Dear Friends,
Greetings of peace and blessing from URI Africa.
From June 1-6, 2014, Dr. Emmanuel Ande Ivorgba, URI West Africa Sub-regional Coordinator, participated in a workshop to develop guidelines for young peoples' participation in peacebuilding in New York City at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations(UNAOC).
The workshop, organized by the Sub-Working Group on Youth Participation in Peacebuilding of the United Nations Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development (IANYD), comprised of United Nations (UN) entities, non-governmental organizations, academics and young adults.
The mission of creating guidelines for youth peacebuilding is to create evidence-based best practices and to turn the recently launched Guiding Principles on Young People’s Participation in Peacebuilding into concrete, measurable actions.
Key objectives of the workshop included:
1.Agreement on key issues and parameters for operational guidelines on young people’s participation in peacebuilding, including a selection of thematic sections.
2.Agreement on the key elements of the process for developing the guidelines on young people’s participation in peacebuilding, including consultation methodology, key stakeholders, timeline, and any additional capacity requirements.
United Nations agencies, donors organizations, international and local youth-based, youth-focused organizations represented at the workshop included: the Office of the Secretary-General Envoy on Youth, Office of SRSG CAAC, UN DESA Youth, UNDP, UNFPA, UN-HABITAT, UNICEF, UNIDO, UN PBSO, UN WOMEN, Search for Common Ground, Baha’i International Community, Communities Without Boundaries, Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP), World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scout, World Vision International, Center for Youth Work (Serbia), Open Society Foundation, USAID, Association Nigérienne pour La Promotion des Jeunes, Chanan Development Association (Pakistan), Youth in Action for development (Sierra Leone), New Era Educational and Charitable Support Foundation (Nigeria a URI CC), Peace Spiral Project – Culture of Peace, Interculturality and Human Rights, National Council of Educational Promotion – CONAFE (Mexico), New England Conservatory, and more.
The workshop also provided an opportunity for New Era Educational and Charitable Support Foundation’s Executive Director to make presentation on the peacebuilding and programs with young people to the UN Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development (IANYD).
The UN Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development (IANYD) is co-chaired by Cecile Mazzacurati, Policy Officer, Youth and Gender at the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO)/UNFPA and Lakshitha Saji Prelis, Director, Children and Youth Programmes at the Search for Common Ground.
New Era Educational and Charitable Support Foundation, a URI CC, also attended a preparatory meeting with Isabelle Legare, United Alliance of Civilization’s Programming Coordinator, at the UNAOC Office.
MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH.
Mussie Hailu
