The Security Council today urged greater youth participation and leadership in peace processes and conflict prevention, reinforcing its ongoing efforts to mainstream youth across the peace and security agenda.
Unanimously adopting resolution 2807 (2025) (to be issued as document S/RES/2807(2025)), the Council called on all relevant actors to “consider ways to increase the full, effective, safe and meaningful youth participation and leadership in peace processes, conflict prevention, peacebuilding, recovery and reconstruction at all levels”, including through the Peacebuilding Commission.
It also decided to continue the consideration of the youth, peace and security agenda in its work, including through open debates to discuss the Secretary-General’s reports on youth, peace and security.
Further, the 15-member organ encouraged Member States to consider adoption or strengthening of national action plans on youth, peace and security and support youth-led peacebuilding initiatives, including through engagement with civil society. It then encouraged the UN Youth Office to continue to collaborate with relevant UN entities, including the Security Council, in advancing the youth, peace and security agenda.
This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the World Programme of Action for Youth — the first comprehensive, global policy framework on youth, as well as the tenth anniversary of Council resolution 2250 (2015) — a landmark text recognizing young people as partners in peacebuilding and conflict prevention.
The representative of Sierra Leone, which co-drafted the text along with Guyana, said the radicalization and recruitment of youth by extremist groups remains a grave concern in Africa and many conflict-affected areas around the world. “This challenge,” he said, “highlights the urgent need for more robust youth-centered strategies for peace and security, including in this Council,” which “has not established a comparable engagement despite the clear call of the Secretary-General in his most recent report to institutionalize the youth, peace and security agenda”. Today’s resolution represents “a meaningful and timely effort by the Council to close this gap”, he declared.
Guyana’s delegate said the UN80 reform initiative, punctuated by budget cuts, should not translate into de-emphasizing issues central to the maintenance of international peace and security. “A siloed approach by this Council which mostly excluding youth from its deliberations will not yield the durable results that we seek,” she said, urging measures to engage youth — currently outside the door clamoring to heard and seen — on how they can be part of achieving peace and stability in their countries.
Her counterpart from France welcomed the renewed attention to this agenda in recent months through the Pact for the Future, the adoption of twin resolutions on the peacebuilding architecture in the General Assembly and the Security Council, and today’s resolution. Considering UN80 and a liquidity crisis, she stressed the text just adopted does not impose additional burdens on the United Nations system.
The representative of the Russian Federation said the excessive formalization of the Council’s work on “generic” subjects is inappropriate given its already packed schedule and “certainly not the right time to do so” amid the current budget crisis. The Council’s mandate for the maintenance of international peace and security presupposes the pursuit of solutions to specific conflicts and problems, rather than “frittering away scarce resources on general discussions”.
“Young people should neither be marginalized nor underestimated,” said Panama’s delegate, underscoring that educated and experienced young people must have a seat at the decision-making table. Yet, as demonstrated by the lengthy negotiations on this resolution, much remains to be done, he observed.
Complete Live Blog coverage of today's meeting can be found here.
