Global Inter-Agency Guidance on Youth and Peacebuilding

YOUTH, PEACE AND SECURITY

Youth, Peace and Security

Review of UN Implementation of Youth, Peace and Security (YPS)

Exterion was commissioned by the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) (Swedish government agency for peace, security and development) in 2021 to evaluate FBA support to UN implementation of the YPS. Exterion also reviewed UN implementation of YPS globally, comprising a mapping and analysis of implementation of the YPS agenda in the UN system, as well as lessons learned, good practices, challenges, gaps and bottlenecks, and recommendations on the institutionalization of the YPS agenda within the UN system.

Youth, Peace and Security: A Programming Handbook

Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) contracted Exterion in 2019 to develop modules on conflict analysis, theories of change, results frameworks, and youth participation for the Youth, Peace and Security: A Programming Handbook, developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

The programming handbook builds on recent evidence and increasing momentum to prioritize youth-inclusive and youth-sensitive peace and security programming, as a core element of more sustainable and long-lasting peacebuilding efforts. The handbook forms the foundation for the UN System Staff College’s training course on youth, peace and security.

Global Guidance on Youth and Peacebuilding

In 2014, PeaceNexus Foundation, in partnership with the UN Peacebuilding Support Office, contracted Exterion to lead the collaborative development of an inter-agency Practice Note on Young People’s Participation in Peacebuilding under the Inter-Agency Working Group on Youth Participation in Peacebuilding (now the Global Coalition on Youth, Peace and Security), which includes 40 organizations from civil society and the UN.

The Practice Note seeks to inform policymakers and donors of key strategic and programming

considerations to better support young people’s participation to peacebuilding. It also constitutes an important effort in supporting implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions on Youth, Peace and Security at regional, national and local levels.

As of 2022, the Practice Note was downloaded over 54,000 times on the Youth4Peace website, and it is required reading for Columbia University's graduate course on youth in emergencies.

Exterion presented the Practice Note at the Global Forum on Youth, Peace and Security held in August 2015 in Amman, Jordan. The forum brought together 500 government officials, policy experts, youth-led organizations, and young peacebuilders from over 100 countries aimed at helping shape a new international agenda on youth, peace and security. Exterion also contributed to the Amman Youth Declaration, a roadmap for youth inclusion in archiving peace and security.