Youth Agency in Peacebuilding

The Commonwealth Secretariat’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) Unit has always emphasised the importance of young people and youth mainstreaming within the work that we do.

The CVE Unit organised ‘The Power of Youth to Build Peace in the Commonwealth’ in collaboration with CYPAN, in order to give young Commonwealth citizens that meaningful seat at the table. Taking place in November 2020, the event was a sub-session of the Commonwealth Action Series, organised by the Commonwealth Youth Programme.

In lieu of a physical Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and Commonwealth Youth Forum (CYF) event taking place in 2020, the Commonwealth Youth Programme organised a series of virtual events that focused on the themes
selected for the 2020 CHOGM.

The panellists were chosen by the CVE Unit from the Specialist Pool and from CYPAN, and each produced a policy paper relevant to the overarching theme of the workshop but within their areas of expertise.

These fascinating, insightful and varied policy papers are published in this first edition of the Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Discussion Paper series.