Implementing UNSCR 2250: Youth and Religious Actors Engaging for Peace

"At a time in which religious youth are particularly vulnerable to recruitment to violent extremism, it is imperative that the voices of youth - especially those who are influential religious actors in their own right, shaping religious attitudes, practices, and behaviors - are not disregarded but instead engaged meaningfully and from the outset of policy and peace process design."

United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security was adopted in December 2015, formalising an international framework to address the critical role of youth in building and sustaining peace and preventing violent conflict. This resolution focused on 5 pillars of action to ensure that youth are included: participation, protection, prevention, partnerships, and reintegration. This report from the Center for Applied Conflict Transformation at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) highlights the gaps and opportunities related to the implementation of Resolution 2250 through 3 of those pillars: partnership, prevention, and participation. These pillars are areas in which religious actors, youth leaders, and religious youth leaders can work together, and where international and local stakeholders can support their inclusion in peace dialogues on local, national, and international levels.

Derived from a desk literature review, online surveys, interviews, and case studies, the report is informed by the context: More than 80% of the world identifies as religious, and most of the world's most violent conflicts occur in countries with the most youthful populations. (Recognising that the definitions of youth and religious actors vary from community to community, this report considers youth to be young men and women between the ages of 18 and 35). According to USIP, youth are often the most vulnerable and affected by violent conflict globally, and yet tend to be excluded from peacebuilding efforts. Another group often living in conflict areas, religious actors (including traditional religious leaders and lay religious people, women and youth among them), help shape a community's attitudes and behaviours and count among them many who are working to prevent and mitigate violent conflict. USIP finds that, like youth, local religious actors are often excluded from formal peace efforts. Youth leaders, religious actors, and young religious leaders have attributed their omission in formal peacebuilding processes and dialogues to consequential mistrust and misunderstanding on the part of many decision makers. Yet, both youth and religious actors, despite having what are often shared objectives but a mutual sense of differing priorities and values, are eager for more meaningful engagement with the other.

A desk literature review of nearly a dozen peacebuilding programmes implemented by international nonprofit organisations revealed that interfaith programmes and dialogues are the most common way that international organisations support partnership at the nexus of youth, religion, and peacebuilding. A second, though less common, type of programme intentionally engages youth religious actors. A third, and less direct, way international organisations work within this nexus is by integrating concepts of religious sensitivity into otherwise secular-oriented programming.

USIP conducted a survey to capture youth perspectives about engaging with traditional and nontraditional religious leaders on areas of shared priority, especially those related to peace and security, as well as to ask questions about religious leaders' experiences engaging youth in their communities. Respondents came from 18 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and the Americas. A brief summary of survey results follows:

• When asked to identify the ways they have engaged with religious leaders, notably, the least common way for youth leaders is online or social media (28%). This is illuminating, given that international religious actors often express a desire for better media training to connect more directly with youth through social media. Asked how they would like to engage with traditional religious leaders, most youth selected all or multiple ways: facilitated dialogue, one-on-one meetings, and formal meetings or conferences (78% each). Religious actors responded similarly.
• Survey participants were also asked to identify the greatest challenges they face when trying to engage the other. Most youth (59%) thought that different priorities prevented them from collaborating more, and nearly half believed that different value sets were the issue. Most religious actors (67%) thought that values were different, but fewer than half (42%) acknowledged a difference in priorities. Only about a quarter of the youth and even fewer religious actors (17%) thought that no mechanisms were in place, preventing greater engagement. This suggests that those who choose not to work together may be doing so for other reasons. Regarding acquaintance, notably, only 2% of youth leaders said they did not know any religious leaders, and no religious leaders said they knew no youth leaders. This suggests that an absence of collaboration is a matter of agency and choice, affected in turn by other factors that need to be explored in more detail.
• A lack of trust is a challenge that nearly one-third of youth and a quarter of religious leaders identified. A significant number of respondents selected "other" challenges. Some, for example, wrote that they found one another to be inaccessible because of age differences or perceptions of differing social status (13%, 8% religious). A few added that religious actors were already engaging youth within their own tradition, but that the biggest challenge was to engage religious actors across religious traditions through interfaith or interreligious opportunities. Only 7% of youth felt that there were no challenges in partnering between youth and religious actors.
• Nearly all (96% youth, 92% religious) said they wanted to work with each other to implement peacebuilding programmes or events. More than three-quarters of youth and almost all religious actors would like to partner to help them reach other groups to which the other might have access. Many youth (80%) and a smaller majority of religious actors also want to cofacilitate meetings or organise community-wide events. About three-quarters of youth and religious actors alike want to collaborate to create and disseminate shared messages or narratives, perhaps recognising that co-sponsored messages may have wider reach.

Four case studies follow to illustrate types of collaboration in practice:

1. Run by and focusing its outreach on youth, the Uganda Muslim Youth Development Forum (UMYDF) was established as a faith-based peacebuilding organizsation that engages youth and religious actors, and especially religious youth, around a collective effort to integrate and promote values of peace and pluralism. One training that the Forum has hosted includes social media training to proactively counter messaging that promotes violence in the name of religion and to be more accessible as religious leaders to a younger audience. The Forum also offered technical support to a new group of young imams responding to public demand from young Muslims for younger imams who could be more approachable and nonjudgmental and whose teachings are inspiring and resonate with youth. This group, formalised as the Young Imams Association of Uganda, serves as a clerical consortium that now reaches millions of young Ugandan Muslims through their network of member mosques. Despite its successes, the Forum continues to face challenges, particularly related to intrareligious conflict. (These are discussed in the paper, as well as strategies that have been developed to deal with them.)
2. In May 2016, 28 youth leaders from 13countries gathered in Dharamsala, India, for an interfaith exchange with His Holiness the Dalai Lama on resilience and the role of youth in peace and security. Before the programme, youth participants reflected on experiences that young people face in their community, homing in on challenges and opportunities to engage religious actors in particular. For example, a few participants advocated for the need to reach out specifically to young women, to create space for them to safely engage in religious peacebuilding. In the workshops, many youth noted that "they have a hard time working with senior clerics because the clerics do not listen to them. Instead, they are always preaching at them, telling them what they should be doing." But His Holiness said "he felt renewed hope and optimism knowing stories of strength and resilience of the trail-blazing youth who are fighting in creative ways for peace."
3. Jacobeth is a religious youth peacebuilder in Colombia. Identifying as an Adventist, she is an assistant director of her local church and works with Sembrandopaz, a faith-based, grassroots organisation that supports reconciliation and mediation. She feels that the church is the easiest channel through which community members in different districts can communicate. One effort that has worked well is the reation of youth summer camps supported by the church elders that give youth a space to work together and demonstrate the extent to which they are able to lead, to identify the challenges that they as youth are most strategically positioned to address, and to develop tangible plans to realise their goals.
4. In 2016, the Yobe, Nigeria, State Ministry of Religious Affairs and the organisation Youth Coalition Against Terrorism held a partnered 3-day event on capacity-building for conflict sensitivity in religious teachings. The conference also led to the establishment of an interreligious council among 20 of the 100 Christian and Muslim leaders in attendance, the aim of which was creating a unified voice of religious leadership against extremism. It is noted here that religious youth can serve as bridge-builders to establish connections and to create trust among their peers, older religious leaders, and government and security officials because they are especially attuned to the needs and vulnerabilities among fellow youth in their communities. Youth can serve as allies and advocates to religious actors as well. In addition, youth and government officials can work together to identify credible religious leaders and encourage them to speak out against extremism.

These case studies reveal that religious actors, youth leaders, and religious youth leaders are already working together for peace and security. By identifying allies within the religious and youth communities, peacebuilding practitioners gain access to otherwise inaccessible audiences, reaching the most vulnerable populations. The international community can support these collaborations to ensure more meaningful partnerships that contribute to the implementation of UNSCR 2250. To facilitate this, trust needs to be built between youth leaders and traditional and nontraditional religious leaders.

A number of recommendations going forward are offered. For example, work can be undertaken with older religious leaders to help them understand the importance of listening to youth and meeting them where they are. At the same time, working with youth as partners is equally important to prepare them to engage with religious leaders by helping them recognise and respect their particular wisdom, expertise, and influence. The creative energy of youth can be blended with the access and legitimacy of traditional religious leaders to co-develop peacebuilding programmes. To ensure meaningful participation of youth, one suggestion is to leverage the authority of religious actors to demand that youth are included in peace- and security-related programmes and forums. Five months after the Youth Leaders' Exchange, to take one example, at subsequent international engagements, the Dalai Lama mentioned this group explicitly in remarking on the importance of partnering with and supporting youth leaders. At the same time, youth leaders can encourage meaningful participation of traditional and lay religious leaders in peace and security programmes and forums by recognising their value as partners and advocating to bring them into such experiences. "In sum, each group can advocate for and support the other, knowing that their own efforts will ultimately be stronger for working together."