engagement in peace processes.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Acknowledgements

Financed by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland.

The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or

policies of the United Nations, Search for Common Ground and United Network of Young Peacebuilders.

Ali Altiok

Ali Altiok is an independent researcher on

youth and peacebuilding. For last two years

he has worked as a consultant to the joint

Secretariat (United Nations Peacebuilding

Support Oﬃce and United Nations

Population Fund), supporting research, data

analysis and narrative development of The

Missing Peace: Independent Progress Study

on Youth, Peace and Security, mandated by

the United Nations Security Council under

Resolution (UNSCR) 2250. Previously, he

worked as a research intern at the Berghof

Foundation and Step for Peace Foundation

in Germany. Ali holds a master’s in Political,

Legal and Economic Philosophy from the

University of Bern, Switzerland and a

master’s in Peace and Security Studies

from the University of Hamburg, Germany.

His main area of interest is youth agency

in peacebuilding processes. Ali is a member

of the European Youth Advocacy Team of

the United Network of Young Peacebuilders

(UNOY) and has research experience in

Turkey and Sri Lanka. Ali is 32 years old and

originally from Turkey.

Irena Grizelj

Irena Grizelj is an independent researcher,

consultant, and trainer on Youth, Peace

& Security. She has over ﬁve years

expertise in youth engagement in peace and

mediation processes, and youth political

participation in transitional and fragile

states. Irena has worked in Myanmar since

2015, and created trusted relationships with

a diverse range of youth actors, networks,

and organizations across the country. She

has researched and published a series of

seminal reports in Myanmar, including on

youth spaces of dialogue and mediation,

challenges and opportunities for youth in

the peace process, and youth engagement in

civilian protection and ceaseﬁre monitoring.

She has designed and facilitated dozens of

trainings and workshops with youth and

senior stakeholders focused on dialogue,

conﬂict transformation, peacebuilding,

and awareness raising on UNSCR 2250.

Originally from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Irena

is 29 years old and holds a master’s degree

in International Relations and Conﬂict

Management from the School of Advanced

International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins

University in Washington, DC.

THE CO-AUTHORS

The Co-Authors

Acronyms

CSO Civil Society Organizations

CSSR Civil Society Support Room, Syria

DDR Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration

DPPA United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Aﬀairs

DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo

FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia

GPH Government of Philippines

HLRF South Sudanese High-Level Revitalization Forum

ICGLR International Conference on the Great Lakes Region

JCC Galkayo Joint Ceaseﬁre Committee

JGYC Joint Galkayo Youth Committee

MILF Moro Islamic Liberation Front

MPC Myanmar Peace Centre

NCA Myanmar Nationwide Ceaseﬁre Agreement

NDC Yemeni National Dialogue Conference

OSE-S UN Oﬃce of the Special Envoy on Syria

OSGEY The Oﬃce of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Youth

PBSO United Nations Peacebuilding Support Oﬃce

PMD United Nations Policy and Mediation Division

PNLO Pa-O National Liberation Organization

PYO Pa-O Youth Organization

SFCG Search for Common Ground

SSCF South Sudan Civil Society Forum

SSR Security Sector Reform

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNFPA United Nations Population Fund

UNOY United Network of Young Peacebuilders

UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution

UNYPAD United Youth for Peace and Development

UPDJC Union Peace Dialogue Joint Committee

WPS Women, Peace and Security

YPS Youth, Peace and Security

ACRONYMS

Executive Summary

Across the world, young people are actively

working to build peace and prevent violence.

They want their voice to be heard and matter

in ongoing peace negotiations. Over 1,000

peace agreements have been signed globally

in the last two decades. While broader

inclusion has shown to positively impact

the sustainability of peace agreements, no

comprehensive studies have assessed the

role and impact of young people during, and

in the lead up to, these peace agreements.

Peace negotiations remain central to

decision-making in a peace process, yet it

is a key phase during which young people

continue to be politically marginalized,

excluded, and undervalued.

Young people today often constitute the

majority population in countries with

ongoing peace processes. Engaging with

young people is not only a demographic

necessity but a democratic imperative and

an important avenue for accountability

of institutions to their mandates, to legal

norms and the people they strive to serve.

Despite the barriers, young people actively

inﬂuence peace processes through diverse

roles and initiatives. This is the ﬁrst global

policy paper to document and analyze where

and how young people engage with peace

processes, and begins to highlight why

youth inclusion matters for the prevention

of violence and achieving sustainable peace

agreements.

The paper assesses youth participation and

inclusion in peace processes from young

people’s own point of view, through three

integrated but non-hierarchical layers: in

the room, around the room and outside

the room of formal peace negotiations.

Young people’s activities and roles in these

integrated layers often builds relationships

between the formal and informal realms of

peace negotiations, which contribute to the

legitimacy of peace processes among wider

society.

Importantly, young people’s proximity to

the peace agreement inside the room does

not necessarily correlate with inﬂuence

over the agreement: their presence inside

the room, as observers or documenters, may

not be as powerful as youth-led movements

outside the room. Youth power may be best

found in mass protests or social media

activism for peace – an under explored

approach to increase the legitimacy and

youth-ownership of peace processes.

Young people furthermore often comprise

the majority of military and armed

groups. Recognizing and including youth

as stakeholders at the peace negotiation

table is critical to ensure the integration

of their needs and interests during these

power sharing processes. Realizing youth

inclusion and participation is therefore a

powerful method to improve disarmament,

demobilization and reintegration, and

security sector and criminal justice reform

processes. However, sending the signal

that violence is a means to inclusion and

political leverage risks further marginalizing

young people who support peace processes

through dialogue, peacebuilding and violence

prevention activities. There must be equal

prioritization in the participation of young

people who work on rebuilding peace, trust

and reconciliation.

There are both short and long-term

implications for sustaining peace if youth

are included and actively participate. By

listening to the demands of young people

dissident to peace processes, and addressing

the immediate post-war needs of young

combatants, the short-term stability of

negotiations and peace agreements can be

achieved.

However, for sustaining peace, youth

involvement must be considered from a

positive peace angle. Young people – as

peacebuilders – play a critical role in the

implementation of peace agreements due to

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Executive Summary

their inevitable engagement in (re)building

societal trust, social cohesion and leading

reconciliation across generations.

Young people’s contributions to inﬂuence

peace negotiations through creative and

alternative avenues, often considered

informal, need to be recognized as a critical

bridge that shapes and supports formal

processes. A paradigm shift must be taken

in how we design and implement peace

negotiations, partnering with young people

from the outset: ‘youth-inclusive peace

processes’ advocate for working

with

young people as critical partners for peace,

as opposed to inviting youth as an add-on

or to tick the box of participation.

A peace process can furthermore only be

youth-inclusive if it recognizes the diversity

of youth identities. In realizing youth

inclusion, gender, race, religion, caste, social

class, culture and political aﬃliations should

be analyzed through conﬂict and context-

sensitive do-no-harm approaches. As young

people span across diverse identities and

roles in peace processes, their inclusion

and participation must be understood

and approached as multi-dimensional,

integrated and interconnected to other

inclusion agendas.

The ﬁndings from the paper demand

Member States, UN entities, mediators,

regional and international organizations,

and civil society move from a normative to

an operational stage on youth inclusion and

participation. It is important to emphasize

and understand that young people’s

inclusion and participation in the room,

around the room, and outside the room of

peace negotiations equally matters.

Utilizing a multi-layered and integrated

engagement approach should therefore

be the main strategy for realizing youth

inclusion and participation in peace

processes. The layers should

not

be treated

in isolation: youth inside or around the room

should not be the sole metric for successful

youth inclusion. It is fundamental to

actively develop strategic and synchronized

connections between young people inside the

room, around the room, and outside the room.

As the ﬁeld of research and practice on

youth-inclusive peace processes develops,

this paper hopes to set the trajectory

for further long-term, collective and

collaborative investment to systematically

document, monitor, assess and support

youth-inclusive peace processes. Young

people should no longer be under-represented

and marginalized from decisions that will

directly impact their present and future

prospects for peace.

Summary of Key Messages:

1. The agenda of youth inclusion must be implemented from a conﬂict-sensitive and do-no-

harm approach.

2. The inclusion of young people during all phases of peace processes likely increases the

sustainability of the agreements.

3. Youth inclusion and participation in peace processes should not be considered a new agenda

in competition with other inclusion agendas.

4. Young people’s proximity to the table matters because young people are distinctively

impacted by the results of decisions made at the formal peace negotiation table.

5. Ensuring the representation of diverse youth constituencies matters in peace negotiations.

6. Enabling youth political participation during peace negotiations will contribute to

more inclusive and representative governance structures that build the basis for more

peaceful societies.

Introduction

“If you want real engagement, involve

young people from the get go: from

the idea to implementation. Anything

without the youth is not for youth. If

young people are given this space, we

could have so many solutions.”

Interview, Kenya, young man

“Young people should be involved

right from the initial stage of

peace negotiations, from the very

beginning. Where do you catch up if

the train already takes oﬀ?”

Interview, senior mediator, female

Across the world, young people are actively

working to build peace and prevent

violence. They are calling for a space to be

heard in ongoing peace negotiations. While

over 1,000 peace agreements have been

signed globally in the last two decades,

comprehensive studies have assessed the

role and impact of young people during and

in the lead up to these peace agreements.

Young people constitute the majority of the

population in conﬂict aﬀected countries.

It is estimated that 408 million youth live

in a state or province aﬀected by armed

conﬂict.

These young people are an

important constituency for the stability of

peace and prevention of violence and must

be considered as such.

1 Online databases that store peace agreements vary in their count of signed agreements in the last two decades. For example, the UN Peacemaker cite lists 457

peace agreements; the PA-X from the Political Settlements Program lists 1518 agreements; the Language of Peace lists around 1000 peace agreements.

2 For example, 72% of South Sudan’s population is under the age of 30; 81% of Somalia’s population is under the age of 35; 63% of the Afghan population are under

the age of 25.

3 Hagerty, T. (2017) Data for Youth, Peace and Security. Institute for Economics and Peace.

4 Peacebuilding in the aftermath of conﬂict; Report of the Secretary-General A/67/499*–S/2012/746

5 Nilsson, Desirée. (2012) Anchoring the peace: civil society actors in peace accords and durable peace, International Interactions, vol. 38, pp. 243–66.

6 Jana Krause, Werner Krause & Piia Bränfors. (2018) Women’s Participation in Peace Negotiations and the Durability of Peace, International Interactions, 44:6,

985-1016.

7 Molloy, Sean. (2018) Business and Peace Agreements, Economic Series, Edinburgh.

8 McEvoy-Levy, Siobhan. (2001) Youth as Social and Political Agents: Issues in Post-Settlement Peace Building.

9 UN Women. (2018) Young Women in Peace and Security: At the Intersection of YPS and WPS agendas.

Young people’s contribution to peace

processes include monitoring the

implementation of ceaseﬁre agreements,

mediating intra-ethnic disputes, supplying

legal and logistical support for peace

negotiations, providing psychosocial

support for former combatants, and using

mass media and online social platforms to

promote peace messages to the broader

public constituencies. These positive roles

of young people are usually well-known

by the negotiating or mediating parties of

armed conﬂicts; however, limited eﬀorts

have been invested to systematically map

and understand how young people shape

and inﬂuence the sustainability of peace

processes and agreements.

Inclusion

has become a key principle for

designing and implementing peace processes.

Research shows that the inclusion of civil

society actors,

women

and business

actors

increases the sustainability of peace

agreements. Yet, young women and men

continue to be marginalized, undervalued and

unrecognized for their capacity to build peace.

The political agency of young people in the

context of peace processes is often associated

with stereotypes of perpetrators or victims

of violence; these are gendered perspectives,

where young men are treated as violent actors

who can be potential spoilers and destabilizers

of peace processes and dissidents to peace

agreements,

while young women are seen as

passive victims of violence.

The vast majority of young people, however,

are not involved in violence and many of them

1. INTRODUCTION

take initiatives to support peace processes.

These negative perceptions continue to

sideline and undermine the positive agency

of the majority of young women and men in

decision-making during peace processes.

With the adoption of UN Security Council

Resolution (UNSCR) 2250 on Youth, Peace

and Security (2015), there has been a

normative shift in the way young people

are recognized in the international peace

and security platforms. Over the last three

years, this normative shift brought a rapid

growth in research and discussions on young

people’s positive capacities for peaceful

and inclusive societies.

“

The Missing

Peace: Progress Study on Youth, Peace and

Security”

, mandated by the UNSCR 2250,

was the ﬁrst study to comprehensively

document peacebuilding and violence

prevention activities by young people

globally, and their important contribution to

sustaining peace.

The Missing Peace

study

concluded that realizing the meaningful

political inclusion of young people is a key

vehicle through which to prevent violence

and maintain peace in all phases of peace

and conﬂict cycles. This policy paper builds

on this ﬁnding by exploring practical entry

points to meaningful political inclusion,

speciﬁcally during peace processes.

The policy paper is organized into ﬁve

sections:

• Section one explains the policy

relevance and methodological approach

taken to conduct this policy paper.

• Section two describes the conceptual

and analytical framework developed

to map youth participation and

inclusion in peace processes.

• Section three provides examples

and discusses where and how young

people constructively engage and

inﬂuence peace negotiations and

mediation processes, and critically

explores the eﬀectiveness and

impact of these engagements, both

in formal and informal spaces.

• Section four discusses key messages for

10 UNFPA - UN/PBSO. (Simpson, G.) (2018) The Missing Peace: Independent progress study on youth and peace and security.

11 See for example the Youth4Peace.info website.

12 UNFPA - UN/PBSO. (Simpson, G.) (2018) The Missing Peace.

why and how youth inclusion in peace

processes matters for sustaining peace.

• Section ﬁve provides

draft

recommendations on tools, strategies and

mechanisms to facilitate and promote

youth inclusion and participation, and

mainstream youth across diﬀerent

phases and tracks of peace processes.

1.1 Policy Relevance

The UNSCR 2250 is the ﬁrst ever resolution

recognizing the positive role young people

play in the maintenance and promotion

of peace and security, and asks for

“[the

establishment of] integrated mechanisms

for meaningful participation of youth in

peace processes and dispute-resolution”

The subsequent Youth, Peace and Security

resolution, UNSCR 2419 (2018), reiterates

the importance of youth participation

by asking for

“inclusive representation of

youth for the prevention and resolution

of conﬂict, including when negotiating

and implementing peace agreements”

Despite these normative policy

developments for increased youth

participation and inclusion in peacemaking

eﬀorts, operational guidance on the subject

is remarkably limited.

Introduction

This paper takes the ﬁrst step

towards providing emerging

evidence that youth inclusion

in peace processes can yield

positive results. Through

documenting successful

practices on youth inclusion

and participation in peace

processes, the paper aims

to bridge and translate

these policy developments

into action, as well as guide

the monitoring of their

implementation.

While international and regional

organizations and peace practitioners are

already engaging young people in political

dialogue, mediation and reconciliation

processes, the engagement is unstructured.

The evidence for why and how to engage

young people in peace processes has not

been systematically collected, documented

and analyzed. This paper takes the ﬁrst

step towards providing emerging evidence

that youth inclusion in peace processes can

yield positive results. Through documenting

successful practices on youth inclusion and

participation in peace processes, the paper

aims to bridge and translate these policy

developments into action, as well as guide

the monitoring of their implementation.

The Youth, Peace and Security agenda

furthermore rejuvenates and has strong

linkages to the Women, Peace and Security

agenda. Addressing young women’s exclusion

is an overlapping concern, as young women

are often excluded from peace eﬀorts due

to both their age and gender.

The Youth,

Peace and Security agenda should build

upon the two decades of experiences from

the Women, Peace and Security agenda,

and this policy paper integrates critical

lessons learned from research eﬀorts on

women’s inclusion in peace processes. The

paper also recognizes the importance of

transforming negative masculine identities

as a shared concern between the two policy

frameworks.

Addressing issues pertaining

to masculinity demands building strong

alliances between women and youth inclusion

agendas. This generates a greater collective

momentum to combat exclusionary, elite-

driven peace processes, which is a key goal

in the implementation of both UNSCR 1325

and UNSCR 2250.

“We are massaging the problem of

violence in Africa only by focusing

women’s victimhood. We do not

look at the young men’s complex

relationship with the violence”

Interview, South Sudan, young man

13 United Nations Department of Political Aﬀairs. (2017)

Engaging with Youth at DPA

, New York.

14 UN Women. (2018) Young Women in Peace and Security

15 UNFPA - UN/PBSO. (Simpson, G.) (2018) The Missing Peace.

1.2 Research Approach

This policy paper provides preliminary

evidence on where and how young people

have participate(d) in peace processes in the

last two decades. Due to limited literature

and documentation in this ﬁeld, this paper

is largely based on qualitative key informant

interviews with 46 stakeholders, comprised

of young women and men who have

participated in peace processes in diverse

forms, or those who sought inclusion, as well

as senior mediators, peace practitioners,

and academics who can shed light on the

dynamics around youth participation. The

interviewees were sourced based on the

criteria of their proximity to formal national-

level or internationally-mediated peace

negotiations, although interviews expanded

to include stakeholders engaged with sub-

national peace processes.

The interviews and drafting of the paper

were conducted over a four-month period,

between October 2018 and January 2019.

The paper presently includes the mapping

and understanding of the role of young people

in the following contexts: Afghanistan,

Central African Republic, Colombia, Kenya,

Myanmar, Northern Ireland, Philippines,

Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Syria,

Addressing issues pertaining

to masculinity demands

building strong alliances

between women and

youth inclusion agendas.

This generates a greater

collective momentum to

combat exclusionary, elite-

driven peace processes,

which is a key goal in

the implementation of

both UNSCR 1325 and

UNSCR 2250.

Introduction

and Yemen. The contexts were selected

for their diverse geographic representation

and conﬂict dynamics, presence of a recent

or ongoing peace process, and ability to

access stakeholders for interviews. Analysis

of these interviews provides nuanced and

dynamic information about the ways in

which young people participate in diﬀerent

forms. Interviews were primarily conducted

through online platforms, along with several

in-person interviews and one focus group

discussion in Northern Ireland. An expert

group meeting with 23 key stakeholders

was hosted by the State of Qatar in Doha

3-4 February 2019 to review and discuss the

draft of this paper. The experts validated

the scope of the paper, it’s key ﬁndings,

and helped shape the preliminary set of

recommendations.

The paper was launched as a foundation

for discussions at the First International

Symposium on Youth Participation in Peace

Processes, hosted by the Government of

Finland in Helsinki on 5-6 March 2019. The

draft recommendations were deliberated and

reviewed by over 100 participants, including

young people, mediators, international and

regional organizations, as well as experts

from the United Nations, African Union

Commission, European Union and the Inter-

Governmental Authority on Development.

This research process was not an extractive

exercise; it builds upon the participatory and

collaborative approach utilized by the Progress

Study. The authors worked with the support

of the Oﬃce of the Secretary General’s Envoy

on Youth (OSGEY), together with UN agencies,

Department of Peacebuilding and Political

16 Participants included Senior Mediation Advisors, youth leaders, academics, government representatives, as well as civil society and institutional

representatives from The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), African Union (AU), UN Department of Political and Peacebuilding Aﬀairs

(UN-DPPA).

17 Such as the Political Settlements the United Nations Peacemaker Peace Agreements Database; ‘Peace Agreement Database’; and the University of Notre Dame

Peace Accords Matrix.

Aﬀairs (DPPA (Policy and Mediation Division

(PMD), Peacebuilding Support Oﬃce (PBSO)),

United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP), United Nations Population Fund

(UNFPA), Search for Common Ground (SFCG)

as a civil society partner, and youth-led

peacebuilding organization United Network of

Young Peacebuilders (UNOY). More than half

of the young people interviewed for the policy

paper attended the ﬁrst global Symposium

in Helsinki in March 2019. This collaborative

approach maintains the foundation on

which the youth, peace and security agenda

was built.

The paper is further supported by relevant

literature and research in the peace process

domain. Databases

on peace agreements

have been reviewed for input to this paper,

however, they oﬀer limited depth as to the

contributions and inﬂuence of young people

during the negotiations. Many of these

databases have not been assessed from a

‘youth lens’: the mention of ‘youth’ within an

accord is not suﬃcient to inform what role

young people played in the peace process

and in shaping the agreement.

Through primary research, the paper

documents and assesses the forms of

young people’s participation, along with

lessons learned on practical approaches

and mechanisms that have been utilized

by policy-makers and peace practitioners

to foster youth inclusion in peace process,

including youth-led eﬀorts. Documenting

the roles that young people encompass

and analyzing the positive contributions

of young people is a prerequisite to begin

understanding the sustainability of peace

processes that are

inclusive of youth.

Introduction

Framing the Paper

2.1 Deﬁning Youth and Peace

Processes

“The only way that young people can

participate in the peace process is

through being at the front line, with

guns. Youth ﬁght for peace but are

not given space to talk for peace.”

Interview, Myanmar, young man

Young people today, globally and

collectively, comprise the largest

demographic, often constituting the

majority population in countries with

ongoing peace processes.

Youth

as a social

construct refers to a transitionary phase of

life between childhood and adulthood. The

beginning and the end of this period is often

deﬁned by rite of passages from childhood

to youth and from youth to adulthood,

which vary signiﬁcantly depending on

cultures and contexts. Although the notion

of youth as a social construct does not

suggest any chronologically uniform age-

based category, most governments and

international organizations employ age-

based categories for statistical reasons.

The UNSCR 2250 deﬁnes the youth age

category as 18-29 years but notes that

“variations of deﬁnition of the term that

may exist on the national and international

levels, including the deﬁnition of youth in the

General Assembly resolutions A/RES/50/81

and A/RES/56/117”.

Youth, in particular, is not a homogenous

category. Yet, in peace and security context,

young people as a category

“has been

customarily used to refer to young men

[…] and most studies on youth and violence

implicitly or explicitly refer to young men”.

18 Quoted from Paung Sie Facility (2017) Youth & Everyday Peace: Fostering the Untapped Potential of Myanmar Youth

19 UN Women. (2018) Young Women in Peace and Security

20 United Nations and World Bank. (2017) Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conﬂict—Main Messages and Emerging Policy

Directions, Washington.

21 IBID

22 Bell, Christine quoted. (2019) Accord 28, Negotiating inclusion in peace processes, Conciliation Resources, London.

23 Richmond, Oliver P. (2014) Failed statebuilding: intervention, the state, and the dynamics of peace formation; Mac Ginty, Roger (2010) Hybrid Peace:

The Interaction Between Top-Down and Bottom-Up Peace.

This leads to overlooking the diverse roles and

experiences of young women in the context

of armed conﬂict and peacemaking. Gender

is one important element to understand

youth as a heterogeneous category. This

intersects with youth’s identity based

on race, religion, ethnicity, caste, class,

culture, context and political aﬃliations

that also need to be considered. Each of

these factors have a signiﬁcant impact on

the way young people experience armed

conﬂict and their approach to inﬂuence and

participate in peace processes.

Over the last three decades, the nature of

armed conﬂict has signiﬁcantly evolved.

Armed conﬂicts are increasingly intra-

state spreading across national borders

and involves more non-state armed groups

and international actors than ever.

Armed

conﬂicts are also protracted, and violence

in its multiple forms has moved from rural

to urban settings which brings higher

human and ﬁnancial costs on Governments

and civilians.

Despite these changes highlighting the

necessity of including civil society actors

in peace negotiations, political and military

elites still play an important role:

“While

elite pacts will not necessarily deliver peace,

peace without them is often impossible”

Mechanisms for peacemaking during armed

conﬂicts have also become more complex:

the expansion of multilateral actors and

non-state actors have exerted tremendous

pressure on the UN’s capacity and regional

bodies to manage and resolve conﬂicts.

There is a growing realization that a state-

centered approach alone is insuﬃcient

to gain political leverage and maintain

stability; greater attention and investment

is required to synchronize bottom-up and

top-down peacebuilding approaches.

2 FRAMING OF THE PAPER

Framing the Paper

Correspondingly, peace processes have

become highly complex, multi-dimensional,

and interconnected political processes.

There is no single deﬁnition of a peace

process, which may comprise of high-level

negotiations, ceaseﬁres, national dialogues,

political settlements, and encompass a

“mixture of politics, diplomacy, changing

relationships, negotiation, mediation,

and dialogue in both oﬃcial and unoﬃcial

arenas.”

Peace processes span across

multiple (nonlinear) phases (from pre-

negotiation to implementation) and along

formal and informal tracks for diﬀerent

levels of societal engagements.

The temporal, non-linear and cyclical

dimensions of peace processes indicates

that youth inclusion in peace negotiations

have both short and long-term implications

for the sustainability of peace agreements.

Preventing youth involvement in political,

criminal or extremist violence, listening to

the demands of young people dissident to

peace processes, and addressing immediate

post-war needs of young combatants are

critical short-term concerns for the stability

of negotiations and agreements, necessary

for building negative peace. The long-term

impacts of youth inclusion and participation

in peace negotiations need to be considered

from a

positive

peace angle:

young people

play a critical role in the implementation of

peace agreements due to their inevitable

engagement in (re)building societal trust,

social cohesion, and leading reconciliation

across generations.

24 Saunders, Harold H. (2001) Pre-negotiation and Circum-negotiation: Arenas of the Multilevel Peace Process. US Institute of Peace, Washington DC (pg 483).

25 Mason, Simon. (2007) Mediation and Facilitation in Peace Processes, International Relations and Security Network .

26 Galtung, Johan. (1967) Theories of Peace: A Synthetic Approach to Peace. Thinking International Peace Research Institute, Oslo.

27 Wanis St. John, Anthony. (2008)

Peace Processes, Secret Negotiations and Civil Society: Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion.

28 See for example, Schwartz, Stephanie. (2010) Youth and Post-conﬂict Reconstruction, US Institute of Peace Press, Washington DC.

29 Yousuf, Zahbia. (2018) Navigating inclusion in peace transitions Beyond elite bargains, Conciliation Resources, London.

While cognizant of the multiple dimensions,

deﬁnitions, and phases of a peace processes,

this paper focuses primarily on mediated

political processes to end armed conﬂicts

and wars, although includes reference to

peace processes at sub-national levels and

brings examples from community-level

dispute resolution practices. In particular,

this paper explores and analyzes youth

participation and inclusion

during

peace

negotiations, within formal and informal

spheres. This is based on the reality that

peace negotiations continue to be the heart

of political decision-making, leading to

agreements that may or may not result in

lasting peace.

Literature and practice have, until recently,

concentrated on young people’s engagement

in the implementation phase of peace

processes,

rather than understanding

their

present

political agency and value

in shaping peace negotiations. Yet, the

before and during negotiation phases of a

peace process provides critical moments

to further inclusion in broader political

decision-making, and greater opportunities

for change exist just prior and after the

signing of an agreement.

Young people

should no longer be unrepresented and

excluded from decisions that will directly

impact their present and future prospects

for peace.

Young people should no

longer be unrepresented

and excluded from decisions

that will directly impact

their present and future

prospects for peace.

Young people play

a critical role in the

implementation of peace

agreements due to their

inevitable engagement

in (re)building social

cohesion and leading

reconciliation

across generations.

2.2 Understanding and

Analyzing Youth Participation

and Inclusion

This paper employs an evidence-led

approach to understand, map and analyze

youth participation in peace processes. The

participation and inclusion of young people

in peace processes takes diverse forms in

both formal and informal spaces. While

current approaches to civil society and

women’s inclusion oﬀers important insights

to understand the participation of young

people in peace processes, young people

often challenge the ways in which these

approaches are applied in practice.

Many young people interviewed for

this paper argue for the strategic value

of having young people at the peace

negotiation table. However, they also

emphasize a seat alone does not constitute

eﬀective youth participation. Diﬀerent

forms of participation matter and are

meaningful for young people, who seek

an equal voice to other actors. Similar

to civil society inclusion,

young people

deﬁne their participation as part of

technical committees, formal and informal

consultation processes, and engage through

mass mobilization platforms. Many young

people further view their inclusion and

participation through supplying logistical,

resource or legal support for negotiation

parties inside negotiation rooms, monitoring

and reporting ceaseﬁre violations, or

30 UNFPA - UN/PBSO. (Simpson, G.) (2018) The Missing Peace.

31 The seven modalities of inclusion are listed as a) Direct representation at the negotiation table b) Observer status c) Consultations d) Inclusive commissions e)

High-level problem-solving workshops f) Public decision-making and g) Mass action. (Paﬀenholz, 2014).

32 See also Mubashir and Grizelj. (2018).

The youth space of dialogue and mediation: An exploration.

Berlin: Berghof Foundation for a discussion on young people’s

agency between formal and informal divides in peace and mediation processes.

spreading peace messages and lobbying

via social media activism. Participating in

political parties and expressing political

views additionally mattered for young

people’s engagement. In particular, safe

civic spaces to raise their voices for peace

through demonstrations, protests and

mass advocacy campaigns was noted as

an important foundation for youth inclusion

and participation.

Although peace processes are conceptually

divided in the literature into three distinct

tracks referring to: elite dialogues (“Track

I”), dialogue amongst those with inﬂuence

on these elites (“Track II), and grass-roots

dialogue (“Track III”), the dynamic ways in

which young people participate in peace

processes as a social group has a bridging

eﬀect across these three tracks. Examining

inclusion

and

participation

through a youth

lens reveals that young people and youth-

led initiatives, networks or organizations

regularly traverse across the tracks and

organically build relationships between the

segregated tracks.

Although there are fundamental diﬀerences in

the ways young people participate in formal

and informal spheres of peace processes,

the lines between these boundaries become

blurry through a youth lens. Youth as a cross-

cutting social and political constituency

naturally build connections and relationships

between the formal and informal.

Instead

of treating youth as a civil society actor and

applying track approaches to understand

youth participation, this policy paper analyzes

where and how young people participate in

peace processes from young people’s own

point of view - conceptualized through layers.

Youth power and

inﬂuence is not always

correlated to proximity

to the table.

Framing the Paper

Youth as a cross-cutting

social and political

constituency naturally

build connections and

relationships between the

formal and informal.

Based on case study evidence, the forms

of youth participation have been assessed

in terms of

proximity

to the formal peace

negotiations and peace agreement (‘the

table’). The layers should be understood

as a mapping tool to understand where

and how young people engage in peace

processes. While the diagram illustrates

this concept, it does not suggest that

there is a hierarchical relationship between

the layers in terms of youth power and

inﬂuence over the peace negotiations and

agreement. Youth power and inﬂuence is not

always correlated to proximity to the table.

Although inﬂuencing discussions and

actions within the negotiation room

an important concern for young people,

33 The ‘room’, of course, is not necessarily a physical space, but where peace agreements are usually negotiated, shaped, and signed.

young people outside an elite sphere may

be highly inﬂuential among their community

and peers, particularly those who are

disillusioned by political leaders and losing

trust in political institutions. For example,

youth participation in protest and dissent

takes place outside the room (layer 3)

yet, depending on the context, it can be

more inﬂuential over the peace process

than passive youth observers in the peace

negotiation room (layer 1). Similarly, youth

consultations organized around the peace

negotiations rooms (layer 2) might only have

a decorative function, while youth advocacy

for peace in social media platforms (layer

3) can greatly contribute to the acceptance

and legitimacy of peace negotiations.

Mapping young people’s engagement in peace processes:

Framing the Paper

Layer 1 -

In the room:

Youth participation within

formal peace architecture

and structures, inside the

room during negotiations and

political dialogues.

Layer 2 -

Around the room:

Young people not directly

in the room, but close to

the peace agreement and

connected (able to get in

the room) through formal or

informal mechanisms.

Layer 3 -

Outside the room:

Young people who engage and

participate through informal

and alternative approaches.

Peace

agreement/

accord

Layer 1

In the room

Layer 2

Around the room

Layer 3

Outside the room

“In my country, we have to realize

that young people have the power.

We are the ones who know what

we want to give to the future, but

we also know our past. We are the

bridge to peace. We have to speak

and raise our voices. That is the only

way to make change.”

Interview, Colombia, young woman

Young people play a multitude of diverse

roles – formal and informal – during peace

processes, which has been little documented

to date. Key informant interviews

underscore a richness of participation

avenues and engagement of young people

in peace negotiations and peace processes,

contributing to building longer-term peace

in their contexts. The below section presents

an overview of where and how young people

have contributed to peace processes.

It seeks to answer speciﬁcally the following

questions:

1. Where, how and in what forms have

young people participated in peace

processes over the last 20 years?

2. What are the preliminary ﬁndings about

how diﬀerent forms of youth participation

inﬂuence or impact peace processes?

3. What are the practical considerations of

diﬀerent entry points and consequences

of the form of participation?

3.1 Layer 1 – In the Room

“I don’t see representation of youth

in these peace talks. 90% are elderly

people. If they claim they represent

voice of youth, they cannot. They

cannot be voice of youth, as they

are not young. The impact of the

decisions will be on 65% of the

country that are below 25. This is

not just to end the war, but to build

sustainable peace.”

Interview, Afghanistan, young woman

3.1.1 Negotiating teams/Part of

delegations

Young people rarely participate at formal

negotiation tables in peace processes. In

recent years however, there have been

cases where young people were present

at the table in diﬀerent capacities. This

was at times motivated by a recognition

of young people’s peacebuilding and

conﬂict prevention roles. Inclusion of youth

representatives in South Sudan’s High-

Level Revitalization Forum (HLRF) is a case

in point. The HLRF youth representatives

shared a position paper with political parties

that highlighted that the beneﬁciaries

of disarmament, demobilization and

reintegration (DDR) programs were mostly

youth. This helped to encourage a more youth

sensitive approach in the DDR program

design. The eﬀective advocacy of young

people in the room furthermore secured a

place for young people in South Sudan’s

3 WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE

ROLE OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN PEACE

PROCESSES?

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

broader governance structures, through

aﬃrmative quota systems applied within

political parties. For example, the Minister

of Youth was guaranteed to be a person

younger than 40. Young people at the HLRF

also collaborated with the representatives

of women for the inclusion of refugees in the

negotiations. This was critical for bringing in

issues around resettlement in collaboration

with young refugee representatives. Lastly,

youth participation at the HLRF positively

inﬂuenced the

implementation

phase of the

agreement, through the allocation of roles

in diﬀerent technical committees to highly

motivated young people.

More often however, young people are

included at peace negotiation tables due to

their engagement in violence and conﬂict,

as for example, in the Central African

Republic (see text box one). The political

participation of young combatants can

at times be vital for the sustainability of

the peace agreements. However, sending

the signal that violence is a mean to

inclusion and political leverage risks further

marginalizing youth who support peace

processes through dialogue, peacebuilding

and violence prevention activities. Failing to

acknowledge the power-sharing perceptions

of young combatants can drive them to

sustain violence and prepare the conditions

for relapse into violent conﬂict after a

peace agreement is signed. The process

and management of mapping critical

youth stakeholders must be a priority for

mediation teams and process facilitators

(see section 4 for further discussion on

young combatants).

Central African Republic -

Manipulating youth issues

Armel Ningatoloum Sayo, as the leader

of small youth rebel group, “Révolution

et justice” participated in the Brazzaville

Ceaseﬁre Conference. He signed the

agreement on the cessation of hostilities

in 2014 and was later appointed Minister

of Youth and Sports in the Central African

Republic. Sayo, as a relatively young rebel

leader, manipulated youth related concerns

to mobilize young people for violence in

order to inﬂuence political deals. While Sayo

and his armed group associated themselves

with the term youth, their participation and

inﬂuence at the peace negotiation table

should not be taken as the primary reason

for youth inclusion.

Young people additionally largely constitute

the majority of foot soldiers and may

have speciﬁc expectations from the peace

agreement that are separate and unique

from their seniors. In cases such as South

Sudan and Mali, mediators have reﬂected

on their experience of negotiating with elder

members of armed groups, while younger

members demanded their share of power.

As a senior mediator highlighted the young

combatants have argued for recognition in

the peace agreement, saying

“because we

are in the ﬁeld, ﬁghting, you need to take

into account our view”

(Interview, senior

mediator, male). For example, in the case

of Mali, when young Tuareg combatants

felt that their concerns and needs were not

reﬂected in formal peace negotiations by

the elder leaders of the armed group, they

The eﬀective advocacy of

young people in the room

furthermore secured a place

for young people in South

Sudan’s broader governance

structures, through

aﬃrmative quota systems

applied within political parties

Sending the signal that

violence is a means to

inclusion and political leverage

risks further marginalizing

youth who support peace

processes through dialogue,

peacebuilding and violence

prevention activities.

Text Box One

formed their own armed groups to contest

the peace agreement.

How electoral and criminal justice systems

and security sectors are reformed, as well as

the design of DDR programs have important

power sharing implications for political and

military parties of conﬂict. Youth are not

often a stakeholder represented during

these power sharing processes, despite

the fact that

“young women and men are

key stakeholders in criminal justice and

security system reform processes that

are instrumental in the (re)building of

state–society relations”

as well as the

main beneﬁciaries of DRR processes on

the ground. Young people often comprise

the majority of military and armed groups.

Recognizing and including youth as

stakeholders at the peace negotiation table

is critical to ensure the integration of their

needs and interests during these power-

sharing processes. Realizing youth inclusion

and participation is a powerful method to

improve DDR, security sector and criminal

justice reform processes.

3.1.2 Technical & Thematic

Committees/Teams

Peace negotiations often rely on the support

of technical committees to provide research,

policy inputs, and thematic advice for

diﬀerent negotiation points within the peace

talks, such as constitutional making (or

amendment), land-reform, security sector,

and economic policy. These committees are

often not youth-speciﬁc, but rely on the

human resource and technical capacity

of educated, committed and proactive

experts, with young people included.

In the Philippines, during the 2010

34 UNFPA - UN/PBSO. (Simpson, G.) (2018) The Missing Peace; pg 69.

negotiations between the Government and

MILF, most of the legal team members of

the Government’s peace panel were young

people, along with two youth members in the

MILF legal team. The legal teams prepared

technical papers for the negotiating parties,

including drafting of Bangsamoro Organic

Law. Young women, in their mid-20s, chosen

for their legal acumen, played key roles in

the legal teams: during the negotiations, the

young women conducted discreet advocacy

around bringing a gender lens to the peace

agreement by the virtue of their active

engagement with informal women’s rights

networks. Despite pushback and criticism,

the young women in the legal teams were

able to successfully include stronger

provisions against domestic violence in

the peace agreement and participation of

women, noting that greater socio-political

equality and the participation of women

inherently relates to equality within the

household.

In Myanmar, the ongoing peace

negotiations have established a Union

Peace Dialogue Joint Committee (UPDJC),

with representatives from the Government,

Ethnic Armed Organizations, and political

parties – the key negotiating stakeholders.

The UPDJC has established working

committees for each of the ﬁve key

thematic political dialogue sectors: politics,

economics, security, social issues and the

environment, to coordinate dialogue and

input into the peace negotiations. Several

thematic working committees, particularly

from the Ethnic Armed Organizations’ oﬃce,

include senior policy oﬃcers, who are young

and educated.

The participation and engagement of

young people through thematic committees

on issues key to the peace negotiations

translates into young people having the

opportunity to draft the laws and policies

during peace negotiations – shaping the

very substance of a peace agreement. By

drafting the substance of the agreement,

they are able to incorporate their view points

in tandem with agreements made during

negotiations.

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

Realizing youth inclusion and

participation is a powerful

method to improve DDR,

security sector and criminal

justice reform processes.

3.1.3 Witnesses & Observers to

Peace Agreements

Several peace accords have featured young

people as witnesses and observers – both

in the negotiation phase and as signatory

observers to the peace agreement. Kenya’s

Nakuru County Peace Accord for example,

signed in 2012, was an eﬀort to end several

cycles of electoral violence that had been

experienced during the 1992, 1997, 2002

and 2008 election years. The Peace Accord

highlights youth as part of the signatories

to the agreement, following recognition

by the elders that young people are key

35 Limo, Irene (2017).

Mediation in Africa Is there Space for the Youth?

ACCORD.

36 The ceaseﬁre agreement commits to

“promote the participation of youth, women and laborers at each level of the political process”

and “

to permit the Pa-O

national conference, youth conference, women conference and labor conference in accordance with the law.

”

37 Paung Sie Facility. (2017) Youth & Everyday Peace: Fostering the Untapped Potential of Myanmar Youth.

38 IBID.

to stability in the region.

In Myanmar,

a bilateral ceaseﬁre agreement signed

between the Government and the Pa-O

National Liberation Organization (PNLO) in

2013 references the need to promote youth

and women’s participation in all levels of

political processes.

These references

relied on inputs from young people working

in dual roles: the Chairperson of the Pa-O

Youth Organization (PYO), also a member

of PNLO’s Central Executive Committee,

played a key role in advocating for the

inclusion of youth issues in the peace

agreement.

These examples highlight how

direct and meaningful inclusion of young

people can enable youth to be recognized

as key stakeholders of a peace agreement

– increasing the perceived legitimacy of the

agreement in the eyes of young people.

On the other hand, observer and witness

status may also exacerbate feelings of

marginalization. From 2014-15, during the

Myanmar Nationwide Ceaseﬁre Agreement

(NCA) negotiations, several young leaders

advocated for their inclusion in the

negotiations, but these calls were not heeded.

While three male youth representatives

attended the NCA signing ceremony as

observers,

the NCA agreement makes

no reference or mention to ‘youth’ as a

key stakeholder.

South Sudan - Self creation of observation roles

There are also cases, where young people

are witnesses and observers of peace

negotiations in alternative ways. For

example, young people under the South

Sudan Civil Society Forum (SSCF) used

social media platforms to put pressure on

parties to the conﬂict as outside observers.

The SSCF launched a social media campaign

on the ﬁrst day of the South Sudan High

Level Revitalization Forum. Young people wore sunglasses, took photos of themselves, and then

shared them on social media platforms with the hashtag

#SouthSudanIsWatching

. Although this

type of participation did not have a direct impact on the discussions inside the room, it was

symbolically powerful in sending a message to the conﬂict parties on the unity among civil

society members of South Sudan. Youth, civil society and women representatives who were

The participation and

engagement of young people

through thematic committees

on issues key to the peace

negotiations translates

into young people having

the opportunity to draft

the laws and policies during

peace negotiations – shaping

the very substance of a

peace agreement.

Text Box Two

Image Credit: South Sudan Civil Society Forum

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

participating in the peace talks inside the negotiation rooms also used the internet and social

media as an important tool to inform broader constituencies. (for more information, see text box

eight: Youth-led Digital Diplomacy at South Sudanese High-Level Revitalization Forum).

39 Paﬀenholz, Thania and Nick Ross. (2015) Inclusive peace processes – an introduction, The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.

While the inclusion of young people

as observers or witnesses to peace

agreements may be a powerful symbol in

promoting ownership of the accord, and an

easy mechanism through which to include

young people, there is little impact if young

women and men’s voices are not reﬂected

in the agreement itself.

3.1.4 Participation through

Partnerships

Young people participate and inﬂuence

peace processes through building diverse

partnerships with key actors. The

collaboration between independent youth

and women representatives in the 2013

Yemeni National Dialogue Conference is an

example of youth utilizing alliance-building

activity. The informal alliance between

youth and women had a signiﬁcant inﬂuence

over the decision-making process merely

due to their high numbers in the negotiation

room.

A similar alliance-building activity

between youth and women’s groups took

place at the South Sudanese High-Level

Revitalization Forum (HLRF). Although there

was not a strong collaboration between

women and youth representatives in the

ﬁrst round of HLRF, strong communication

lines between the member of these two

social groups pushed their representatives

to build an alliance in the negotiation room.

Alliance building between two groups was

possible to the fact that women and youth

groups were mingled in their activism for

peace in the civic spaces. As a young woman

from South Sudan shared with us,

“youth is

the engine of civil society. We are the one

who protests in Nairobi and marched for

women’s right”

(Interview, South Sudan,

young woman). In the second round of HLRF,

there was a strong collaboration between

women and youth representatives, and

women’s groups closely consulted with

youth representatives. A very clear impact

of the alliance was their ability to convince

parties to create speaking opportunities

for refugees in peace talks. Refugee youth

representatives were initially passive

observers, yet they were later able to make

a statement at the HLRF. While a refugee

youth representative was sharing the

statement of young refugees, youth and

women alliance representatives stood behind

the refugee representative to demonstrate

their support and solidarity.

Both of these cases demonstrate that

thinking about alliance building activities

from a “youth lens” provides unexplored

avenues to increase the inﬂuence of both

women and youth in peace processes.

Processes and mechanisms that can support

alliance building activities between women’s

and youth groups may be an eﬀective

strategy to foster the inclusion of youth in

formal peace processes. In fact, integrating a

genuinely intersecting youth and gender lens

into peace processes may allow civil society

actors to challenge masculine and militaristic

characters of exclusive peace negotiations.

Building alliances and coalitions between

women and youth is an unexplored powerful

tool to integrate the perspectives of key

stakeholders (victims and perpetrators) in

security sector reform processes.

3.1.5 Resource Support Persons

Peace negotiations are often human

Building alliances and

coalitions between women

and youth is an unexplored

powerful tool to integrate

the perspectives of key

stakeholders (victims and

perpetrators) in security

sector reform processes.

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

resource intensive. The logistics to

coordinate meetings, the documentation

of formal and informal discussions, the

organization of various political and

national dialogues all require extensive

human resources. Young people are often

found playing these critical supportive

roles. As one young woman in Afghanistan

summarized:

“Youth are the machinery of

most organizations. They are not necessarily

in leadership positions, but they run the

place.”

Similar sentiments can be found in

the current Myanmar peace process and

the recent negotiations in the Philippines.

The former Myanmar Peace Centre (MPC)

provided technical and functional support

to the peace negotiations and relied

heavily on educated youth to meet its core

functions, with approximately 60% of the

MPC’s workforce under the age of 35 (of

this at least 40% were young women).

particular, young people bring speciﬁc skill

sets that facilitate peace meetings, as a

technology-savvy generation.

The presence and number of young people

within formal structures, however, does

not equate with substantive participation

or the ability to put forward key issues,

ideas and concerns related to youth. As one

senior technical advisor to the Myanmar

process noted, “

Young people were limited

to supporting role in the margins of the

meetings themselves and between the

meetings themselves.”

3.2 Layer 2 – Around the Room

3.2.1 Youth Committees/Delegates/

Representatives

Several peace processes sought to promote

the participation of young people through

the inclusion of youth-speciﬁc committees,

40 Paung Sie Facility. (2017) Youth & Everyday Peace: Fostering the Untapped Potential of Myanmar Youth.

41 Limo, Irene. (2017)

Mediation in Africa Is there Space for the Youth?

ACCORD.

42 Note, this case study is largely taken from the Missing Peace, Progress Study; Youth quotas in peace processes –

Yemen’s national dialogue conference

; pg 71.

youth delegates or youth representatives

during the negotiations, national or political

dialogues. The most well-known example is

the case of Yemen, which included both a 20%

youth quota for all stakeholders attending

the National Dialogue Conference, as well

as 40 seats reserved for independent youth

representatives. Through this inclusion

strategy young people were present under

multiple committees that were part of the

National Dialogue Conference (see text box

three). In Somalia’s Galkayo peace process,

a Joint Galkayo Youth Committee has been

established to facilitate a coordinated and

uniﬁed youth voice for the peace negotiations

(see text box four). In the Great Lakes

region, a Regional Youth Forum – as part of

International Conference on the Great Lakes

Region (ICGLR) – provided an institutional

mechanism to enable the participation

of youth in discussions and coordination

for peace, stability and development in

the region. Young people were selected

representatives, who brought key youth

issues to the table in regional summits and

peace talks on the Burundi and Democratic

Republic of the Congo (DRC) conﬂicts.

Afghanistan, a new Peace Advisory Board

has been formed towards the end of 2018,

comprising of nine committees, including

Youth Aﬀairs Committee.

Yemen’s independent youth delegates at the

National Dialogue Conference

Yemen’s youth were key drivers of the grass-roots protests that triggered the transfer of

power to a transitional government and establishment of a national dialogue process in 2011.

With strong encouragement from the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-

“Youth are the machinery

of most organizations.

They are not necessarily

in leadership positions, but

they run the place.”

Interview, Afghanistan,

young woman

Text Box Three

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

General, the parties accepted a 20% youth quota in the National Dialogue Conference (NDC) to

shape the new Yemeni Constitution in 2011.

30% of all participants also had to be women (and 20% of the women’s quota were required

to be youth).

Forty “independent youth” (not party aﬃliated) out of 10,000 applicants were

selected through the quota system, which meant that 7% of the total NDC members were

young people who were politically independent.

These independent youth representatives

quickly started to vote as a bloc, with some exceptions.

As a bloc, they also built alliances

with women and other civil society constituencies, which enabled this “non-political party”

group to acquire a signiﬁcant role and power in much of the decision-making process.

The civil society coalition and alliance-building activities were not suﬃcient to insulate these

youth entirely from claims of co-option by the main political stakeholders in the process.

Despite critiques of co-option and even claims of corruption directed at youth participants in a

fairly “elitist” political process, the quota system arguably set up new norms for youth political

inclusion in Yemen. As one NDC youth representative commented, “

The quota system applied

in the National Dialogue Conference demonstrated the positive value of youth participation.

”

Youth representatives also took on leadership roles in facilitating some of the technical working

group sessions. Although youth were underrepresented in decision-making committees, their

participation resulted in increased political empowerment, national employment strategies,

and investment in education for youth.

They were outspoken about sensitive issues (such as

the proposed immunity law) and challenged many entrenched hierarchical political traditions.

Their overall impact in the NDC was arguably transformative in shifting the prevailing mindset

about youth political agency.

43 Berghof Foundation. (2017)

National Dialogue Handbook: A Guide for Practitioners.

44 Women and Youth Forum. (2014)

Constitutional Guidelines on Youth in Yemen: As per NDC Outcomes.

Republic of Yemen.

45 Alwazir, Atiaf Zaid. (2013)

Yemen’s Independent Youth and Their Role in the National Dialogue Conference: Triggering a Change in Political Culture

, Stiftung

Wissenschaft Politics.

46 Paﬀenholz, Thania, and Nick Ross. (2016) Inclusive political settlements: new insights from Yemen’s national dialogue., Prism: A Journal of the Center for

Complex Operations, vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 199–210; pg 205.

47 Anonymous KII. (2018) The Missing Peace, pg 71.

48 Al-Akhali, Rafat. (2014)

What Yemen’s Youth Got Out of the National Dialogue Conference

, Atlantic Council.

49 Alwazir, Atiaf Zaid. (2013).

Yemen’s Independent Youth and Their Role in the National Dialogue Conference: Triggering a Change in Political Culture

Stiftung Wissenschaft Politics.

Youth committees and elected youth

representatives can provide an eﬀective

and meaningful form of youth participation

in peace processes. However, several key

considerations should be taken forward. A

key point of contention is the challenge of

representation, not only in age and gender

but also in selection: the process of selection

and legitimacy of youth representatives

to speak on behalf of young people is a

concern for young people, raised throughout

this research. The selection process often

runs the risk of including young people who

are educated, well-spoken, usually urban-

residents and connected online, as well as

part of an elite social standing. Conversely,

marginalized and excluded young people

living in remote areas with less access to

quality education often have less chances to

take part in such committees. Alternatively,

young people may be tokenistically consulted

without ensuring their access to capacity

development trainings. Consequently,

feelings and perceptions of exclusion may

be exacerbated for those not included, or the

credibility of the youth committee may falter.

The examples in this paper have

highlighted two key practices to help youth

representatives succeed. The ﬁrst is the

need for youth representatives to be elected

by their peers through a transparent

approach. This ensures that the inclusion

is more reﬂective of and tailored to the

reality of the local context. Secondly, youth

representatives should act as a

channel

for the voice of wider youth. Thus, young

people who represent ‘youth’ in the peace

process must develop mechanisms for

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

broader inclusion of other young people,

to be accountable to their peers, answer

their questions, and raise the voices of

the community of young people during

negotiations. As such,

consultations with

broader youth constituencies

can become a

mandatory part of their role.

Another key issue relates to the siloed

approach of having separate youth

50 See UN Assistance Mission in Somalia statement.

committees, as opposed to recognizing the

contribution, value and importance of young

people across all segments of a peace process.

It is a double-edged sword: if young people

are political inﬂuencers, then a segregated

youth committee may undermine the power

of young people’s political contributions in

building lasting peace. However, without the

youth committees the issues may not be

heard at the negotiation table.

Somalia - Establishing youth-led committees to inﬂuence peace

(Joint Galkayo Youth Committee)

The city of Galkayo in Somalia lies on the fault lines of two federal states, Galmudug State

(formally established in 2015), and Puntland State (formed in 1998), where territorial tensions

between the two dominant clans escalated and peaked with an outbreak of violent hostilities in

late 2015. The Federal Government of Somalia, with the support of the United Nations Special

Representative of the Secretary General, mediated between the two sides. In November

2016, after negotiations in Abu Dhabi, and mediation from the Somali Prime Minister, the

regional presidents of Puntland and Galmudug agreed on the ceaseﬁre to end the violence in

the city. A Joint Ceaseﬁre Committee (JCC) was established to oversee the implementation

of the agreement.

Further to the ceaseﬁre, in January 2017, the Regional Presidents agreed

to three main points to end hostilities in Galkayo and build conﬁdence between the two state

administrations.

In early 2018, the government-led JCC transitioned into a more community-led peace

committee, consisting of 61 elders representing all the diﬀerent clans and sub-clans living

in the city, instead of government oﬃcials. However, women and young people still lacked an

oﬃcial channel to meaningfully engage in the peace negotiations. Local youth organizations,

with support from the UN and peacebuilding organizations, lobbied for the establishment

of a Joint Galkayo Youth Committee (JGYC) in 2018. The JGYC is comprised of equal youth

representatives from each side of Galkayo (14 young people in total). The members of the

JGYC act as interlocutors to the elder-led Peace Committee. A similar structure has since

emerged for women, known as the Women’s Committee.

The JGYC is recognized as a structured and formal platform for young people to engage with

the peace process, channeling the voices and recommendations from wider youth population

into the decision-making process. As the JGYC members were elected by young people from

North and South Galkayo, it is recognized as legitimate representation by youth across both

sides of the divide. The formalized network further enabled the UN and other organizations to

better provide young representatives with technical and functional support. However, despite

its proximity to the peace process, the JGYC has faced diﬃculties in being viewed as credible

partners and having their youth voices heard by the community elders.

The JGYC, with support from the regional youth organizations, organized a three-day

Peace Conference in September 2018 to celebrate the UN International Day of Peace. Over

300 youth from North and South Galkayo attended, bringing together young leaders from

across all six of Somalia’s Federal Member States, in addition to representatives from the

Peace Committee and the Women’s Committee. The ﬁrst of its kind, the conference combined

discussions with joint activities like community clean-ups and sports competition. The event

was widely attended by Galkayo’s leadership and was held in both areas of the divided district.

Text Box Four

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

Many elders and senior Government leaders had not been to the ‘other side’ of Galkayo in many

years. The challenge of jointly organizing the conference was an opportunity to bring together

the communities from North and South Galkayo.

The conference resulted in Galkayo being nicknamed “Hoyga Nabadda” (in English: the “Home

of Peace”) in Somalia, despite being one of the more complex conﬂicted districts. The joint

youth committee has proven that young people are valuable contributors in building bridges

across conﬂict lines, using informal channels to create spaces for dialogue and support trust-

building among political negotiating parties.

Galkayo’s progress highlights the importance of bottom-up peace processes in stabilizing

security and ensuring peace, with reconciliation at both local and national levels, rather than

short-term, top-down political processes.

51 International Crisis Group. (2015)

Galkayo and Somalia’s Dangerous Faultlines

3.2.2 Formal Consultative Forums/

Sub-national Dialogues

Consultative forms of participation are a

tool that has been used for youth inclusion

in peace processes. In some cases, this has

been realized through civil society or public

consultations. The Civil Society Support

Room (CSSR) established by the UN Oﬃce

of the Special Envoy on Syria (OSE-S) is an

example of consultative inclusion strategy

employed by UN mediators. The CSSR

creates space for the participation of youth

organizations and young people who are part

of civil society organizations. Young Syrians

who have been interviewed for this paper ﬁnd

the CSSR a useful initiative for the inclusion

of young people. In their view, the CSSR

plays an instrumental role for informing civil

society members inside and outside Syria.

Yet, young members of the CSSR also

shared that youth speciﬁc concerns often

get lost within the broad scope of the issues

that are being discussed in the room. While

young people play key roles in civil society,

merging young people into broader civil

society consultations risks youth-speciﬁc

concerns and issues being marginalized

or overlooked.

“It is essential to have civil

society representation. Yet, civil society

representation is not always suﬃcient to

bring youth issues to the table”

(Interview,

South Sudan, female). In most cases there is

little information and data on whether and

to what extent young people are included in

civil society consultations, partly due to lack

of age-segregated data.

Youth consultations should also be

considered from a gender lens, as young

women and men may bring diﬀerent

experiences and perspectives to key

issues. Allowing space for these gendered

perspectives to come forward can add

nuance to critical issues being negotiated.

For example, in the Syrian peace talks:

“

young men in the civil society room focus

on political power-sharing discussions,

elections and governance, economic

development of the country, while young

women focus on education, practical aspect

of the distribution of resources, and the

inclusion of marginalized voices

” (Interview,

Syria, woman). However, when civil society

itself is fragmented, mediators face a

dilemma as to whether young women or

even youth speciﬁc consultative mechanism

could be a tool for unity or create further

divisions among civil society members.

In the Central African Republic, Colombia,

Mali, Myanmar, Philippines and South Sudan,

young people have also been consulted

about their views on their respective peace

processes and contributed through sharing

“It is essential to have civil

society representation. Yet,

civil society representation is

not always suﬃcient to bring

youth issues to the table”

Interview, South Sudan, female

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

their views. Youth speciﬁc consultations

often take place in informal settings and

create dialogue opportunities between

young people and other stakeholders to the

peace process. Youth-speciﬁc consultations

52 Information based on document synthesized and produced by the United Nations and National University of Colombia.

53 Document synthesised and produced by the United Nations and National University of Colombia on proposals presented by young people in the forum.

have a strategic importance, as it creates

space for young women and men to share

concerns and issues that are speciﬁc to

their demographic.

Colombia - Youth inclusion in peace process thematic consultations

In 2012, as the peace negotiations began, the Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary

Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) requested that the UN, together with the National University

of Colombia organize public consultations, through thematic forums, to feed into shaping

the peace negotiations and agreement. A total of ﬁve national and four regional forums

were organized from 2012 to 2016, based on the 6 key negotiating points in the peace talks:

Comprehensive Rural Development Policy, Political Participation, Illicit drugs, Victims of the

Conﬂict, End of the Conﬂict, and Implementation and Veriﬁcation.

Over 7795 people

from across Colombia’s regions and diﬀerent stakeholders were engaged,

including women, young people, political parties, human rights organizations, academics,

indigenous people, private sector, trade unions, farmers, and victims. A detailed methodology

was developed for each forum, to ensure facilitators and reporters would capture the key

discussion points and proposals, streamline these into a consolidated report, and submit to

the negotiating parties for consideration.

The criteria for participation in each forum depended on the theme, although regional

representation was a priority, and quota systems were put into place to ensure the inclusion of

women and youth across all stakeholders. Participants were then selected based on their ability

to speak on the thematic issue and represent social organizations. Of particular relevance is

the victims forum, where young people constituted a large representation and played a key

role in shaping several peace agreement provisions: young people were particularly aﬀected

by forced recruitment and gender-based violence.

During the forums, young participants proposed particular points that focused on promoting

a culture of peace and tolerance, inﬂuencing other stakeholders’ perceptions towards a vision

of reconciliation. For example, they proposed that the sons and daughters of combatants

should also be treated as victims, and that the use of child soldiers by both military and FARC

forces be addressed. They asked that two young people - former combatants - be invited to

the Havana negotiations to share their story, reﬂecting on their human rights violations and

challenges of transitional justice for FARC members, who were recruited as children. Young

people furthermore pushed for investment in public education as a tool for (re)building peace,

alternative economic avenues for rural areas to minimize dependence on illegal crop growth,

and a truth commission for victims of the conﬂict.

Although key relevant organizations were invited, there appeared to be limited information

publicly shared about the selection process and implementation of the consultative forums.

The number of participants engaged across the forums was also ultimately small considering

the number of people aﬀected by the conﬂict. Consequently, those not involved in the forums

often did not hear about the forums and had limited access to broader public participation.

Lessons can be taken forward in ensuring outreach and feedback mechanisms to the public

from the selective consultations, as well as accountability to the participants themselves on

the outcomes of the forums.

Text Box Five

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

However, the inﬂuence of youth speciﬁc

consultations can be limited to satisfying

young people’s desire for political

participation. Without the lack of

systematic mechanisms to transmit

the outcomes of youth consultations to

negotiating parties, youth proposals risk

not being included in the peace agreement,

as young people themselves are seldom

represented at the negotiation table.

Another key consideration is the connection,

or lack of, between young people consulted

(around the room), and those mobilizing

(outside the room), such as in the Colombia

case study (see text box ﬁve).

Siloed youth speciﬁc consultations may be

an easy method to increase the number

of young people participate in peace

processes, but if it has little inﬂuence over

the negotiation processes, it can exacerbate

the frustration of politically excluded

young people. Youth consultations can also

increase the expectations of young people:

when these consultations are not connected

to the formal processes, it may do more

harm than good.

54 Grizelj, Irena. (2018)

Protection Needs and Capacities of Youth in Myanmar: A Preliminary Report Exploring Youth Protection in Myanmar

, Nonviolent

Peaceforce, Myanmar.

3.2.3 Ceaseﬁre and Civilian

Protection Monitoring

While peace negotiations and political

dialogues tend to be held in secure spaces,

the discussions are often marred by

ongoing armed clashes and tensions at

sub-national and community-levels that

aﬀect civilian populations. The monitoring

and reporting of ceaseﬁre and civilian

protection violations is vital in holding

parties accountable during political

negotiations. Young people play key but

often unrecognized and undervalued roles

in these capacities.

In the Philippines, the ceaseﬁre monitoring

teams are mostly composed of young men,

who accompany senior negotiators during

their visit to the community. The joint

coordination and assistance mechanism

furthermore relies on young volunteers,

who are critical in assisting the formal

ceaseﬁre process. For example, the United

Youth for Peace and Development (UNYPAD)

organization, as part of the Third-

Party Monitoring Team, regularly visits

communities and reports to formal ceaseﬁre

committees, including meetings with the

Chairman of the Peace Panel. In Myanmar,

within an informal but well-established

civilian ceaseﬁre and civilian protection

monitoring network, nearly 35% of the 700+

members are young people (aged 18-35).

In both Myanmar and the Philippines, young

people are noted as being at the forefront

of armed conﬂict, conducting investigative

ﬁeld work and maintaining accountability

to the ceaseﬁre by negotiating parties. The

Young people are noted as

being at the forefront of

armed conﬂict, conducting

investigative ﬁeld work and

maintaining accountability

to the ceaseﬁre by

negotiating parties.

Siloed youth speciﬁc

consultations may be an

easy method to increase

the number of young

people participate in peace

processes, but if it has little

inﬂuence over the negotiation

processes, it can exacerbate

the frustration of politically

excluded young people.

Youth consultations can also

increase the expectations

of young people: when

these consultations are not

connected to the formal

processes, it may do more

harm than good.

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

close connection of young people to the

community has promoted public acceptance

of ceaseﬁre agreements, particularly if

peace dividends are noticed.

This role is not without its challenges.

Socio-cultural hierarchies impede eﬀective

participation of young people, as senior

community leaders and authorities may

question the maturity of youth to be in

leadership positions, failing to recognize the

value and contribution of the work of the

young monitors. In Myanmar, community-

level young monitors banded together and

successfully voted for a youth representative

within higher state-level committees,

testament to the large numbers of youth

monitors within the network itself and

eﬀorts to counter hierarchy.

3.2.4 Local/Sub-national mediators

“We are doing mediation, but we do

not realize we are doing this. I didn’t

even know what I was doing.”

Interview, Kenya, young woman

55 Autesserre, Séverine. (2016)

The responsibility to protect in Congo: the failure of grassroots prevention

, International Peacekeeping.

Tensions and violent conﬂicts at the

grassroots level are usually in a reciprocal

relationship with the conﬂicts at the national

or regional levels.

Conﬂicts between the

political elite at the national level, in many

countries, seek to manipulate small scale,

community-level tensions for self-interested

agendas. While manipulation by ruling elites

can harm peace at the community level,

these ground-level, small scale skirmishes

can also contribute and spiral into national

and regional-levels of violence. Neglecting

the interactions of violence that takes place

between diﬀerent geographical scales can

undermine ongoing peace processes. Young

people’s organic conﬂict analyses within

their environments often anticipates that

violence at community-levels can escalate

to national or international levels and

thereby put peace negotiations at risk or

delay conﬂict parties to reach agreement.

The work of UNYPAD in the Philippines at the

grassroots level is an example of how youth-

led mediation can be eﬀective to advance

peace processes at the national level (see

text box six).

Philippines - Youth engagement in informal mediation

& dispute resolution

During the negotiations between the Government of Philippines (GNP) and Moro Islamic

Liberation Front (MILF), violence between the clans were disturbing and delaying the

peace process in advancing. A youth focused organization, the United Youth for Peace and

Development (UNYPAD), analyzed the need for addressing feuds between clans and families

(known as rido), as essential to secure the peace process between GNP and MILF. UNYPAD

undertook a six month long research process and gathered recommendations for mediating

three critical rido cases in the southern Philippines through extensive consultations. UNYPAD

then arranged mediators who were respected by both sides, in order to create communication

channels between council leaders of clans and negotiate a peace agreement between parties.

Through the processes facilitated by UNYPAD eﬀorts, clan leaders were able to draft a

peace agreement to end three rido cases. On a grand

kanduli

(thanksgiving celebration),

the clan leaders from both sides got together to sign the peace agreement in front a public

audience. Although this dispute resolution activity was entirely informal, UNYPAD added a

formal element to this activity through inviting formal representatives of the Government of

Philippines. UNYPAD further invited representatives from the Oﬃce of the Presidential Adviser

on the Peace Process and the Third-Party Monitoring Team to participate in the ceremony and

sign the peace agreement as oﬃcial witnesses.

Text Box Six

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

As multiple forms of violence can threaten

the stability of peace processes, young

people have strategically engaged and

adapted their approaches to target the

most critical forms of violence. Their

creative and alternative approaches can

contribute to addressing political, extremist,

criminal, gender-based, electoral violence,

which can endanger peace negotiations

and threaten the sustainability of peace

agreements.

For example, as extremist violence is a

growing problem in the Bangsamoro region

of the Philippines, a young woman from

the Philippines talked about how youth-

led mediation eﬀorts employ peer-to-peer

dialogue as a strategy to prevent violent

extremism for the stability of the peace

process. As sporadic inter religious tensions

are also manipulated by political elites in Sri

Lanka, a young man from Sri Lanka explained

his community level interfaith dialogue

platforms contributes to the prevention of

escalation of a larger scale violence. When

sectarian and ethnic diﬀerences are being

manipulated in Syria, young peacebuilders

from Syria establish neighborhood level

dialogue platforms to prevent escalation of

violence at the community levels. All these

examples demonstrate that youth agency

and leadership in mediation activities at the

community level has a powerful impact on

stabilizing and strengthening formal peace

negotiations and agreements, as their

activities prevent diverse forms of violence

that take place during peace processes.

Although youth agency and leadership in

mediation at the community level oﬀers a

great opportunity for developing bottom-up

methods to complement top-down formal

mediation activities, some caution is needed in

professionalizing youth-led mediation eﬀorts.

In many peace process contexts, youth-led

mediation activities rely on the creativity

and innovation of young people and locally

embedded trust-based relationships between

young people and community members. In

this respect, professionalizing youth-led

mediation work, through molding into existing

programming or funding frameworks, can

harm the authenticity of youth-led mediation

eﬀorts, and distort the relationships

between young people and the community.

Young people across several peace process

contexts expressed that their involvement

in mediation activities are often questioned

and targeted by military and police, and

their peers are detained due to their

proactive involvement in peace work

outside formal institutional spaces. For

this reason, many youth-led peacebuilding

organizations prefer not to report their

activities, hide their identities, or be

aﬃliated with formal institutions. Thus,

formalizing youth-led mediation eﬀorts

requires the integration of strong conﬂict-

sensitive and do-no-harm methodologies.

Investing and harnessing youth-led

mediation eﬀorts requires protecting the

civic spaces and the rights of young people.

3.3 Layer 3 – Outside the Room

3.2.5 Mass Mobilization for Peace

With limited structured formal mechanisms

for youth within peace processes, young

people take initiatives to inﬂuence peace

negotiations through informal, often

creative, avenues. Young people can be

Youth agency and

leadership in mediation

activities at the community

level has a powerful

impact on stabilizing and

strengthening formal

peace negotiations and

agreements.

Youth-led mediation activities

rely on the creativity and

innovation of young people

and locally embedded trust-

based relationships between

young people and community

members.

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

Text Box Seven

advocates in the promotion of human rights,

democracy and peace messages, garnering

nationwide media attention through

peaceful demonstrations and campaigns,

the use of online social media platforms

to inﬂuence public awareness and opinion

– including around issues within the peace

process negotiations. This is particularly

notable through mass mobilizations in the

form of protests or street demonstrations,

and closely intertwined with social media.

In Colombia, after four years of negotiations,

from 2012-2016, a deal was reached

between the Government of Colombia

and the Revolutionary Armed Forces

of Colombia (FARC) in 2016. The peace

agreement was to settle over ﬁve decades

of civil war within the country and was held

to a public referendum on 2 October 2016.

The issue of reconciliation and reintegration

of the FARC guerrilla ﬁghters was a key

contentious and divisive issue for the

public’s acceptance of the peace process,

contributing to the public rejection by a

slight majority vote (50.2%).

The rejection

of the peace deal, within hours, sparked a

large youth pro-peace movement: through

social media hashtags (#PazAlaCalle,

#RespiraPaz, #LaPazesImparable

and #MarchaporlaPaz), networks of

university students including public and

private universities and both Yes and No

campaigners in an act of reconciliation to

end the polarization in the country mobilized

over 30,000 young people onto the streets

of Bogota.

They had one consistent

56 Registraduría Nacional del Estado Civil (National Registry of Civil Status).

57 Semana. El llamado de los universitarios. 10 August 2016.

message: calling for the government and the

FARC to restart negotiations and not delay

a new peace agreement.

Within a week, the youth-led student

movement was joined by people from all

socioeconomic backgrounds, workers,

oﬃcials, and civil society leaders, mobilizing

over one million people across the country

to rally on streets through peace marches.

A revised peace agreement was signed by

the parties one month later and passed

in Congress. A young woman interviewed

summarized her experience of the

movement:

“We had never had opportunity

to participate in the decisions of our country.

The peace process was not for us. But, when

the referendum happened, we realized the

process is for us. Before the referendum

we were spectators. When the referendum

happened, we put on the shoes and decided

“we are responsible to save our country.

Social media was the way we could raise

our voices. We are using social media to ask

for accountability and say to leaders, “this

peace process has to be implemented.”

Similarly, in Somalia, the Galkayo conﬂict

escalated and clashes intensiﬁed in the

region in late 2016. Young people organized

large protests to build momentum for a

ceaseﬁre, and an all-encompassing school

walk out in which a signiﬁcant majority of

students in the District participated. This

built pressure on the negotiating parties and

contributed to a rapid signing of the Galkayo

Ceaseﬁre Agreement in early 2017.

Somalia – Youth coordinating school walk-outs for peace in Galkayo

Although young people were directly

impacted by the conﬂict at its early stages,

they were not included in the oﬃcial eﬀorts

to bring peace to Galkayo. Young people

and youth organizations nevertheless self-

organized and initiated local campaigns and

protests calling for peace.

In late 2016, the Mudug Youth Peace and

Integration Forum was created as an all-

inclusive permanent forum for young Somalis

from both Puntland and Galmudug states to brainstorm ways to resolve the prolonged clan-

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

based tensions the region.

Without a formal mandate to inﬂuence the ongoing peace process,

on 2 October 2017, youth from both sides of Galkayo organized a large school walk-out to build

pressure and demand sustainable peace.

South Sudan - Youth-led digital diplomacy at high-level

revitalization forum

In transitioning to a post-war state, young people form the foundations of a democratic and

just society. Today, one in three internet users is a young person, creating opportunities

for people-led movements to signiﬁcantly inﬂuence ongoing peacemaking eﬀorts. This too

increases the need for better coordination between actors across the board. This complex

and dynamic landscape oﬀers broad range of strategic entry points for third-party mediation

support groups to look for creative solutions in negotiating peace.

During the South Sudanese High-Level Revitalization Forum, youth-led peacebuilding

organization

#Anataban

created an e-delegate participation platform. The main function of

this platform was to ensure that civil society had accurate information, both within South

Sudan and outside South Sudan. The e-delegates platform was a tool for communicating

through 30 minutes long live videos posted via social media. These videos were screened by

the members of

#Anataban

in the public spaces where deliberative political practices take

place in South Sudanese civil society sphere.

Through these videos

#Anataban

members informed the public about where the talks were,

the main discussion and event of the days. The videos triggered discussion outside under

the trees. These eﬀorts also deliberately targeted diaspora communities, since diaspora is

detached from the daily reality of armed conﬂict and its eﬀects, they easily start generating

hate speech. As a young woman from South Sudan noted,

“if diaspora get accurate information,

then they would promote positive messages”

. The virtual connection and ﬂow of information

across the social media channels prevented panic among the general public because local

communities could receive information from youth, women and other civil society delegates

who were hosted on live Facebook round table discussions.

Despite social media providing a unique opportunity to increase the participation and inclusion

of young people, using social media comes with particular challenges, such misinformation

and hate speech, which need to be understood and managed (see UNDPPA digital toolkit

58 United Nations Somalia. (2018)

Integrated Youth Response: Case Study

. UN-FBA Joint Learning Forum on Youth, Peace and Security. December 4-7, 2018.

59 Puntland News Agency.

Ardayda iskuulada Waqooyiga Iyo Koonfurta Gaalkacyo Oo Maanta Socod ku maray Magaalada Gaalkacyo

. 2 Oct, 2017.

60 peacemaker.un.org/digitaltoolkit

3.2.6. Building Momentum for

Reconciliation

“W

e pay so much attention to those

who fought, and not enough to

those who did not. This complicates

reconciliation. Those who did not ﬁght

have to be recognized and appreciated,

but often they are ignored.”

Interview, senior mediator, woman

Sustaining peace requires rebuilding

relationships and trust between people

who were aﬀected by the conﬂict, and also

between people and the institutions of the

State. These critical components of societal

trust building activities are foundations for

positive peace, which are found in young

people’s engagement in reconciliation

eﬀorts.

Young people play key roles in raising

public awareness and understanding of

conﬂict(s) dynamics within their country,

Text Box Eight

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

Text Box Nine

promoting the urgency for rebuilding

relationships communities marginalized due

to harmful impact of violent conﬂict. Young

people’s peacebuilding activities provide

psychosocial support and aim to breed a

societal acceptance for the reintegration of

former combatants. In Colombia, the issue of

reconciliation and reintegration of the FARC

guerrilla ﬁghters has been a key contentious

and divisive issue for the public’s acceptance

61 The Observers.

The letters of reconciliation sent to ex-FARC ﬁghters

. 7 July 2017. El Pais.

Lessons in tolerance: The Colombian letters sent to former FARC

ﬁghters

. 2 June 2017.

62 This is part of the Mission’s strategy for the implementation of Security Council resolutions 2250 (2015) and 2419 (2018) on youth and peace and security, with

has a focus on the role of young people in reintegration and security guarantees. See the

Selected Secretary-General’s Reports

of the peace process, contributing to a public

rejection of an initial peace deal in 2016.

Following the public referendum, a group of

creative young people started the

Cartas por

la Reconciliation

(Letters for Reconciliation)

campaign, which encouraged young people

and the broader public to send letters of

support to the FARC guerrilla ﬁghters (see

text box nine).

Colombia - Love letters to the FARC

“In Colombia, we have naturalized violence

because our whole life is ﬁlled with war.

We are taught revenge from adults. But

our culture is full of love and forgiveness.

Young people are trying to change this

view and promote respect for life. If we

don’t change this culture of violence, the

country will remain the same.”

Interview, Colombia, young woman

Following the public referendum, a group

of creative young people also started the

Cartas por la Reconciliación (Letters

for Reconciliation)

campaign, which

encouraged young people and the broader

public to send welcoming letters to the FARC

guerrilla ﬁghters.

The emotive movement

gained nationwide attention, and over 3,000 letters of hope and support have been sent to the

estimated 6,900 ex-combatants, welcoming them back into society. Young people acted as a

bridge towards reconciliation and understanding, aiming to show that forgiveness is possible.

If civilians can have a conversation with the guerrillas, they can work towards overcoming

hatred and recognizing common humanity.

Since 2018, the UN Mission in Colombia has furthermore recognized the leadership roles of

youth-led organizations and initiatives that are supporting reintegration and reconciliation

eﬀorts. The Mission has, for example, facilitated dialogue and visits of youth leaders, young

entrepreneurs and university students with former combatants in seven territorial areas

assigned for training and reintegration.

While reconciliation activities of young

people target short-term needs for the

integration of former combatants through

rebuilding trust between former combatants

and the wider society, their reconciliation

activities also aim to restore the trust

between young people and the State.

Deeply rooted injustices such as dealing

with corruption, nepotism and tribalism

are also being addressed in young people’s

reconciliation work (see text box ten) and

fostering inclusive and just democratic

societies.

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

Text Box Ten

South Sudan – Sweeping corruption away

Once the peace agreement was signed

at the High-Level Revitalization Forum,

South Sudanese youth took to the

streets of Juba with their campaign,

titled

#NadafaLeBeledna (‘Let us

clean our country’).

Hundreds of young

people have gathered once a month to

– literally and metaphorically – clean

their country together. The youth-led

campaign asks their peers to follow

the motto of “do not just be youthful,

be useful”, and encourage young

people to participate.

Yet, the actual intention behind

these cleaning campaigns aim to send a

political message: ‘Youth are demanding increased participation and representation in the

country where they are the majority, since young people constitute 72% of the population in

South Sudan’. For the organizers of this campaign:

“This is not a cleaning project, it should not be misunderstood, we are actually protesting.

Cleaning is a protest, because we are tired of wars, all. If we clean the streets, we can also

clean the bushes. We can clean this country out of corruption, nepotism and tribalism.”

Interview, South Sudan, young man.

This protest movement provides just one example for how young people raise their voices and

create alternative engagement opportunities to challenge corruption and build just societies.

63 IBID.

These forms of active participation outside

formal peace negotiations are important

to facilitate the socialization of the peace

agreement, and shape public engagement

in the peace process. Young people initiate

and lead reconciliation with limited

resources; they do not ask for permission

or commitment from negotiating parties,

rather the eﬀorts rely on the energy and

commitment of young people in prioritizing

peace and stability. Young people need

to be recognized for the value of their

informal contributions, as a critical bridge

to formal peace processes. Having a better

understanding of young people’s existing

eﬀorts in the informal space is central in

realizing their (potential) contribution to

formal processes.

As such, a shift must be normalized for

peace processes, and negotiations, to

be forward-thinking and engage youth

agency in building peace and preventing

conﬂicts. In creating and harnessing

spaces for meaningful youth inclusion

and participation in peace processes,

the foundations for positive peace and

reconciliation can be prioritized in peace

agreements. This will eﬀectively empower

young people to co-lead the process of

rebuilding trust and peace in a post-

agreement phase across generations.

Young people need to be

recognized for the value of

their informal contributions,

as a critical bridge to formal

peace processes.

Image Credit: Gasim Edward

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

3.2.7. Advocating Humanitarian

Concerns

Conﬂict produces humanitarian crises, and

young people are often at the forefront

of community-led response to provide

help people in urgent need. The frontline

engagement in humanitarian crises often

drives young people into facilitative roles

in managing the tangible impacts of the

conﬂict, further driving their commitment

to bringing peace. For example, in Myanmar

in late 2018, ﬁghting between government

troops and one of the country’s biggest

64 Kachin youth activists launch potent anti-war movement.

non-state armed groups, the Kachin

Independence Army, stranded hundreds

of villagers in a cross-ﬁre zone. Three

youth activists led mass public protests

and demonstrations in both the rural city

and urban capital. As a result, the State

Counsellor, sent a senior minister to the

conﬂict area to oversee the safe release of

the villagers.

Empowering young people

in the management of humanitarian action

could be a way to spur engagement of youth

in political process, and it connects their

realization that there is a need for a political

settlement for the solution of the problem.

The Role of Young People in Peace Processes

4 KEY MESSAGES

The agenda of youth inclusion must be implemented from a conﬂict-sensitive

and do-no-harm approach. This means working and engaging with young people

as partners, as much as possible, throughout peace processes. In order to prevent

elitism and tokenism among youth, eﬀorts should be taken to foster equal

participation of marginalized young people with less access to formal political

processes. From preparatory stages, including the conduct of a conﬂict analysis

with a youth-lens applied, to the process design and implementation phases, peace

and mediation processes must ensure they are sensitive to the views, needs, and

concerns of young women and men.

The inclusion of young people during all phases of peace processes likely increases the

sustainability of the agreements. This paper indicates young people’s demonstrated

capacity to socialize, defend, and protect peace agreements in formal and informal

political platforms through innovative and alternative practices. There is, however,

urgent need for greater investment and resources to research and document youth

participation in peace processes and the impact on sustaining peace.

Youth inclusion and participation in peace processes should not be considered

a new agenda in competition with other inclusion agendas. Greater eﬀorts are

needed to understand how women and youth organizations work in collaboration

and build alliances to combat exclusion in the context of peace processes. Exploring

and analyzing alliance building activities between women, civil society, and youth is

a strategic approach to strengthen collaboration between WPS and YPS agendas,

and highlights the intersection of victims, perpetrators and peacebuilders across

two major social categories. These collaborations are a powerful way to combat

broader exclusion in high-level peacemaking eﬀorts.

“We are talking about the future of

peace in Syria.”

Interview, Syria, young woman

“Young people cut through all the

noise and get right to the heart of an

issue through a human perspective.

We need to invite these challenges

and questions that make us

remember humanity.”

Interview, senior peace practitioner,

Northern Ireland

Key Messages

Young people’s proximity to the table matters because young people are

distinctively impacted by the results of decisions made at the formal peace

negotiation table. In particular, critical power-sharing decisions, such as related

to disarmament demobilization and reintegration (DDR), security sector reform

(SSR) and criminal justice reform process, require both youth and gender sensitive

lenses. Working with young people as partners in these processes may have

signiﬁcantly improve the eﬃciency of peace processes.

Ensuring the representation of diverse youth constituencies matters in peace

negotiations. Accessing and raising the voices of marginalized and excluded young

people in peace processes includes creating spaces for young women and men

who have been victims and perpetrators of violence. However, this policy paper

suggests that the participation and inclusion of young people actively engaged in

peacebuilding and violence prevention

should be equally prioritized. In selecting,

inviting and appointing young people to participate in formal segments of peace

processes, attention should be given to maintain a diversity of perspectives that

can serve to understand the distinct experiences of youth as peacebuilders,

victims, and perpetrators.

Enabling youth political participation during peace negotiations will contribute

to more inclusive and representative governance structures that build the basis

for more peaceful societies. Recognizing, protecting and engaging with the civic

spaces where the majority of youth participate is furthermore an important

avenue to (re)build societal trust and legitimacy of political institutions. Shifting

the mindset towards young people will therefore support the realization of a broad

socio-political

culture of inclusion.

“It is not charity to have young

people in the room – the whole

peace agreement is about young

people, if you want it to last. If you

want lasting peace, it won’t happen

without youth. It is not about having

youth as a side note but changing

the view and attitude towards young

people. They are not just a small

interest group.”

Interview, Afghanistan, young woman

The ﬁndings from the paper demand Member

States, UN entities, mediators, regional and

international organizations, and civil society

to move from normative commitments to

operational action on youth inclusion and

participation. Engaging with young people

is not only a demographic necessity but a

democratic imperative and an important

avenue for accountability of institutions

to their mandates, to legal norms and the

people they strive to serve. The following

recommendations oﬀer a range of tools

that the above-mentioned stakeholders

can choose from depending on the context,

to identify strategic entry points and

approaches to realize youth-inclusive peace

processes in practice.

In moving these recommendations forward,

it is important to emphasize that young

people’s inclusion and participation in

the room, around the room, and outside

the room of peace negotiations equally

matters. Utilizing a multi-layered and

integrated engagement approach should

therefore be the main strategy for realizing

youth inclusion and participation in peace

processes. Youth participation and inclusion

in any of these layers should not be treated

in isolation, and the recommendations

presented below should be implemented in

conjunction with one another: youth inside

or around the room should not be the sole

metric for successful youth inclusion. It is

fundamental to actively develop strategic

and synchronized connections between

young people inside the room, around the

room, and outside the room.

Following this approach, the

recommendations below are clustered

in four categories: 1) Connecting the

layers; 2) Inside the room; 3) Around the

room; and 4) Outside the room. While the

ﬁrst cluster of recommendations, the

connectors, aim to connect the engagement

opportunities between layers, the rest of

the recommendations provide entry points

speciﬁc to inside, around, and outside

the room.

5 RECOMMENDATIONS/

ENTRY POINTS

it is important to emphasize

that young people’s inclusion

and participation in the

room, around the room,

and outside the room of

peace negotiations equally

matters. Utilizing a multi-

layered and integrated

engagement approach

should therefore be the main

strategy for realizing youth

inclusion and participation

in peace processes.

Recommendations/Entry Points

Connecting the Layers

•

International and regional organizations,

supporting institutions and stakeholders

must take proactive eﬀorts to

ensure collaboration, coordination

and networking across entities as

attention, research, investment

and practice increases for the youth

inclusion agenda; young people and

youth organizations should be engaged

as indispensable partners throughout

these processes.

•

Youth-led organizations and young

peace builders should take greater

ownership and leadership roles to build

partnerships, conduct advocacy, and

undertake participatory research to

strengthen youth inclusivity in peace

processes.

•

Member States, international

organizations, and donors should

promote accessible, ﬂexible and

innovative funding opportunities

for youth-led and youth-focused

organizations that seek to support

peace processes through peacebuilding

and violence prevention activities, such

as peace education. This would support

young people’s engagement in bottom-

up peacebuilding and community-led

resilience, that contributes to stabilizing

broader peace processes.

•

Member States, international

organizations and young people

should jointly establish and lead a

documentation, monitoring, and

progress tracking mechanism to

increase understanding and measure

the inﬂuence and impact of young people

in peace processes. This should build

a long-term, well resourced, evidence

base that is able to assess the impact of

youth-inclusive peace processes, and to

what extent young people enable more

sustainable peace agreements. Youth

participatory methodologies should be

ensured in documenting, monitoring,

and evaluating inclusivity in peace

processes.

•

Member States, international

organizations, civil society organizations

and youth-led peacebuilding

organizations should establish global –

and interconnected to regional and local

– young mediation networks to increase

youth participation and inclusion in

peace processes. Collaboration and

partnerships between actors working at

diﬀerent levels should be considered as a

principal in designing and implementing

such networks.

Recommendations/Entry Points

Inside the Room

Member States, mediation teams, and

international organizations should

promote and enable youth participation

and inclusion in all phases and tracks of

peace processes, including in decision-

making positions, such as signatories to

peace agreements, and chairs and members

of transition or implementation bodies, for

which quotas or other temporary special

measures may be required.

International organizations, civil

society, and youth organizations should

collaboratively raise awareness, training,

and advocate to mediators, negotiators

and technical support teams on the positive

roles and eﬀectiveness of youth-inclusive

and participatory peace processes, and the

importance of working with young people as

partners in sustaining peace.

Member States, international

organizations and regional

organizations should review existing

mediation guidance tools to ensure a)

mainstreaming of youth inclusivity; b) age

and gender-sensitive conﬂict analysis; and c)

promote the inclusion of issues with speciﬁc

relevance to youth in outcome documents.

Member States, international

organizations and regional

organizations should deploy and mobilize

support for youth and inclusion experts

within technical teams, working with youth

networks and organizations to access

marginalized and excluded young people,

engaging them before, during and after

peace and mediation processes.

Mediators and supporting organizations

should consider working with young

technical support staﬀ within diﬀerent

negotiating parties of a peace process, and

consider establishing conﬂict- and context-

speciﬁc young insider mediation networks

across conﬂict parties, who are supported

with mediation and preventive diplomacy

training.

International and regional organizations

should invest eﬀorts to recruit more

young technical experts to support peace

negotiations, endorsing the view of youth as

credible experts in relevant thematic issues.

International organizations and civil

society organizations, especially

women’s rights organizations, should

support coalition building activities

between youth representatives and other

stakeholders (women, refugees, victims,

etc), and provide technical trainings on

coalition-building, diplomacy and formal

negotiation techniques in order to amplify

their collective inﬂuence in shaping peace

negotiations.

Member States, particularly host

governments of peace talks,

meditators, and international organizations

should design formal political negotiation

processes accessible for the participation

of young women and men. Additional safety

and protection measures should be provided

for young representatives and delegates

who take part in high-level political

forums. Young representatives’ physical

security should be ensured during and in

post negotiation phases, and necessary

accreditations should be provided for their

access into negotiation rooms.

Negotiating parties and mediators

should factor youth audiences into

their public communication strategies. To

reach these young audiences outside the

room, young observers could be positioned in

the negotiating room with the task to voice

key youth-sensitive progress updates to the

wider youth public, harnessing in particular

social media and information technology.

Recommendations/Entry Points

Around the Room

Mediation teams should establish

‘youth advisory committees’ for

developing and designing youth-inclusive

processes. The advisory/expert committees

should be composed of diverse, peer-

elected young leaders with the mandate

and resources to channel and transfer the

voices of broad youth constituencies, as

well as to hold regular dialogue with key

negotiating parties to input youth concerns

from diverse educational, socio-economic,

cultural, ethnic, and racial backgrounds.

Speciﬁc attention should be given to include

marginalized and excluded young people,

such as young former combatants, veterans,

forced migrants, survivors of violence, and

people with disabilities.

Member States, international and

regional organizations, and mediators

should endorse and conduct youth speciﬁc

civil society consultations to feed into

peace negotiations, in addition to broad civil

society consultations. These consultations

should create participation opportunities

for young people.

Member States, international

organizations and civil society

organizations should provide ﬁnancial and

technical support for youth organizations

and young people to work with systematic

reporting and feedback mechanisms,

that bridge youth consultations and

representatives in the negotiation rooms.

Member States, international

organizations and civil society

organizations should provide technical

capacity building trainings for youth

organizations, youth representatives and

youth committees on speciﬁc thematic

areas of peace processes (such as ceaseﬁre

monitoring and reporting, disarmament,

demobilization and reintegration (DDR),

constitutional and electoral reform, legal

provisions, crime and violence prevention)

to harness the large youth demographic

as a resource for supporting mediators

and process facilitators. Trainings oﬀered

to negotiating parties should also include

young people working as resource persons

within the peace processes.

International organizations should

partner with youth-led peacebuilding

organizations to design and implement

responsive DDR programs, and establish

youth-led ceaseﬁre monitoring networks,

in consultation with young combatants as

appropriate. These ceaseﬁre monitoring and

civilian protection groups should be set up

and institutionalized by the governments

and key stakeholders to the conﬂict to

ensure youth’s acceptance and legitimacy

amongst communities.

Member States and international

organizations should consult and

work with young people as partners on

substantive state-building sectors during

the

implementation

of peace agreements,

including security sector and criminal

justice reform processes, disarmament,

demobilization and reintegration,

resettlement, electoral reform and elections,

education, and employment.

Recommendations/Entry Points

Outside the Room

Member States, international

organizations and human rights

actors should respect, protect and uphold

young people’s universal and fundamental

rights of freedom of organization, peaceful

assembly, association, opinion and

expression, and participation in public

aﬀairs, to foster an enabling and safe

environment for young people working

on peace and security, and ensure that

they do not face reprisals for their work.”

as recommended by

The Missing Peace:

Progress Study on YPS

. The civic spaces

that are critical for young people’s political

participation and inclusion should be

protected in all phases of peace processes.

Member States, international

organizations and civil society

organizations should harness the

widespread use of social media and other

mass media platforms as mobilization

tools for young people’s inclusion and

participation in political dialogue and peace

processes. Mediators, negotiators and

technical teams within peace negotiations

could utilize digital diplomacy tools (see

UNDPPA Digital Toolkit for example), such as

monitoring social media trends during peace

negotiations, to listen to the demands, needs

and concerns of youth. Greater research

and investment are required to understand

how digital technologies can enable youth

inclusive processes.

Recommendations/Entry Points