The Centrality of Youth-Inclusive Peace Processes

As the world continues to experience a turbulent period amid the ongoing pandemic, building sustainable and peaceful communities could not be more important—a point underscored in the call by United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres for a global ceasefire last year. Young people are at the heart of these efforts, and have willfully demonstrated that a global pandemic will not hold them back. Yet, while their resilience and peacebuilding work should make them important stakeholders in peace and political processes, youth leaders are still too often seen as tokenistic participants who either sit at the margins of or are categorically excluded from processes aimed at transforming conflicts.