What does climate have to do with peace, security and youth engagement? Climate change is generally understood as a threat multiplier rather than a direct cause of conflict. Increased food insecurity, water scarcity and resource competition, disrupted livelihoods and migration are all issues compounded by climate change. Groups who are already vulnerable (socially, physically and economically) are made more so by climate disruption and emergency, and by conflicts exacerbated by climate. 

The challenges are many, yet the intersection of Climate, Peace and Security (CPS) offers important opportunities for tackling these issues by engaging young people in peacebuilding - and in ways that support the larger YPS agenda. Youth engagement through CPS programming can promote socio-economic and livelihood strategies that address community needs, in ways that improve conflict prevention and make local climate adaptation work more conflict-sensitive. A potential win-win for governments, communities, and young people. 

A 2025 UN Report highlights CPS-related best practices and recommendations for expanding young people’s role in climate adaptation, as well as in other environmental and natural resources-related conflict prevention. Many of these recommendations track with broader approaches to meaningful and inclusive youth engagement, in YPS and beyond, while showing how youth engagement helps achieve multiple and more sustainable outcomes in different areas of community development. 

Although strong efforts have been made to engage UN Member States to prioritize Youth, Peace and Security (YPS), very few have done so within larger global policy discussions - reflected in a lack of dedicated financial resources for youth-led peace initiatives. With more countries embroiled in conflict than at any time in the last 30 years, a failure of political commitment to YPS is a missed opportunity for governments everywhere. 

Despite these challenges, some groups are making important headway on demonstrating the value proposition of YPS to governments and partners. Search for Common Ground, for example, has spearheaded Social Return on Investment (SROI) for YPS, offering a new way to measure the value (social, economic, and environmental) created by locally rooted, youth-led community impact. More efforts like these that help demonstrate the return on youth engagement for a range of other outcomes, from climate adaptation to economic opportunity and livelihoods, are needed to help mobilize stronger political commitment. 

Despite growing awareness and some encouraging progress, youth engagement remains in practice, relatively weak to non-existent in formal decision-making spaces, including within funding and partner organizations (e.g., bilateral, multilateral, and private funders, and global and local non-profits). YPS is no exception: the engagement of young peacebuilders tends to be superficial or limited in scope, leaving young people few opportunities to meaningfully influence issues that impact their lives, and resulting in large knowledge and service gaps. Adding to the challenge, youth who do participate in peace building activities may face stigma or personal risk for their engagement. 

For the YPS agenda to succeed (or any other that promotes youth engagement and leadership) we must critically assess the “rules of engagement”: where does decision-making sit within our teams and organizations? What process or structural barriers prevent us from reaching and engaging young people? And what socio-economic, political or other barriers stand in the way of young people accessing and feeling welcome in these spaces for engagement (even when these are built with the best intentions)? Knowing these, what kinds of changes - behavioral and operational - can we enact to open the doors and ensure young people feel welcome, valued, and safe to engage? The answers to these questions are most reliably answered by engaging young people directly as partners in advancing YPS. 

For many organizations - including governments, funders, and partners - putting commitments to youth engagement into practice can be hindered by a lack of knowledge and skills for where to start, and how to do it in a way that’s both inclusive and substantive. A lack of knowledge is typically accompanied by an absence of youth friendly processes and tools to facilitate engagement or direct partnership with youth-led organizations and networks. Other critical policies and tools for safeguarding and protection may be lacking (or concerns about these issues may make organizations reluctant to engage young people at all). 

Fortunately, building organizational capacity in youth engagement is possible. It is also essential for the YPS agenda to succeed. For Member States in particular, knowledge and capacity strengthening can be assisted by working directly with youth-led peacebuilding organizations and their networks. These organizations are grounded in their communities, offering vital insights into the barriers and the opportunities to achieve conflict and violence prevention, and peacebuilding.