Youth For a Sustainable Culture of Peace and Security in the East African Region

Key stakeholders in "Nation Building" are youth, who, without a doubt, can, and do play a significant role in creating a culture of sustainable peace, security and development. The East African region is experiencing a youth bulge with significant social, economic, and political impact that, in turn, affect peace and security. This calls for urgent attention to the environment in which youth exercise their energy to make certain choices, and ways of meaningfully empowering and including them in the process of creating and sustaining a culture of peace. Central to establishing a sustainable culture of peace in the region are institutions of higher learning (universities) through research, innovative engagement, and guided curiosity that instil knowledge and practice among their students to become effective and efficient change agents in their institutions of work, communities, and families. Additionally, Universities bridge the gap between research, policy and practice and, therefore, can play an important role in ensuring the youth become an important resource for development, and critical factor for social change, political, and economic development. With this background, the objectives of this Conversation are to: 1. Document the contexts and forms of violence that young people are susceptible to in the region, taking stock of existing initiatives aimed at peace building, reducing violence, and countering radicalization and extremism. 2. Mobilize relevant stakeholders and provide a platform and space for engagements on youth and peace, and the role of Universities in the creation of a sustainable culture of peace and security in the East African region. 3. Examine and identify gaps in current policies on youth and come up with specific policy directed towards youth engagement in sustainable culture of peace and security in the region. 4. Deliberate on processes of creating and fostering synergies amongst academic institutions, University youth, policy makers, and youth organizations, and how to exploit these synergies for a sustainable culture of peace. 5. Examine current policies on youth and identify gaps in youth engagement in peace building processes. 6. Establish ways of creating and fostering synergies amongst actors and ways of exploiting them for a sustainable culture of peace. 7. Constitute a team of experts on youth, peace and security that will guide and coordinate activities geared towards youth engagement in peace and security. Expected Outcomes 1. Relevant stakeholders mobilized for discussions on youth and peace, and the role of Universities in creating a sustainable culture of peace and security in East Africa. 2. Policies on youth engagement in peace and security spelt out, particularly, the nexus between Policy and Research on Peace and Security. 3. At the policy level, a strengthened framework on young people roles in preventing violence, countering violent extremism and building peace. 4. Modalities of working together as youth organizations, university students, university management, and policymakers elaborated. 5. An enhanced partnership of youth networks and organizations, young leaders, UN organizations, policymakers, academics, and international and national NGOs. 6. A pool of experts on youth, peace and security in the region to elevate discussions on youth, peace and security to a higher level - national, regional and global. 7. Agenda and process for a future conference for Universities on sustainable culture of peace and security developed. 8. Create a pool of experts on youth, peace and security in the region. 9. A Communique binding the partners to continue working towards a Culture of Peace and Security in the Region.