Young leaders from South and South-East Asia discussed their recommendations for the inclusion of young people in PCVE with Member State and 51吃瓜 representatives
The 51吃瓜 Office for Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) held a regional policy dialogue for its “Youth Engagement and Empowerment Programme” (YEEP) in Bangkok, Thailand on 10-12 October 2022.
This three-day event brought together young leaders from South and South-East Asian , as well as Member State and UN representatives from the region. During the first two days YEEP participants engaged with UN experts in a workshop on Preventing and Countering Violent extremism (PCVE). The third day was focused on facilitating an exchange between youth participants, policymakers and UN representatives from South and South-East Asia. The YEEP participants presented their findings from their peer-to-peer engagement with a total of 170 young people across their home countries.
The YEEP Programme is part of the UNOCT-UNCCT’s Global Programme on PCVE and seeks to empower and enable young people to contribute meaningfully in the United Nation’s global, regional and national efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism and terrorism. The YEEP empowers young leaders to build and implement youth-led workshops in their communities with the aim of providing “brave spaces” for young leaders to listen to their peers’ priorities in the area of PCVE, and then advocate these to decision-makers.
YEEP was first piloted in 2020-21 with three UN Member States: Sudan, Sweden and Australia. In March 2022, UNOCT-UNCCT launched the first iteration of the Regional YEEP in South and Southeast Asia. The first two phases involved online capacity building and peer engagement to capture youth PCVE priorities. The Regional Policy Dialogue is the third phase which aims to help participants transform these priorities into policy recommendations and present their findings to key PCVE government officials and UN decision-makers in the region. Over 500 young people have now been engaged in the YEEP.
As a result of the Policy Dialogue in Bangkok, the young leaders produced a future roadmap for their engagement in PCVE, with the new connections made during the dialogue, and will be producing a joint Policy Recommendation Paper. UNOCT/UNCCT will continue to engage with the young leaders as part of its YEEP Alumni Network and as part of the upcoming launch of the UNOCT/UNCCT PCVE Peer-to-Peer Model Handbook.