United network of young peacebuilders (UNOY) 2022-2025 United network of young peacebuilders (UNOY) 2022-2025 The United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY) is a youth-led network that unites around 130 organisations in almost 70 countries who work on youth-led peacebuilding, in line with Security Council Resolutions 2250, 2419 and 2535 on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS). 

Through advocacy and its acknowledged role, UNOY has been able to influence global policy
through informed local experiences and have this way contributed to driving the YPS
agenda forward at global, regional and national levels. Apart from being part of setting
youth-led peacebuilding on the agenda, UNOY co-chairs the Global Coalition on YPS
together with the UN, with more than 100 members from the UN and civil society.

Six Regional Coordinators capture regional priorities and needs under the network’s Strategic Plan for 2021-2025. The plan includes five change goals to protect young peacebuilders and the civic space they work in, resource youth-led peacebuilding sustainably, ensure their meaningful participation and equal partnership and support creative changemaking in order to create a world ‘free from all forms of violence, where young people have the power to
transform conflicts, youth participation is real and meaningful for all, and young people
actively partner for peace without fear or threat’.

Sida has provided core support through the UNOY Secretariat in The Hague since 2018. United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY) är ett ungdomslett nätverk som samlar runt 130 organisationer som arbetar med ungas fredsbyggande från närmare 70 länder, i enlighet med Säkerhetsrådsresolutionerna 2250, 2419 och 2535 om Unga, fred och säkerhet (YPS).

Genom påverkansarbete och i rollen som ett internationellt erkänt nätverk har UNOY
kunnat influera global policy genom att bidra med lokala erfarenheter som i sin tur
hjälpt driva YPS agendan framåt på global, regional och nationell nivå. Utöver
att ha deltagit vid framtagandet av YPS-agendan så är UNOY även med och leder den
Globala koalitionen för YPS tillsammans med FN, där över 100 medlemmar från FN och civilsamhället är med.

Sex regionala samordnare lyfter regionsspecifika prioriteringar och utmaningar utifrån nätverkets Strategiska plan för 2021-2025. Planen innehåller fem förändringsmål för att skydda unga fredsbyggare och det civila utrymme de arbetar i, söka hållbara resurser för ungas fredsbyggande, säkra meningsfullt deltagande och jämlikt partnerskap samt stötta kreativa förändringar för att uppnå en värld som är ’fri från allt våld, där unga människor har möjlighet att transformera konflikt, där ungas deltagande är säkerställd och meningsfull för alla, och där unga människor aktivt deltar i fredsbyggande utan rädsla eller hot’.

Sida har bidragit med kärnstöd genom UNOYs sekretariat i Haag sedan 2018. Through a participatory and co-owned process, UNOY agreed on a new Strategic Plan for 2021-2025 (Annex 1).

With the aim to allow more young people to be more united and better connected, steering social progress, inspiring political transformations, and innovating social justice activism, the Strategy includes five goals to remove structural barriers to meaningful youth participation in peace and security:

1. We are protected: Young peacebuilders rights to civic engagement for peace are protected.
By mobilising people and resources within the UNOY community, while securing a wider community of defenders; developing a protection-specific network for young peacebuilders and an emergency response mechanism; strengthening our collective advocacy and bringing a Youth4Peace voice to human rights spaces; and empowering young people to identify and navigate protection challenges and shrinking civic space through targeted capacity development on security risk management, advocacy, and knowledge transfer.

2. We are resourced: Young peacebuilders are sustainably resourced.
By creating a new culture of engagement with young peacebuilders; increasing the capacities and financial resources available to UNOY members, focusing on what they need to continue building peace in a changing world; advocating for a youth-led funding agenda in relevant alliances and platforms where decisions on funding are made, and leading by example in developing our own diligent and empowering frameworks; and creating and sustaining communities of learning for young peacebuilders, where methodologies and networks for collective empowerment can thrive in designing strategies to comprehensively resource youth.

3. We are participants: Young people meaningfully participate in policies and decisions on peace and security.
By advocating for, supporting, and monitoring the national, regional, and global implementation of the YPS agenda; providing youth leadership to global platforms where decisions on peace and security are shaped; reshaping the discourse and mindset about young people, as the sowers and reapers of positive change; and equipping young peacebuilders with the tools they need to advocate for youth participation and peace.

4. We are equal partners: Youth and non-youth peace and security stakeholders actively work together in strong intergenerational partnerships.
By empowering youth and non-youth to engage equitably with each other, challenge power imbalances, and embrace a culture of meaningful youth participation; and supporting our partners in their commitments to actively and meaningfully engage young people in peacebuilding, while holding them accountable to do so.

5. We are creative changemakers: Young people lead creative change for peace.
By watering the roots of creativity, so that young people have the space to innovate, create and act; designing spaces for peer exchange and developing capacities of our young changemakers to lead creative thinking and action for peace; instilling confidence in them by encouraging and expanding their approaches; and advocating for more traditional peacebuilders to endorse the power of young peoples creative contributions to peace processes.

To achieve these goals, UNOY as a network summarizes a separate change goal under Groundworks for Peace: Our network of grassroots youth-led organisations and International Secretariat are inclusive and sustainable. The aim is to:

- Ensure that UNOY members have ownership over the network and feel empowered by this community of young peacebuilders;

- Be an example of decentralised, sustainable, and inclusive governance in the field of peace and security, and enable meaningful youth participation throughout our structures.

The goals are summarized under UNOYs theory of change:

If in five years, five change goals have been reached, so that we can say:

We and the civic space around us are protected;
We are sustainably resourced;
We are meaningful participants;
We are equal partners;
We are creative changemakers;

And if UNOY is a strong decentralised network of youth-led peace organisations coordinated by a sustainable International Secretariat (Groundworks for Peace);

Through interventions in four action areas: capacity development of youth and non-youth, advocacy strategies for influencing minds, cultures and policies, and network and organisational development for UNOY structures;

Then we are closer to a world free from violence where young people have the power to transform conflict everywhere, where youth participation is real and meaningful, and where young people actively partner for peace without fear or threat. 

Because five key barriers to meaningful youth participation, identified in the field and by UNOY members as central challenges for them and for youth at large have been challenged. These barriers are:

- Threats to civic space for young peacebuilders;
- Under-resourcing of their efforts;
- Lack of meaningful youth participation;
- Unequal engagement of youth as partners;
- Disregard of creative youth approaches