Youth
Engagement
The world today is home to 1.8 billion young people - the largest generation in history.
Research shows that nearly 1 in 4 globally are affected by violence or armed conflict. Yet, they have traditionally been excluded from formal peace and security processes, leadership roles and humanitarian action.
Young people are also widely excluded from decision-making spaces. Globally, the average age in parliament is 53 years old. In 2020, only 2.6 per cent of parliamentarians were under 30 years old, and only about 1 per cent of parliamentarians were women under 30.
The Compact’s Intergenerational Commitment
Not only do young people have bold ideas and solutions to offer, but during times of crisis they are often the hardest hit, meaning their insight and experiences are vital in developing a truly inclusive approach to peace and security and humanitarian action.
The Compact works to overcome the deep-rooted barriers that confront young leaders including funding challenges, complex and convoluted bureaucracy, non-inclusive organizational frameworks, and poor access to information and resources.
The Compact’s youth strategy has a three-fold approach to intergenerational leadership —
- It invites signatories to recognize, support and amplify young women’s meaningful leadership and participation in Compact processes and in the implementation of the WPS-HA agendas.
- It strives to advocate for intergenerational implementation of Compact actions to promote the peace-humanitarian-development nexus.
- It also inspires impact-driven and results-oriented implementation of Compact actions that centers young women in all their diversity at all levels.
The Compact and Youth Impact
The Compact is a platform for intergenerational leadership as it encourages accountability through its voluntary monitoring and reporting system, and it provides a networking space for building multistakeholder partnerships in order to move the WPS-HA agendas forward. Through these two mechanisms, different stakeholder groups across generations can foster an environment of growth for coordination and the promotion of the implementation of the WPS-HA agendas. Through its multi-stakeholder-driven, intersectional and intergenerational approach, it maintains inclusivity and encourages innovation and action.
The Compact is a safe and enabling space for discussing pressing issues and challenges that young women face in their activities. While they draw multi-stakeholder attention and solutions to these challenges, they also share their perspectives and experiences to better inform the implementation of the WPS-HA agendas.
The Compact framework has several actions for advancing the leadership and the meaningful inclusion, resourcing and protection of young people, especially young women. By signing on to these actions and making commitments, signatories can contribute to intergenerational feminist leadership through concrete actions. They can also learn intergenerational implementation strategies through knowledge sharing of best practices and lessons learned.
