Building long-lasting peace: what have we done to empower the youth?

Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of the historic 2250 resolution on Youth, Peace, and Security adopted by the UN Security Council, which characterized a before and after in the understanding of the key role that young people play when it comes to overcoming today’s global challenges, particularly on the biggest challenge of all: building long-lasting worldwide peace.

The generational gap in positions of power is still far away from being closed. It is therefore important to support youth-led initiatives (and a great achievement has been the creation of the UN Youth Office) to ensure the meaningful representation of young peace leaders, who are the most relevant actors when it comes to reconstructing the social fabric in communities marked by the horrors of violence.

Today, after almost a decade, it seems like the view of young people as mere observers, critics, and victims of conflict has shifted to a more participatory approach, in which, we are invited (as if an invitation was needed to finally include youth on the decision-making processes that directly affect us) to be at the core of the decision-making exercise, by taking into account our voices, agency, capacities to bring and implement solutions to our conflicts, and preventing new ones to arise. Today, there are thousands of documents, filled with information not only focused on the significance of the inclusion of youth in peacebuilding initiatives but also with detailed instructions on how governments can ensure meaningful participation of young people in these processes. Reality, however, is much more complex, especially for youth living in areas affected by ongoing conflicts or harsh contexts of inequalities. Thus, we asked ourselves, to what extent do these systematized documents advocating fiercely for the inclusion of young people’s voices in peacebuilding processes have an impact in a world where conflicts only seem to deteriorate into more violent scenarios?

Sadly, the number of young people situated in conflict areas continues to rise, as they are forced to survive inhuman conditions. Also, globally we see almost no change in the composition of decision-making bodies, where young people are still heavily underrepresented. So if there is still a lot to be done, how can governments, states, civil society, and individuals contribute to accelerate the implementation of the Youth, Peace, and Security Agenda? How can governments concretize the promises now re-affirmed through the 2024 Pact for the Future, and its Action 20 commitments? Only by actively listening to the voices of young change-makers and peace leaders around the world who are creating, leading, and participating in initiatives led by the youth that vigorously continue transforming lives, impacting communities, and challenging the status quo, even when they continue to be underestimated and often ignored by adults in high power positions.

On this basis, the Leaders for Peace global campaign launched by young peace ambassadors of Rondine urges states and world leaders to change the course of action and invest in the education of more young change-makers through the Rondine method, to provide them with a package of abilities and skills that will enhance their capacities to lead innovative and creative initiatives for the transformation of conflicts by influencing societies to shape a better and peaceful tomorrow for all.

At Rondine, we are not passive subjects absorbing lectures from experts or adults on how to achieve peace; here, we are the main actors of a truly youth-led revolutionary journey, that allows us to build bridges and alternate ways to re-integrate relationships born in a context of systematic hate.

It is time to stop putting the whole blame weight on the youth for not believing in systems that always exclude them, and start allowing us to change that very system by believing in our power, and giving us the opportunities to release our whole potential. It is about our stories and bodies: who but us can stop conflict and shape a peaceful long-lasting future for humanity?