On February 19th, 2026, the Inter-Agency Working Group on Youth convened a regional youth consultation on the status of the Youth, Peace, Security (YPS) Agenda and youth's positive contribution to peace processes in Latin America and the Caribbean, in the framework of the 10th anniversary of UNSC Resolution 2250 on YPS, and UNSC Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS).
The consultation, coordinated by DPPA and UNFPA with the support of the United Nations Youth Office as members of the YPS global Secretariat, was organized by a WG Task Force in collaboration with national youth-led YPS coalitions, the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY), and young experts and activists from the LAC region. More than 90 young people participated, providing their views and input on how the YPS agenda links to their work, activism, their studies, and lived experiences from diverse territories and backgrounds. Participants highlighted the progress achieved so far in the region through projects, programs, one National Action Plan (Colombia) and one Municipal one (San Pedro Sula, Honduras) on YPS, as well as participation mechanisms. At the same time, they stressed the urgency of effectively implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and financing these initiatives beyond formal documents and commitments. They emphasized the need to strengthen diversity in youth participation and peace consolidation using a gender and intersectional approach, reinforcing decentralized spaces to facilitate true participation. The YPS agenda links to several key themes for Latin American and Caribbean youth, including the need to ensure decent work and access to education and health (including mental health), to protect human rights defenders and climate activists, and to eliminate all forms of discrimination and violence, such as gender-based violence.
Assistant Secretary-General on Youth Affairs, Felipe Paullier, provided opening remarks highlighting the specificity of the YPS agenda in the LAC region, the importance of maintaining spaces where young people can share their messages, needs, and positive contributions, and the multifaceted nature of the YPS agenda to which young people are already contributing at local, subnational, national, regional and global levels.
The consultation had the following objectives:
- Evaluating what is pending in the political discussion on the YPS agenda in LAC - key developments in terms of policies, funding/financing, programming, partnerships;
- Identifying the barriers and gaps that persist in LAC in the framework of youth participation and contribution to YPS, and young people’s perceptions on needs to tackle such barriers.
- Highlighting young people’s leadership role in advancing the agenda, promoting peace in LAC, and their positive contribution to the agenda in the region, including with a focus on young women.
- Strengthening existing alliances and identifying innovative ones among youth, both already active in the YPS agenda and newly starting their path of activism and action for positive peace
- Collect concrete examples of good practices and actionable recommendations to strengthen the implementation of the YPS agenda in the region with youth at its center, based on the Bogotá roadmap of 2023.
The consultation's results will feed into the Second Independent Progress Study (SIPS) on youth’s positive contribution to peace processes and conflict resolution, called for by action point 20(c) of the Pact for the Future and updating the 2018 “The missing peace” study.
