The Conflict Prevention and Early Warning Division (CPEWD) of the African Unions Commission’s (AUC) Peace and Security Department (PSD) in collaboration with the Youth Division and Africa Governance Architecture (AGA) Secretariat, with support from The African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes/Training for Peace Programme (ACCORD/TfP) convened a maiden consultative workshop under the theme of, “Youth for Peace (Y4P): Towards a Continental Strategic Framework for Youth Engagement in Conflict Prevention”. The consultative workshop took place from the 4-6 September 2018 in Lagos, Nigeria.
The consultative workshop discussed various issues presented by the youth to better identify potential areas of collaboration between the AUC and Youth organisations. To this end, the consultative workshop sought to identify youth-led and oriented organisations promoting peace and security across the five regions of Africa to assess the possibilities for effective collaboration with the AUC PSD towards the promotion of peace and security on the continent. The workshop had a special emphasis in the area of conflict prevention and looked at designing an inclusive process for strategic operational modalities to promote youth engagement with the other divisions within the Peace and Security Department, such as; the Crisis Management and Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Defence and Security and the Peace Support Operations Division, respectively. This was designed to explore possible areas of collaboration with youth organizations in their areas of operations. Finally, the workshop further aimed to articulate the modalities for feeding suggestions into the overall AUC Framework for Youth in Peacebuilding that is currently being developed.
The workshop provided a platform for fostering youth leadership by encouraging participation through structured dialogue and direct roles for youth in conflict prevention and peacebuilding programmes. This included engagements in the development of an agenda for youth engagement and cross fertilization of ideas on how to strategise on measures to respond to the existing and emerging threats to peace and security on the continent.
The meeting bought together 45 participants drawn from youth-led and youth oriented organizations focusing on various specialised thematic areas that are promoting the peace and security youth agenda on the African continent. These organisations reflected some level of regional representation and participation also included representatives from Regional Economic Communities (RECs), Regional Mechanisms (RMs), the AUC PSD as well as relevant AUC Departments and partners.
ACCORD was represented by Miss Sibusisiwe Nkosi: Programme Officer and Miss Precious Ngcobo: Programme Administrator in ACCORD/TfP’s Peacekeeping Unit.
