Youth engagement
Youth and technology. Photo: UN Photo
"If we are serious about prevention, and particularly about preventing conflict, we need to be serious about engaging with and investing in young women and men."
-- UN Secretary-General António Guterres remarks at "Investing in Youth to Counter Terrorism" on 12 April 2018
Improving youth-focused initiatives
In line with UN Youth Strategy and in line with Security Council resolutions 2250 (2015) and 2419 (2018), which “calls on all relevant actors to take into account, the meaningful participation and views of youth, recognizing that their marginalization is detrimental to building sustainable peace and countering violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism, UNOCT’s mission for youth engagement is to augment and horizontally scale-up youth-focused initiatives across the UN system and beyond as well as to promote and increase meaningful participation of youth in the development of projects, policies and programmes, which aim to prevent and counter violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism (PCVE).
Youth programming
UNCCT has now initiated the first phase of developing a comprehensive global youth programme, aiming at consolidating, reinforcing and advancing current UNOCT youth engagement activities, delivering a data-driven, evidence-based and youth-informed approach to PCVE. The objective is to strengthen youth resilience against violent extremism as and when conducive to terrorism, leading to an increased and reinforced contribution of young people to efforts aimed at preventing and countering violent contribution.
The second phase of this Global Youth Programme will focus on implementation of capacity-building support and innovative approaches to prevent violent extremism in partnership with youth, including together with youth-led civil society organizations and private sector stakeholders, e.g. gaming and social media industry actors