In the last week of August, the Swedish Dialogue Institute for the Middle East and North Africa was invited to organize a seminar in collaboration with the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) and UNDP during a High-Level Global Forum on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS). The forum took place in Amman and was co-organized by The League of Arab States and the Jordanian Government.
In connection to the high-level forum, the Dialogue Institute organized a follow-up workshop for members of the MENA Coalition on Youth, Peace & Security. Additionally, the Institute was part of a panel on YPS during a Regional Dialogue meeting organized by UNDP Regional Programme for Arab States.
The seminars aimed at driving action and empowering youth to take the lead in promoting peace and security, by emphasizing support and collaboration, strategy implementation, and identifying regional priorities. More specifically, the activities aimed at fostering and sustaining collaborative action and dialogue, identifying mechanisms, methods and tools that can be utilized to advance and implement the YPS agenda.
Concrete recommendations included the need for adopting inclusive approaches, fostering safe spaces and platforms for dialogues, promoting new technological tools, enhancing collaboration and synergies among the Arab countries and international organizations, sharing experiences – both successes and failures – through storytelling.
The recommendations will contribute to strengthen the implementation of the YPS-agenda in the MENA-region and feed into stocktaking during the anniversary year 2025 which marks a decade since the adaptation of UNSC resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security. Further key recommendations are elaborated on later in the report.
Read the full report from the High-level forum on Youth, Peace and Security