Workshop on Youth, Peace and Security organized in Kathmandu

Background

A peaceful society may benefit from making the right investments in youth and from recognizing and fostering young people. Based on young people’s specific knowledge and experiences of violence and injustice that extend beyond the conventional war context and include many types of exclusion and discrimination, such as organized crime and sexual gender-based violence (GBV), young people can make a unique contribution as peacebuilders. Affirming the important roles that youths can play in prevention and resolution of conflicts in any society, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2015 adopted a Resolution 2250, a global policy framework that examines how conflict affects young people’s life, what has to be done to lessen those consequences, and how youth may contribute significantly to the development of peaceful communities. The UNSC 2250 includes five main pillars (participation, protection, prevention, partnership, disengagement and reintegration) of building a youth, peace and security together. 

In Nepal, youth participation in peacebuilding in far from ideal. Despite the established policy frameworks, implementation is poor. Connecting youth-led organizations and youth-led civil society platforms with decision-makers is one way to ensure that youth perspectives and needs are taken into account in peace and security policies and programs. Nepal Forum for Restorative Justice organized a workshop aiming to take a deeper dive into the status of YPS agenda in Nepal and through the participation of governmental and non-governmental actors. There are five planned series of the workshop, and the first one took place at Alfa House in Baneswor on December 14, 2023.

Participants

A total of forty participants from various youth-led CSOs, colleges, and individual levels had participated in the workshop with positive attitude and curiosity. Out of forty participants, 27 of them were female and 13 of them were male. 

Figure 1- Gender statistics of participants

Event Summary 

The very first series of the workshop was started by welcoming all the participants by Ms. Dichhya, NFRJ with brief introduction of organization, agenda of organizing the workshop and roles of youth in peacebuilding. The conduction of the session was then carried out by Mr. Ram Tiwari, NFRJ sharing that we are here to discuss on this agenda as only youth involvement might not be enough. Introduction of every participant was done where they shared their views on why youth is an important idea. 

Participants shared their ideas on why youths’ involvement is an important idea, why is it necessary. They shared, youth can be a bridge to fill the gap between generations. Youth are the future of the nation so youth themselves should take responsibility in peace building. Youths have the capacity to work in different ways with different ideas. Participants were aware that peace is definitely what we aspire for and it is a moral responsibility. One of the participants shared that we can see the world which our previous generation has left for us but if we youths of this generation get to engage in peace building and decision making then we can make the world better for ourselves and the next generation. Participants were aware that youths themselves also should have reflection and improve themselves. Most of the youths are motivated to leave the country for employment opportunities and higher education as the status of our country is not stable and youths are neglected and emotions of youth are being used only to represent their participation but their ideas are not acknowledged.  Youths presented in the workshop had an attitude of, “Who will do it if not us?”

After the completion of the introduction round, Mr. Tiwari gave a presentation on the UN Youth, Peace & Security agenda. He shared the information of five pillars of UNSCR 2250. Five pillars; participation, protection, prevention, partnership and disengagement and reintegration were discussed in the presentation. UNSCR 2419 and UNSCR 2535 were also briefly discussed. 

The YPS agenda in the context of Nepal was discussed where we could see the huge gap of youths’ inclusion and involvement in the field of maintaining peace, youth’s role in decision making.Group work was conducted where the participants were categorized into five groups and each group was allocated with one pillar of the UNSCR 2250. The groups had to come up with any two possible ideas/programs that can be carried out to bring each pillar into action