UN's first ever progress report on Youth Peace and Security

Advancing the Youth, peace and security agenda must remain a priority for the UN, more so than ever as we face this global crisis.

Five years after the adoption of the ground-breaking UN Security Council resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security (UNSCR 2250), UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres launched the first report last week on Monday 27 April.

The outcomes and findings of the report are paramount. While it shows the growing recognition of young people’s essential role in peace and security, it also finds that structural barriers and limitations are preventing them from accessing their rights and holding young people back from reaching their full potential.

The European Youth Forum strongly supports the publication of the report on the advancement of the implementation of the resolution UNSCR 2250. We and other youth organisations were able to contribute to the consultations aiming to feed into the report and we are happy to have some of our inputs integrated in the report.

In order to achieve the implementation of the UNSCR 2250, the report encourages further meaningful participation of young people in peace and security efforts. It fully recognises the role played by youth-led organisations in implementing the agenda and their active commitment to positive change. The report therefore calls for unrestricted access to civic space and investment in the meaningful participation of young people in all aspects and levels of decision-making.

The impact of the current pandemic on young people and their role in the long road to recovery was not overlooked. Following the publication of the report, the UN secretary General spoke at the United Nations Security Council, stating:

Young people are not subjects to be protected, but should be seen as citizens with equal rights, as full members of our societies, and as powerful agents for change. The world cannot afford a lost generation of youth, their lives set back by COVID-19 and their voices stifled by a lack of participation.

We are happy to see the Youth, peace and security agenda remains a priority, especially in these uncertain times. Meaningful youth participation on peace and security needs to be improved in order to achieve the Youth, peace and security agenda and leave no one behind. With the publication of the report we expect to see greater participation of democratic youth-led structures across the work of the UN at global and regional level, and with Member states at national level to implement the agenda. The European Youth Forum and our Member Organisations look forward to continuing to provide input and advancing the implementation of the resolution.