“Around the world, young women and men are striving for justice, inclusion, gender equality and human rights,” said Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Although I fully agree with the statement I would also like to critique it by arguing that decision-makers at the national and international levels are not passionate enough in creating a space for youth to actively get involved in the decision-making process that has a huge effect on their lives.
Despite the fact that youth makes up the majority of the world population, young women and men are generally left out of the peacebuilding processes entirely. While they bear the consequences of decisions made by older decision-makers, their voice in the process is heard less and their effect is very limited. In that point, civil society becomes and acts as a bridge between society and decision-makers to serve as a platform for youth to raise their voice in order to be heard more.
In many countries, you are not considered as someone whose voice and ideas should be listened to unless you are of a mature and older age. Generally, the youth are perceived as a group of people who have little to no ‘experience’. This cultural attitude generally affects countries’ political and bureaucratic forms and results in excluding youth from peacebuilding and decision-making. As a result, the youth are directly not included in the processes that have a tremendous effect on their present and future.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) published a report in 2018 on Youth Participation in National Parliaments which shows that young people under 30 makes up just over 2 percent of the world’s MPs. Considering young men and women are the largest age group of world population, the statistics points out how excluded youth are from decision-making process and how little their influence is on the decisions related to their future.
However, despite the exclusion, youth can still make their voices heard. By engaging in civil society, youth can be part of the decision-making process. Although they are not seen ‘experienced’ by older decision-makers youth has a crucial advantage that older generation doesn’t have, which is innovation. As civil society plays a critical role in today’s world, youth can draw attention by creating innovative ideas and transforming them into projects and activism. Greta Thunberg would be a good example of this as she is known globally for her climate change activism. In other words, youth should demand inclusion by engaging in civil society and push decision-makers to think of the youth and their inclusion in the peace-building and decision-making processes.
Apart from that, the youth is generally seen as perpetrators or causes of the conflicts. This wrong perception eventually gives rise to denomination and marginalisation of the youth as a whole. However, the majority of young women and men have no intention to take part in conflicts. Rather, they are more open to being a part of a peaceful, just, and equal society. In this regard, civil society could be a good platform for them to show off what they are and what they want to be. They can also help young women and men who are already part of the conflicts or affected by the conflicts. In other words, youth can use civil society as an instrument to build peace and stop spread of violence among youth itself. By doing so, it will raise awareness about how inclined youth are to achieve peace.
Lastly, as mentioned above, the youth are generally left out of the processes that directly or indirectly affect their present and future. This eventually causes youth to lose their hope for the change. They lose confidence in themselves and never become aware of their potential to change the world. However, by getting into civil society and youth activities, they will find that there are millions of young women and men who struggle for the same change along with themselves. This will increase their passion for a better society. Civil society provides youth with a wide range of opportunities to cooperate with people thinking in the same way and pursuing the same desire for the world.
To summarise, young women and men live in a world where their voice is not being heard enough. They are ignored or undervalued in peace-building and decision-making processes. This exclusion pushes youth to find alternative ways to raise their voice. In that point, civil society comes forward as a good alternative to provide youth with its effective power. As it bridges society with decision-makers civil society can also help youth to raise their voice and to be part of peace-building and decision-making processes that directly influence their present and future lives. By engaging in civil society and with better implementation of UNSC Resolution 2250, youth can play a key role in politics, peacebuilding and decision-making. Any decision taken without including youth in process will result in failure. Young women and men are and should be leaders of today as well as leaders of future. Civil society is always there to produce more and more young leaders that will work together to achieve a sustainable peace and create a better world for all of us.
