Sudanese youth make up over 70% of the population and have consistently proven themselves as peaceful agents of change: as leaders of the 2018/19 revolution which toppled the 30-year dictatorship of Omar al-Bashir, to today providing frontline humanitarian assistance in the context of total war despite being abandoned by the international community. However, these same youth have been violently excluded from all processes of social change, including politics, peacebuilding, and transitional justice. This paper calls for the recognition of Sudanese youth as vital stakeholders in Sudan’s future and for youth inclusion in Sudan to be more than seats at the table. Rather, the paper calls for the embracing of Sudanese youth as co-designers of processes of social change to construct a durable peace and deal with the legacies of past conflict. Decades of overlapping conflicts in Sudan have affected all facets of life, creating significant mental health and psychosocial impacts on successive generations of Sudanese youth. To achieve a durable peace, this paper argues that Sudan requires a transformative approach that deals with root causes of conflict and the legacies of conflict that most affect civilians, such as mental health and psychosocial impacts.

In October 2019, Chile experienced widespread protests triggered by an increase in subway fares. What started as student-led fare evasion quickly grew into a national movement demanding a new social contract and addressing broader discontent with Chile’s democratic transition. This Policy Brief examines youth participation in these protests and the subsequent constitution-making process, drawing on interviews with four young Chileans who were actively involved.  The Brief highlights the importance of a youth-centred approach to constitutional change, detailing both the opportunities and challenges faced by young people as well as their perception of the process's relevance in addressing the legacy of authoritarianism and shaping Chile’s democratic future. The paper emphasises that meaningful youth engagement involves more than just representation; it requires substantial influence throughout the process. The paper also explores how a youth-centred approach can enhance democratic participation and constitutional transformations.

This policy brief provides both reflections and recommendations on the United Nations Youth Delegate Programme, from the perspective of a former UN Youth Delegate for Ireland. While regarded as one of the strongest pathways for youth representation to the UN, the Youth Delegate programme is not without flaws. As with many other avenues, key issues include disparities in regional and cultural representation, a lack of funding and widespread tokenism, and limited institutional acknowledgement. UN Member States, along with UN agencies and bodies, must urgently begin to implement their own commitments in relation to young people, recognising them as compulsory partners and key stakeholders in our collective future, in line with intergenerational equity and solidarity.

This policy brief, drawing on available data and interviews with youth peacebuilders from six country cases, assesses youth participation in the relatively early national implementation phases of the Global YPS agenda. The brief addresses the role of young women and men in the design, implementation, and evaluation of national action plans and national YPS coalitions, and provides insight and analysis on participation, leadership, and ownership of young people in YPS implementation efforts. The brief notes that the efforts to include young people in the development of a YPS policy have not translated into meaningful and comprehensive youth involvement in the implementation of YPS policy at the national level and includes recommendations for correcting an imbalance which threatens to undermine the core objectives of the YPS agenda.

This policy brief presents an analysis of the dangers and challenges posed by the “securitization” of the YPS agenda, addressing both hard counter-terrorism approaches that target youth in the name of countering violent extremism (CVE), and the increasingly pervasive influence of ‘softer’ securitization through the guise of preventing violent extremism (PVE). It draws attention to the fact that instead of cultivating and investing in the role of young peacebuilders, young women and men are still subject to forms of ‘policy panic’ which result in them being endangered not only by terrorist organizations, but also by the counter-terrorist strategies of their own governments. This brief concludes with recommendations for how stakeholders supportive of the YPS agenda can confront the  securitization of young people, and strategize to protect the rights of young men and women at both the drafting and implementation stages of counterterrorism policies and programs.

This paper explores the key issue of mental health and psycho-social services (MHPSS), from a youth-specific perspective. Drawing on the assertions and recommendations of the YPS Progress Study, and coupled with the increasing attention to MHPSS within the sustaining peace agenda, this policy brief pays special attention to the role of youth-specific psycho-social services as a vital dimension of transformative youth resilience, essential to both addressing the consequences and prevention violent conflict.