Event report

**Beyond Tokenism: Meaningful Youth Engagement in EU Peace and Security Efforts** Report on a virtual roundtable discussion hosted by Search for Common Ground & UNOY Peacebuilders on Thursday, 9 December, 2021. December 9, 2021, marked the 6th Anniversary of the unanimous adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security, which calls for international actors to promote the meaningful and inclusive participation of youth in peace and security efforts The need to listen to and work with youth on questions that concern them is by now well recognised. Unfortunately, this has often meant over-requesting youth participation without adequate attention to the barriers - such as those related to resources, exclusionary norms, and safety - which still prevent the meaningful participation of young people, in all their diversity. Recognising these challenges, young peacebuilders and activists, as well as EU, Member State, and civil society representatives came together to reflect on how the EU can advance its commitment to supporting this meaningful participation of young people in peace and security discussions, decisions, and actions. The Roundtable was held under the Chatham House Rule. This report contains a summary of the reflections shared during the discussion. **Why prioritise meaningful youth engagement?** Participants presented compelling arguments on the importance of going beyond tokenistic participation towards meaningful engagement in EU peace and security efforts. It was recognised that we can only build sustainable peace with - not for - people, and that this must include young people, as the majority demographic in many EU partner countries - notably across Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Central America. Today, 1 in 4 young people globally live in a context affected by violent conflict. Moreover, participants recognised that young people are often disproportionately affected by violent conflict - as targets for recruitment by armed forces and armed groups, as vulnerable members of society often bearing the brunt of social and economic disruption, and as mobilised actors striving to shape the future of their societies in high-risk contexts. Participants highlighted the benefits of meaningful inclusion, citing the growing body of evidence that shows improved peace process outcomes when youth can meaningfully contribute and the ways in which young people leverage their innovation, skills, and access to harder-to-reach groups to carve out spaces for dialogue and collaboration and lead creative peacebuilding efforts, such as with the GoGirls ICT Initiative in South Sudan. Participants noted the particular benefit of partnering with youth in meaningful intergenerational dialogue and actions. While celebrating the fact that young people are increasingly requested to participate in policy discussions and other fora, participants also identified how damaging tokenistic, box-ticking inclusion can be. It was noted that youth know when their participation is shallow and not taken seriously, and they feel it when they are left to bear the costs and burdens associated with participation - for example in terms of finding resources, keeping themselves safe, and struggling to be heard. Participants emphasised that such tokenistic inclusion can result in significant harm - including in terms of draining the motivation of engaged youth, contributing to youth grievances, and putting young people at risk - and that the EU and other actors need to work together to ensure accountability to commitments on meaningful youth inclusion. **What does meaningful youth engagement look like?** Having understood the importance of meaningful engagement, participants explored what meaningful engagement should look like, identifying guiding norms and good practices. Participants stressed the importance of recognising existing power dynamics between youth and non-youth partners and the barriers that young people face. In this, participants highlighted the need to take into account the diversity of youth - for example across gender, class, geographic location, ethnicity, faith, disability status, or displacement - and the different power dynamics, barriers, and support needs this entails. Participants recognised how non-youth partners, like the EU and youth-serving NGOs, can use their resources to enable the meaningful participation of youth, addressing barriers related to safety, norms, and resources. Participants called for actors like the EU to do more to make sure young people are meaningfully involved in formal, intergenerational spaces of dialogue, decision-making, action, and feedback, as well as creating dedicated youth-adapted spaces in partnership with young people and, crucially, hearing diverse youth (notably those who are perceived as disengaged) in the spaces where they are comfortable and already engaged, discussing societal challenges and hopes with their peers. Importantly, this meaningful engagement should not be limited to “youth issues”, but involve youth as key stakeholders on wider societal questions. Participants stressed the need to ensure that engagement and participation is safe for diverse youth, rebalancing the responsibility for protection away from the youth themselves and towards the EU and other non-youth stakeholders. Participants suggested the roll-out of dedicated, preventative protocols, guidance, and tools for ensuring safe youth engagement, as well as dedicated support mechanisms for youth under threat. Participants also noted the importance of transparency and accountability initiatives, making it clear to youth how they can participate and how their input will be taken forward. In all of this, participants recognised the potential of online tools, but also that online spaces come with their own potential for exclusion and must not be overly relied upon. Participants acknowledged the need for more education and training on meaningful and safe youth engagement for EU public officials, diplomats, and other key stakeholders. Participants highlighted good practices included in the Checklist on Meaningful Youth Engagement, as well as the innovations and guidance on meaningful engagement in other resources and frameworks like the Policy Paper on Quality Youth Participation and Representation, the Youth, Peace & Security Fund, the Youth 360 methodology, and the Youth Action for Peace initiative. Participants also mentioned the utility of applying models such as the Ladder of Youth Participation to reflect on the quality of participation, and the Flower of Participation and the Lundy Model of Participation to identify the prerequisites for meaningful participation. **How can we embed meaningful engagement in policy and action?** Finally, participants identified ways the EU and other non-youth actors can embed these norms and practices in policies and interventions. Participants discussed how Member States and the EU could usefully pursue ambitious, impact-focused YPS implementation plans, following Finland's example, while embedding this as part of wider engagement on peace and security. In the development and implementation of such strategies, participants highlighted the utility of partnerships among the EU, Member States, international partners, and young people themselves, as well as the YPS implementation guidance being launched in January 2022. To ensure meaningful partnerships with young people in peace and security efforts, participants highlighted the need for EU funding to be better adapted and accessible to grassroots youth-led initiatives - which are often organised by small, informal groups with lower administrative capacity - as well as how youth need to be involved in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of wider peacebuilding and inclusive governance efforts. Participants noted how strengthening the youth engagement capacities of youth focal points, for example at EU Delegations, and making sure conflict/context analyses are youth-sensitive, as well as gender-sensitive, will reveal new aspects of the issues at hand and new avenues for engagement. Participants regretted that youth inclusion in programming is often a box-ticking reporting exercise, and called for meaningful inclusion criteria to be better integrated. Participants identified a number of upcoming spaces for pursuing these transformations in 2022, including the High Level Global Conference on Youth-inclusive Peace Processes, the conclusions of the Conference on the Future of Europe, the adoption of the first Youth Action Plan for EU external action, and other initiatives within the European Year of Youth. Participants highlighted the need for dedicated efforts to make sure that youth participation in and around the European Year of Youth and other processes is truly meaningful and safe, in line with the practices we discussed during the Roundtable. Participants cited recent negative experiences where this has not been the case, even in dedicated spaces for youth engagement. Participants also called for young people and allies to work with the EU and other partners to ensure that these processes lead to impactful action.