Youth and Disarmament

The world today is home to the largest generation of young people in history, 1.8 billion. Close to 90 per cent of them live in developing countries, where they constitute a large proportion of the population. Connected to each other like never before, young people want to and already contribute to the resilience of their communities, proposing innovative solutions, driving social progress and inspiring political change, in urban as well as rural contexts. Young people constitute a tremendous and essential asset worth investing in, opening the door to an unparalleled multiplier effect.

The UN Youth Strategy aims to facilitate increased impact and expanded global, regional and country-level action to address the needs, build the agency and advance the rights of young people in all their diversity around the world, and to ensure their engagement and participation in the implementation, review and follow-up of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as well as other relevant global agendas and frameworks. Youth 2030, the United Nations’ system-wide Youth Strategy acts as an umbrella framework that guides the UN’s efforts to strengthen its work with and for young people across the three pillars – peace and security, human rights and sustainable development – in all contexts.

Youth4Disarmament

Youth4Disarmament is a youth outreach initiative established in 2019 by the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs to connect geographically diverse young people with experts to learn about current international security challenges, the work of the United Nations and how to actively participate. The initiative focuses on how young people have a critical role to play in raising awareness and developing new approaches to bring about change to reduce threats from weapons of mass destruction and conventional arms, including their proliferation.