UN peacekeeping operations have long recognized the significance of engaging youth in host countries and territories. Experience demonstrates that youth engagement has been critical when working with national authorities to promote and build more effective, responsive and accountable institutions in accordance with human rights standards. The marginalization of young people catalyzes human rights grievances and often fuels violence. For UN peacekeeping operations, there are numerous opportunities and entry points for working with youth when implementing a wide range of priorities such as community engagement; gender equality; human rights; access to justice; support to political processes; conflict management; community-oriented policing; disarmament, demobilization and reintegration; mine action; security sector reform; community violence reduction and reconciliation. Youth inclusion in decision-making and political processes as key stakeholders, promotes sustainable peace and development.

After decades of experience engaging youth, this area of UN peacekeeping was elevated to a strategic priority following the establishment in 2015 of the Youth, Peace, and Security (YPS) agenda by the Security Council through Resolution 2250 (2015). In doing so, the Council defined youth as persons between the ages of 18 and 29 and identified five pillars for action: prevention, protection, participation, partnerships, and disengagement and reintegration. It also requested the Secretary-General to submit a progress study on youth's positive contribution to peace processes and conflict resolution. In 2018, "The Missing Peace: Independent Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security" was published to wide acclaim, further propelling the international community's interest to consider youth in the maintenance of peace and security.

Two subsequent YPS resolutions were adopted by the Security Council - S/RES/2419 (2018) recognized the important role of youth in solving and preventing conflicts and called on all relevant actors to include young people in all aspects of peace processes. S/RES/2535 (2020) affirmed the commitments made in UNSCR 2250 (2015) and UNSCR 2419 (2018), but also for the first time acknowledged young people's positive contributions to the "sustainability, inclusiveness and success of UN peacekeeping and peace building efforts." It also recognized the challenges faced by youth "including gender inequalities that perpetuate all forms of discrimination and violence, and persistent inequalities that put young women at particular risk." Resolution 2535 urged UN peacekeeping operations to implement context-specific strategies on YPS. In keeping with this mandate, several strategies that address YPS priorities have been developed and vary from facilitating inter-generational community dialogue in South Sudan, to encouraging recruitment of young people into the police force in Darfur, to initiating projects to decrease the effects of climate change in Cyprus.

The importance of youth engagement in mission mandates and the institutionalization of the YPS agenda are on the rise in most missions, although more work is needed to fully integrate YPS as a priority. Out of the twelve UN peacekeeping operations, seven mission mandates include reference to the significance of the YPS agenda and three missions (UNMISS, UNMIK and UNFICYP) have policies and planning frameworks that feature YPS. Furthermore, YPS coordination mechanisms have been established at UN Headquarters and in eleven missions, comprising a global network of YPS focal points for UN peacekeeping. Technical guidance tools have been developed to support UN peacekeeping staff in implementing the agenda, including: the YPS Programming Handbook for UN practitioners , Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards’ module on youth, DPKO/DFS Guidelines on Engagement with Civil Society, the Peacekeeping practice note on community engagement and the United Nations Community Engagement Guidelines on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace.

These documents coherently stress the importance of including all segments of society in mandated activities and join a body of resources commonly used by both uniformed and civilian UN peacekeeping personnel to guide their work. In 2022, the second Report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the YPS agenda was published.4 To complement the Report, the UN Secretariat produced several thematic papers. As one of them, this paper provides a snapshot of UN peacekeeping activities undertaken within the context of the five pillars for action, as identified in SCR 2250 (2015). More work is still required across the Peace and Security Pillar, as well as with other stakeholders working on YPS, to effectively articulate what are the expected outcomes of implementing the YPS Agenda in peacekeeping settings and what kind of indicators would need to be tracked to measure progress and impact. This work will allow follow-up reports to focus on results achieved towards the broader goals of the YPS Agenda itself.

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