May 2015 Mission

From May 28 to June 03 2015, three members of the UNOY Youth Advocacy Team (YAT) were at the UN headquarters in New York. The May 2015 Mission was part of the YAT’s mission to carry out UNOY’s advocacy work and promote recognition of young people in peacebuilding processes. During the week in New York, Aref Dostyar (Afghanistan), Ariadne Asimakopoulos (Netherlands) and Meg Villanueva (Philippines/Spain) attended several meetings with NGOs, national representatives and UN entities.

The May 2015 Mission was based on several specific objectives. The team’s tasks included to follow-up on the April 2015 meetings with the UN Permanent Missions; advocate and promote to Member States the idea of adopting a positive language about the role of young people in peacebuilding efforts and implement a mechanism/instrument to further promote and strengthen the recognition of this; co-organise a side event with UNDP to promote the “Positive Role of Young People in Peacebuilding”; and continue the dialogue with the United Nation´s CTITF (Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force) to share a youth voice that will feed into the Plan of Action on Preventing Violent Extremism. You can read the five action points that UNOY has provided for the plan of action here.

Moreover, the YAT was in New York to attend WPAY+20 (World Program of Action for Youths’ 20th anniversary) High Level Event on May 29th. During this event, Member States were expected to reflect over their interventions and progress over the past 20 years, and the YAT attended to analyse what Member States have carried out on the topic over the last two decades. Also, prior to their participation in the WPAY+20 High Level Event, the YAT advocated actively to Member States for a positive language about the role of young people in peacebuilding efforts in their interventions for the WPAY+20.

The May 2015 Mission team is very satisfied to see that there has been great progress of the mission to increase acknowledgement of youths’ role in peacebuilding has had over the past couple of years as more policy-makers now speak positive about the topic. The team has reported back that international actors and policy makers are seemingly much more willing today to listen and cooperate with UNOY on the mission on setting a new agenda on youth, peace and security. This leaves us with a positive perception of the future of our work.