Multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on “The Road to a Lasting Peace: Leveraging the power of young women and girls for Peace and Security.”

The African Union (AU), UN Women, UN Peacekeeping Operations Department (DPO), and the Gender Is My Agenda Campaign (GIMAC) network rolled out a month-long social media campaign on July 14, 2021, under the theme” The Road to a Lasting Peace: Leveraging the power of young women and girls for Peace and Security.” that will culminate in a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue on August 12, 2021. Full details ▼

Start date: 12 August 2021 | Start time: 11:00 UTC +00:00

End date: 12 August 2021 | End time: 13:00 UTC +00:00

Location:

Event description

Gender and age are important elements of the YPS and Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda respectively. Studies show that the exclusion of young women from peace processes exacerbates the potential violence they face. That is why we must pay attention to the heterogenous experiences of young people to strengthen the potential to respond to the structural issues that cause differentiated violence and insecurity for women, young women, and young men. In this regard, while some frameworks have been implemented as advocacy tools resulting in some level of change, progress has been slow.

UN Women is bringing together the next generations of women’s rights activists with gender equality advocates and visionaries who were instrumental in creating the Beijing Platform for Action more than two decades ago under the umbrella of the Generation Equality Forum. Collectively, these change makers of all ages and genders can tackle the unfinished business of empowering women through a new, ground-breaking, multigenerational campaign: “Generation Equality: Realizing women’s rights for an equal future”.

It’s against this backdrop and AU’s theme of the year ‘Arts, Culture and Heritage: Levers for Building the Africa We Want,’ which in line with Agenda 2063 (aspiration 5), is vital to ensure that African arts, culture and heritage be leveraged for the promotion of sustainable peace and security, that the partners are organizing this policy dialogue and month-long social media campaign.

The main objective of the event is to document the work and efforts of youth, in particular young women in creating lasting peace in Africa.

The meeting will bring together young women working on peace and security issues, representatives of AU, Member States, UN system, development partners, and other stakeholders.