 Good morning and welcome to today's event on youth, peace and security in Southeast Asia. My name is Brian Harding and I lead the Southeast Asia program here at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C. USIP is a nonpartisan national institution that was established by Congress in 1984 and dedicated to the prevention, mitigation and resolution of violent conflict abroad. The Institute draws on its exceptional convening power to bring together diverse audiences to exchange knowledge and ideas necessary for developing solutions to the most pressing peace and security challenges around the world, which brings us to why we're here today. Two weeks ago, USIP had the honor of supporting the governments of Brunei, Jerusalem and the United States in the first-ever workshop on youth, peace and security agenda for the ASEAN Regional Forum, an ASEAN-led mechanism for dialogue on peace and security issues in the Indo-Pacific region. During this workshop two weeks ago, ARF participants began to explore opportunities to translate their affirmation of YPS norms and values into concrete action at the institutional level. Among the options discussed was the development of national action plans for YPS in the region. Today we've convened a panel of speakers from three the three countries worldwide that have undertaken the process of drafting and enacting a YPS national action plan. And we'll discuss their experiences to identify lessons, elicit advice and promote learning about strategies for developing YPS national action plans that might be of use in Southeast Asia. To get us going, I'd like to introduce Bill Flens, who is the director of the Multilateral Affairs Office in the Department of States Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, which is a very busy place these days, as you can imagine, to provide some welcoming remarks. USIP has been privileged to work closely with Bill's office for several years to support robust US engagement on preventive diplomacy within the ASEAN Regional Forum. And we're thrilled to have an opportunity today to shine some public light on a lot of this private Track 1 work that we've been engaged with together. So Bill, over to you. Thank you, Brian, for that very kind welcome and good morning to all of our friends in Southeast Asia and wherever you may be elsewhere in the world. But I'm happy that you're tuning in to join us in this workshop. I'm, as Brian noted, I'm the director of the Office of Multilateral Affairs in the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs at the Department of State. And it's a very exciting time to be working on all things Southeast Asia, particularly with the youth of the region. Never have I seen such a concentration of energy and great ideas as I see throughout the whole of Southeast Asia. And so I'm very happy that I get a chance to work on these issues every day. Today's workshop is another occasion for us to come together and with all the talent and energy of our youth throughout the region to think about how we can advance the youth, peace, and security agenda. We're very pleased to be working with USIP on this initiative. We have a long history of working on these issues. And very happy that, again, that this workshop is happening when it is. Nearly six years ago, December 9th, 2015, we saw the UN Security Council adopt Resolution 2250 on youth, peace, and security to formalize an international framework to address the role of youth in building and sustaining peace and preventing conflict. Since that time, however, there's been slow progress in developing national action plans for the youth, peace, and security agenda. So we hope that tonight's workshop will help advance that conversation. And I look forward to hearing much of how of the of the deliberations that follow. But as you know, the youth, peace, and security agenda, it seeks to promote the inclusion of people who have historically been excluded in vital security and peacebuilding measures, and many of them are young young people. The importance of engaging youth on these issues takes on extra urgency when one considers the fact that the world's youth population is at an all time high with more than 1.8 billion people between the ages of 15 and 29. And I would add that some 60, 60 percent of the world's youth live in the Indo-Pacific region. So again, pointing to the importance of the of the youth of the of the region to become more active in the youth, peace, and security agenda. We have seen that despite this underrepresentation, the youth have demonstrated that their participation in the design and the implementation of community to community development strategies is critical for effectively reducing violence and extremism and increasing peace. I'm very happy that my government, the U.S. government has been very, as long as recognize the importance of engaging youth in all things that promote peace and security. And one concrete example of that is the creation of the Young Southeast Asia Leaders Initiative, otherwise known as YSEALY, which this year is celebrating its eighth year. And it's one of our our flagship efforts to promote the and to engage the youth of Southeast Asia. We're very pleased that we have over 6,000 members, I should say 6,000 alumni with a network of over 150,000 members. So it's really taken on a very deep, deep felt presence in the region. And we're very proud that it continues to be a proponent of advancing the YPS agenda. I would also point to the importance of the ASEAN Regional Forum as another important vehicle for including youth in peace building efforts in the in the Pacific. This past August, the ASEAN Regional Forum adopted the statement on promoting the youth peace and security agenda as a demonstration of the region's commitment to ensuring that our shared future and the future of our youth remains peaceful. And the United States is very proud to have been a co-sponsor of that statement, along with the governments of Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and South Korea. As Brian noted a few minutes ago, the U.S., the United States and Brunei jointly co-hosted an ARF workshop on the youth peace and security agenda earlier this month, which gathered together policymakers, representatives from across the region and also within the United Nations to have a dialogue on how the ARF can continue to be inclusive of the efforts of youth throughout the region. And I know that the recommendations discussed there, which include, for example, the development of an ARF expert youth dialogue, encouraging further youth participation as speakers and moderators in ARF activities and encouraging the development of youth peace and security national action plans. All these recommendations, I think, focus on the or demonstrate the importance of having young people to be part of this important conversation. It's clear that without you are the youth of this, the youth will determine how this all evolves. And we need your participation and active involvement to really shape this agenda. It's so important, especially at a moment where we're facing unprecedented changes. The challenges of COVID climate change demonstrate that we need the energy, the ideas that youth can bring to this effort. And I know that to get tonight's workshop is an important way to continue that, to continue to advance that conversation. So with that, I would just like to wish you all a very productive workshop. I look forward to hearing how the conversations develop. And I know this won't be the last time we'll have such workshops. So I wish you well. And I'm very, again, grateful to have had the opportunity to join you this morning. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bill, for your words. And I'm Paula Torres. I'm a program officer of USIP Youth Program. And at USIP, as you mentioned, we're aligned with the UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on youth peace and security. And we support these pillars to programs such as the Generation Change Fellows Program, which is a program that works with young leaders across the globe who live in conflict-affected communities and have built a leadership role. We have around 300 fellows around the world, in 26 countries, in Latin America, in Africa, in Middle East, and of course, in Asia. And Mitchell here, actually, our moderator here, is a fellow of our program. And he is an extraordinary person who has contributed a lot to the YPS field, and he reflects exactly what the program embodies. So thank you, Mitchell, for everything that you have contributed to the field. Even though we have now three YPS resolutions, we cannot stop there. We know that there's a long way to go, and we continuously need to act to have more equitable work, where young people are more at the center of the decision-making spaces. And this means that we continuously need to rethink our systems and structures of power. And our journey begins by ourselves, like we're thinking about how we ourselves think about power and how we are perpetuating these structures of power. And also, we need to continue to work hard for more and more countries to implement a national action plan for YPS. And today, we have a lot of experience. We have someone, as well, that has a lot of experience working on this. So I'm honored to introduce our next speaker, that is Saji Prilis, who has more than 20 years of experience working with youth movements and spaces. He's the co-chair of the Global Coalition on Youth, Peace, and Security. And he is the Children's Youth Program Director at Search and Common Ground. So welcome, Saji, to this space. And thank you for being here with us. Thank you so much, Paula, and good morning to everyone who is joining us from Southeast Asia and good evening to folks who are joining us in the East Coast and the United States itself. Thank you for the introduction. I'm going to walk you through a few slides to kind of set the tone for this conversation, because I feel very privileged to be invited again and to share this opportunity with you. So Paula described about the Global Coalition itself. So I'm going to share a little bit about what the Global Coalition is. The Global Coalition is one of the largest coalitions who come together that includes UN actors, intergovernmental bodies, international NGOs, academics, youth-led organizations at the national level and regional level coming together as a coalition to shape what we call the Youth, Peace, and Security Agenda today. We've heard the call Youth, Peace, and Security Agenda. The agenda is grounded in this principle of collaborative actions for collective level impact. I think this is an important space because young people are core shaping this agenda. And it's led by the United Nations Peace Building Support Office, the United Network of Young Peace Builders, which is a youth-led organization just being championed in this from the very beginning and set for common ground. And USIP has been with us right throughout the whole process. Bill mentioned the Security Council Resolution. This picture was taken exactly six years ago to the day of December 9th, 2015, when the First Security Council Resolution 2250 was adopted. This is the picture of that vote. What oftentimes doesn't get mentioned is the role young people actually played in shaping and influencing that. Over 11,000 young people from about 109 countries influenced, advocated for it, saying we are in the front lines of preventing violence. See us as your partners. Don't see us as your burden, but see us as your partners. We sent a powerful message to the Security Council members who unanimously adopted this resolution. But they didn't stop there. As mentioned, there are three other resolutions. What they collectively do is really make a powerful case that young people are political actors for peace. In a troubled time that we are living in, the times are going to be more challenging in the years to come. It's really important to see the political agency that young people bring and the peaceful resolutions of conflict they desire so much and this wanting to be part of. So this political agency is so essential for this agenda of the trial. What's coming next? As we start to look down the road, Bill mentioned this, you know, what has happened in the last several years, but what needs to happen. So this is a political agenda in a sense and next month the governments of Finland, Qatar and Colombia are hosting the second high-level conference on youth and peace processes. It's supported by the United Nations, African Union, regional mechanisms in the continent of Africa, European Union, and of course civil society and youth because this agenda cannot, we should not have happened if civil society and youth didn't bring it to life. And this conference is going to have two key outputs. One is the five-year strategy to strengthen youth-inclusive peace processes. Youth-inclusive peace processes means that peace agreements, mediation efforts, ceasefire agreements, implementation of secure sector reform processes, demobilization efforts in countries cannot happen without young people's influence and young people's inclusion in those decisions and implementation and monitoring efforts. So this effort of a five-year strategy is to build this field around how to strengthen youth-inclusiveness within these very high-level political efforts itself. Because we cannot do the business as usual now because the world has definitely changed. So we have to rethink our instruments of diplomacy, instruments of mediation and think of inclusion and inclusive approaches in a much more sophisticated way than a few members in this room talking about it. Here we are talking virtually so the room has even changed. The second output that we are developing that will be launched in next month is guidance for public officials, for governments around how to strengthen and implement inclusive national strategies on youth peace and security. Notice I'm not saying national action plans but it's national strategies and actions on youth peace and security itself. So what does that look like? I'm giving you a sneak peek as to what these guidelines will look like. There are about six chapters, full of information, tools, resources, guidance, step-by-step ideas about how to design these national strategies and actions. Based on examples from around the world and some of them you're going to hear today from Nigeria, to the Philippines, to Finland and India. But there's a lot of examples from around the world how this has been done, how it has been tested, what lessons have we learned. So this is going to be launched next month itself. But I want to spend a few minutes I have with you here to talk through a little bit about what are the options here. There are multiple ways to think of our national implementation efforts. One is the common way of talking about road maps and action plans. Second are integrating youth peace and security across policies and programs and projects, kind of mainstreaming by youth peace and security across existing instruments and all that. The important message to take is the role young people play. Because whatever mode you choose, young people need to feel seen, young people need to be heard, feel engaged and involved in crafting and shaping and managing and implementing this process alongside adult counterparts and other institutions. I think this is the roots of the white peace agenda. Now that the implementation state that root cannot be cut off. And this is a key message thinking through this. Here are some strengths of the different approaches, whether you talk about road maps and national plans or policies mainstreaming by PS. You know, when it comes to strengths, of course, policy coherence through crosscutting approach and bringing different ministries together is a really good strength for the national action plan. At the same time, integrating my PS in existing policies makes it also very appealing. Can help reinforce the sustainable efforts that are already happening at the national level. But also the strength of the national action plans is it engages multiple staples, lots of voices coming into the process. When it comes to policies, it is looking at existing policies, tweaking and strengthening and updating them and making sure these relevance and coherence plan and future pool form is the existing policies when it comes to this. So those are strengths in either path we choose. But there are challenges. There are require national action plans require resources, serious resources, not just to develop the plans, but to implement them. And this is why at the global level, we have been reluctant to call it national action plans because there's a template to use. But the template often has been challenging because often the money and the oxygen runs out after the national action plans are developed and no oxygen to run and implement and manage and measure the progress made as well. So it's important to keep some things in mind. The other challenge with the policies, it requires a lot of coordination and coherence with the existing mechanisms and needing political buy-in funds for both approaches. At the same time, these require coordination mechanisms. You're going to hear from Philippines, some really good examples of coordination. You need to require institutional level coordination, national government level coordination and societal level coordination. If we are to make people feel seen, heard, engaged and involved, it's essential for society to feel part of it. For people to feel they are part of something bigger. I think what you're undertaking about thinking at the RCA level on what a national strategy could look like at a country level and then building that up to regional level requires a lot of thinking and coordination. And this is an amazing time to do that, because as Bill mentioned earlier, this is how young people really think and are excited and the passion and the commitment to this agenda is tremendous. The agenda is not new to the region either. I think that's the advantage of building on the existing power and influence that is across the region with young people. And Miradul will talk a lot about it because he's an amazing, he's been leading these efforts in the region. So with that, I just want to say thank you for including me in this. I'm really much looking forward to being part of this effort and wish you the best in continuing this dialogue and commitment to young people when it comes to peace and security in the RCA region. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Saji. Your remarks are going to be very useful in framing the next part of the discussion. And certainly such collaborative implementing processes or these spaces are a powerful example of acting on the guiding principles of the YPS agenda. Young people certainly definitely appreciate these spaces and that's why moving forward now we would like to take this opportunity to learn from the work being done to develop such national national plans, such road maps on youth peace and security. For that we have four amazing leaders from Finland, Nigeria and the Philippines. We will try to take these three countries as the key studies in order to identify potential lessons learned for young leaders and also other stakeholders who are interested in Southeast Asia to advance national level implementation by developing national road maps or national action plans in their own countries. So we will hear first from the panelists and then we will go into a moderate discussion which will include questions from the audience. But for listening to your questions, I request the audience of this panel to check the chat box on the USIP event webpage where the individuals can submit questions during the event. With this, I would like to invite the first speaker. So first of all we have Miss Yeni Kilpi who is the junior advisor at the permanent mission of Finland to the UN where the primary focus of her work has been on youth peace and security agenda. She is a master's student of international relations at the University of Turku in Finland. Her research focuses on WHO and the global governance for health. So floor is yours, Miss Yeni Kilpi. Thank you very much. Good morning everyone from Finland. I'm very happy and honored to be speaking in this important event. Let me start by saying that inclusive dialogue is key in developing peace and security and it is important to cross over the lines of ideologies, religions and traditions and to learn the skills of talking and listening. And as the world is changing and more innovative and passionate ideas as we know come from the youth, it is very important that we have the ability to listen to them. The voices will come through from NGOs and social media and there is no future without the youth. So it's important that peace processes in particular are closely including the youth and that we are learning together. Conflict prevention and peace building have long been priorities in Finnish foreign policy and we emphasize the importance of ownership, inclusion and agency of both women and the youth. So hence Finland is very proud to have referred its first national action plan on the implementation of the UN Security Council resolution on YPS. And this national action plan was done in close collaboration with the active youth and representatives of youth organizations, several government entities, ministries, research, institutes and civil society. But at the heart of preparing a national action plan was listening to the views of Finnish young people about what they think about peace and security, what does peace mean to them. And over 300 young people around Finland were heard in these consultations and which then became the basis for this national action plan. The working group for the 2250 was established around these youth organizations about 10 to 15 organizations who shared an interest in this topic and there were no limitations as to who could join this working group. The 2250 became a very important theme for many of them throughout that year and it was very, yeah, the people, the young people really took it to their hearts. And the key in all of this making the national action plan was inclusivity and ensuring that the young people have ownership of this plan. So about the national action plan in itself, the cross-cutting theme is intersectionality. This was very important for the youth consultations as well. So taking into consideration the interconnected nature of factors that influence the identity of an individual. But on top of that, our NAP has five priority areas, which first of which is participation, which of course is very obvious and clear. The youth need to be participating in all kinds of business security agendas and in all levels. And the second one is prevention. So prevention of conflicts, of violence, of discrimination, bullying, but also taking positively into account that the youth have a lot to say in, for example, in battling climate change. The third one is partnerships. So diverse partnerships are needed for the NAP agenda to go forward, to be actually implemented in Finland. First of all, protection. So protecting the vulnerable youth and giving the young people generally a safe space to influence their own lives. And the last one is disarmament, which is more to do with the post conflict measures to store lasting peace because the peace process don't just stop after this, but need a longer period of time and access to education and work are pivotal in this one. So the whole process for the NAP was conducted in good cooperation. And the end result can be seen as a good starting point for this YPA's agenda to be taken forward. But this is not the end goal. The end goal is somewhere in the future. And I look very much forward to listening to all of you guys and what has been the themes in your NAPs and how was the process done. So thank you. And yeah. Thank you, Yanny. And congratulations to all the young people and your team who were engaged in developing the first ever national action plan on youth peace and security. We got that in August 2021 this year itself. We will have more discussions around it. Now, moving forward, I would also like to hear from our second speaker, who is Mr. Theophilus Ekbon, who is the Executive Director of the Central for Sustainable Development and Education in Africa. And he also co-chairs the Nigerian Coalition on Youth Peace and Security. He has previously worked with United Nations in New York and Nigeria and consulted on development, peace and security issues for various government agencies in Nigeria. Mr. Ekbon is the former chair of Executive Committee of the Global Civil Society platform for Peace Building and State Building. And also a co-chair of Federal Government of Nigeria's Steering Committee on the International Dialogue for Peace Building and State Building. And it's new deal for engagement in fragile and conflict-affected states. Mr. Ekbon, so this is yours. Thank you very much and good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to be part of this discussion. Basically, our engagements with the domestication of the United Nations Security Council resolution 0.25 million youth peace and security started when we became part of the UN Interagency Working Group on Youth and Peace Building in the lead-up to the Amman Conference. So while we were part of those processes, we always briefed our stakeholders in Nigeria, when I say stakeholders, the youth groups, civil society, and the government of issues in relevant ministries, such as the Federal Ministry of Youth Affairs for Development and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. So we tried to make sure everyone is carried along and aware of the ongoing global process. So after the launch of, no, the adoption in December 2015, we decided to come back to Nigeria and discuss what we needed to do. And the first thing we felt we should do as stakeholders in Nigeria was to launch the UN Security Council resolution 0.25 million. So that created more awareness, we were able to bring in key stakeholders from some of the states, or most of the states across Nigeria, to be part of that launch. And it created more awareness as stakeholders felt there was now a real focus on young people in terms of their peace and security issues. And after that launch, there was the suggestion that we needed to have a working group on youth peace building following the UN Terrasy Working Group on Youth and Peace Building. So we decided to set up the working group on youth peace building. It was a multi-stakeholder group. And the group started to discuss what we needed to do to domesticate the UN Security Council resolution 0.250 in Nigeria. And that led to the high level conference for youth peace and security in Nigeria. And after that conference, the decision was taking to develop a national action plan on youth peace and security by stakeholders at the conference that that is the way to go. So we started with engaging some consultants. And also we started to brainstorm with a lot of the youth groups, a lot of civil society groups to do consultations. So we had various consultations across the country. Because in Nigeria, we have 36 states and the federal capital territory. So we had consultations across the 36 states and the federal capital territory. And we also had Zuna consultations. So we did not only have state consultations, we also had Zuna consultations. And in all these consultations, in most of these consultations, we're sure that it was multi-stakeholder initial. So that, you know, because at times when we do setting the programs, we tend not to carry some segment along. For example, some young people, they do programs, they don't carry the government along. And at the end of the day, you find that there's no buying, there's no sustainability, no ownership. So we ensure that as much as possible, there was gender balance so that we can get imputes from both genders into the document. So we had validation meetings. We have affirmation meetings. And now we now have the document launched in November by the Honorable Minister of Youth and Sports Development. So that is where we are then. We started implementation. And just so we've selected six pilot states. So we've selected six pilot states, one by geopolitical zone. Where we are now, we've started implementation, working with key stakeholders and the youth groups to actually drive the process in those six states and collect the states and collect data within the three years time frame of the National Action Plan before there's a review. Thank you. Shaila, thank you so much. We would definitely love to know more about the implementation phase and how definitely love to know more about the implementation phase and how the peace process that is the Philippines government agency that is tasked to oversee, coordinate and integrate the comprehensive peace process. Her work contributes to formulation of an enabling environment in conflict affected and conflict vulnerable areas by addressing the root causes of conflict and promoting the healing and transformation of women, youth and other vulnerable stakeholders. So since Ms. Pelago joined OPEP, which is the short form of office of the Presidential Advisor on the peace process. So when she joined in, since she joined in 2012, she has been supporting the GPH, MNILF peace process and mainstreaming of conflict-sensitive and peace-promoting approaches, implementation of Philippines National Action Plan on Women's Peace and Security and now the ongoing efforts in the formulation of the National Action Plan on Youth Peace and Security. Flo is yours, Ms. Pelago. Pleasant. Good morning from the Philippines to all our participants in today's discussion. I'm very much excited to share with you the Philippine experience. I just want to highlight also that while we do not have a National Action Plan yet, it's not yet finalized. This doesn't stop us from already providing the initial steps to already implement some of the pillars of the youth peace and security as part of our commitment in the operationalization of the UNSCR 250. So just a quick update. This is where a lot of our youth participation is large. At the onset of the 30 administration in 2016, we came up with a six-point peace and development agenda that captures the comprehensive approach to the country's Philippine peace process. And within this agenda, there's a specific platform where the youth can participate, particularly in agenda number five. That's why since 2017, we've been doing a lot of peace conversations, community consultations, particularly among the youth stakeholders from the different geographical areas of the country. It's also important to note that based on the six-point peace and development agenda, we have different conflict contexts or conflict lines in the different parts of the country where we envision that to have a viable and meaningful spaces for our youth to participate. So just for instance, the first two pertains to the southern Philippine peace process or the Mindanao peace process where we have a very strong youth participation and that is also where we have emanated a lot of the community consultations and a lot of the feedback from the youth is to come up with the youth peace agenda that was eventually translated into a draft YPS or one of the recommendations likewise is to come up with a national action plan on youth peace and security to ensure that we are able to concretize and also institutionalize the interventions that will be planned by the youth for the youth as well. I just also want to share with you that prior to the UNSCR 2250, there is already a Philippine youth development plan where we see our youth as a strong foundation for our nation-building and it has different platforms for participation. Just want to also emphasize that the fifth platform for participation is what we see as the potential role of the youth, not only as merely beneficiaries of youth interventions, but equally important is to have them as part of the planning and engage them in the overall implementation of the different programs. With that, through the office of the presidential advisor in the peace process, a dedicated department was created that houses a division that is called the Youth Peace and Security Division that will really ensure that YPS agenda is part of the commitment of the government and as a government, of course, we recognize also that we do not have the monopoly of knowledge. If you want to come up with a youth responsive program, we have to start also from the consultation processes to hear what are the peculiar narratives and unique experiences of our youth before, after, and during conflict. So through the social healing and peace-building program, we are also able to in 2010 way back initially start the implementation of the UNSCR 1820, the National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security that recognizes the experiences and role of the women and young women. So coming from that, we have some learnings already on how we can also craft our national action plan on youth, peace, and security. And we were also able to learn in terms of the mechanisms. How do we see, are we going to come up with a steering committee who will be the member agencies of the steering committee and who are the people that we have to engage because a consultation is always never enough at the end of the day. And the Philippines, we have to gather as much narratives as we can since we are operating in the different conflict lines. And it's also important to note that Philippines is an archipelago. So even the geographical history, the narratives, the political, economic environment of each area also has its own peculiarities. So anchor to this as well is the implementation of the complementary platform, which is the mainstreaming also of the peace education. So we have a law, the Executive Order 570, that provides for the mainstreaming of the peace education. So that's also one of the platform where we tap our academy sector and other civil society organizations in terms of already incorporating the peace education in the very foundation of the schools and the different institutions. I just also want to share with you together with my colleague Carla, we have formulated the national action plan on peace and security road map for the year. So while we do not have a coalition yet, we have started with a multi stakeholder consultation and this is participated by the different government agencies coming from the national regional and local offices as well as youth organizations. And we have also invited even the international partners because in the Philippines there are a lot, there's a lot of involvement in the Philippines peace process of the official development partners that we have at the moment. So they have already been part of this multi stakeholder consultation that convenes also regularly every month. So we just had finished our seventh meeting yesterday and along that line we have been also doing a lot of consultations. We understand that the narrative of peace coming from the eyes of the youth is also different. So we always start with understanding what is the meaning of peace in the eyes of the youth because of course we cannot just assume that the definition of youth peace and security will be the same coming from the policy meter. So we always start with the level of session with the different youth stakeholders. And while the Philippines is grappling with the COVID-19 experience, there are some systems that we cannot migrate also using the new normal modality. So we see to it that we are still able to reach the youth who are in the geographically isolated areas or the disadvantaged areas because they are the youth that really have this very meaningful narrative. So currently there are some areas that have already committed to come up with a pilot regional action plan, particularly the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Indanao. And there is already a local area, a province that has also started drafting its provincial action plan. So I just also want to emphasize that the process that we have is also not linear. It's very dynamic and multi-level already because we are also recognizing the urgency of this matter. At the end of the day, it's important that as early as now, we already have to start cultivating the culture of peace among our youth stakeholders. The Philippines is relatively a country with a young population. So to have a last and just peace in the country, it's important for us that our peace constituency emanating from our youth stakeholders is already able to understand and champion the peace agenda of the country. So these are just some of the sharing. We continue to capture the narratives of the youth with different platforms. We start with peace conversations and alongside with that we do capacity building interventions because we want to also have the youth together with us as we consult their other colleagues and in return there are also the ones who replicate the process among the communities that we cannot reach. So just some ways forward from our side, we continue to maintain this. We have the peace education as one of the vehicles or the platforms for us to be harmonized with the YPS agenda and we also continue to provide context-sensitive and peace-promoting approaches. Currently, we already have national action plans but at the end of the day we are also harmonizing this. We have the commitment to the 1820 through the National Action Plan on Women's Peace and Security. We have a national action plan on preventing and countering violent extremism where the youth is also seen as a vulnerable sector but we do not want to stop there having the youth as a vulnerable sector because what we envision is we are able to empower our youth so they become resilient individuals towards any vulnerable situation. Currently, we have a platform to tap in terms of the resources because as I mentioned one of the challenges of our youth is sustaining the interventions that they have started so we are also looking at the possible support not only of course at the financial aspect but it can be a tactical level support as well. We continue to expand our initiatives in light of the new normal because we do not want to lose the momentum of our youth and of course the COVID-19 is still a challenge but we just need to be able to live in confidence with COVID-19 and like what the other colleagues have shared we continue to strengthen the partnerships and not only with the fellow government offices equally important is engaging the civil society partners the youth organizations coming from the academic or school-based organizations or faith-based organizations as well as the regional cooperation at the SEM level. The SEM level already has a double DPS agenda and we hope to already have a YPS agenda eventually and finally we continue to synergize and replicate because there are areas that we may not be able to reach and we need the youth to be able to be a part of our youth leaders who will be able to continue what we have started particularly in all the contexts or communities that they have since they know more about what their communities and areas are experiencing so what we also want doing now as part of our strategy is empowering and capacitating our youth so they will be the ones to lead the processes in their own respective areas so that's just where we are in terms of the YPS agenda and just want to share with you some of our youth participants these are the youth that came from the Marawi siege and as early as now even though they came from this area they have a vision of peace they want to have a resilient community and they want to be part of that community building in the respective areas. Thank you very much and good morning. Thank you so much Ms Palako and we will be also joined by Ms Kiran Marla and Pratulphu who is currently the division head of youth peace and security division under the social healing and peace building department of OPEP. She is an experienced program management and monitoring and evolution practitioner with demonstrated history of working in NGO sector and with governments. So now we have around 11 minutes remaining in this conversation and I would like to once remind all of the viewers of this conversation to check the USIP event page where you can submit your question and we will take them but I also have a couple of questions gathered based on my experience and yeah we of course can have a lot of discussion so we will try to see how much we can cover we will try to be short if we can provide some of those insights in a very short manner. So the first thing that I really wanted to understand was about you already mentioned how the processes in your country developing national action plan or operationalizing the agenda or the creating a roadmap started. So and thinking about who were the initial stakeholders who were engaged in those processes what are the skills or the resources that are helpful in early stages of that effort. Anyone can respond to this? I can respond. Okay in the Philippines I think relatively speaking the experience that we have it's triggered also our youth to be able to step up. We initially started consulting the youth coming from the conflict affected and conflict vulnerable areas because we were about to implement some peace agreements for example in Nindanao there is a comprehensive agreement in the Bangsamoro and one of the one of the strategies also ensured that we are able to come up with inclusive agreements at the political context that's why it's important for us to be able to engage the youth in the areas as there are provisions of the agreement that look for example on the inclusivity of the process and there are also a lot of youth leaders already in the Philippines but one of the challenge is of course who are we to consult so it's also time for us to determine who are the stakeholders to be consulted because we need to ensure that we have sufficient geographical representation we have indigenous people youth we have faith there youth organizations so we need to also narrow down who are we going to consult and at the moment we also provide other creative platforms where they where we can still capture the narratives of the youth for example capitalizing on the power of social media through online surveys and the virtual platform for some areas that we cannot reach and have access to technology but then emphasizing that it's also important to be able to go to the geographically isolated areas because they are not often consulted and visited so that's also where our presentation has to be prioritized in terms of the NAPYPSR formulation thank you. Thank you any response from Finland or Nigeria? Oh well I covered most of the process in my first answer but I would say that the cooperation between the ministry and the civil society and different organizations was key in making this plan to get started and I think it needs to be effective also in the future so it's not only this part of the process but the stakeholders need to be included from now on as well but nothing more to add. Thank you um yes okay yeah for in Nigeria I think one thing that stood out was the fact that we were already working with a lot of youth groups or young people across the country so some of those networks such as the national youth council the national youth parliament and some of those networks were very helpful and then also there was an already an ongoing process international dialogue for peace building and state building so and we all were already working with a lot of the stakeholders under that platform so it was so easy to you know get them to buy into the uh youth peace and security agenda and we were able to kick off from there but one thing that there was a challenge there was a challenge or were challenges with finance or with funding uh because the minister of youth and supposed development said they did not have money for us to do the work the same thing would fall in at first so but we were able to mobilize resources for example the center for sustainable education in Africa supported resources and then also we were also able to mobilize resources from the global civil society platform for peace building and state building and the european union to be able to get the work done or started and you know into an advantage before the minister of youth and supposed development uh came out they came with you know the suggestion that they needed to have the budget for the national action plan and the implementation so right now as we talk they have the budget an annual budget for the implementation not a lot but it's something for the implementation of the national action plan with peace and security. Sure and uh when we are talking about it i was hearing different words from you so uh miss uh palerco was talking about operationalization or roadmap uh we know from Finland we have national action plan uh from theopolis we were hearing about uh you know domestic domesticization of yps agenda so these are different words uh then something that comes to our mind is okay why did we think of uh developing a national action plan uh it could be something else as well so what was so important that you thought of developing a national action plan at the national level any anyone responds to it um well i can begin this i can begin this time um yeah so i think we are all sort of in different positions of this process as well as we keep using different words obviously for also from different perspectives of coming to the yps agenda but also like um from nigeria it's like a bit further from what we are just planning to do for example but for us it was about understanding the yps agenda as um a holistic common agenda for all of the world and all the countries also just in relation to conflict areas as Finland is not um a war-torn country um we're also faced with some issues for example with polar polarization or um issues such as hate speech and young people could be further included in this work trying to resolve these issues that we have in our country so even if we we don't have the same like maybe the the first things that come to mind when you talk about like the yps agenda there are still a lot of things that the agenda can help with in our country and this was the beginning for the nap for our country and of course like sometimes it is not clear like there needs to be some clarification of what we mean by this like all stakeholders might not have enough information about this like might not understand why the yps is important for example in Finland but to us the concrete examples stories and um from real life will try to clarify that why is it important to have um a national action plan also in Finland so yeah that was the starting point sure thank you and then my question uh is to Nigeria's experience and Philippines experience because we already uh Missy and you already mentioned that uh in Finland we had 2250 network who was taking a lot of heat so that's a youth led agency uh a network of youth led member organizations but uh from uh Miss Pilaku, Miss Rudolf and Rudolfo and Miss Rekhpon how has your experiences of engaging young people in meaningfully engaging actually in designing implementation and evaluation of national action plans uh other than consultation so what else was there or what has been there to make sure that young people are engaging well in uh designing implementation and evaluation of the NEP? Arla if you would like to share also yeah um let me answer that the discussion on YPS formulation as mentioned by director Payak was that started in uh 2016 when OPA led a conduct of different youth peace tables across the country and during the discussion with government agencies in late 2018 uh the all stakeholders initiated the need to have a youth led national and action plan on YPS and learning from this experience from the peace tables we draw inspiration from it and learning from the best practices and lessons learned that we now apply to our consultations so as already shared by director Pallarco we are conducting eight to face to face consultations across the country to date we have conducted eight but eight face to face consultations but to ensure that we really reach out to all the youth across the country we have additional modalities which is to uh to conduct regional or provincial virtual consultations and also we launched the national survey to really ensure that we reach all youth from the different sectors and all sectors are represented as mentioned by director Pallarco of youth from the disability sector youth from the um geographic geographically isolated and disadvantaged area we really ensure to it that all um youth voices are heard and captured and their narratives are included in the formulation of the action plan thank you thank you the second uh at this point okay yeah i think apart from um our deliberate effort to engage young people at the grassroots level uh the marginalized groups the those with disabilities and those in active conflict uh we as i said earlier we engage the national youth council the national youth parliament and and then a lot of youth groups from across the country at the very onset and as i said earlier we also just following the global structure we first of all the national working group on youth and disability which you know actually engage young people before it became the Nigeria coalition youth peace and security so the Niger coalition youth peace and security is being broadened every day getting more youth groups from all parts of the country to become part of it and also what we're doing right now is we're having state structures when are the state coalitions on youth peace and security and local government coalitions for youth peace and security so these coalitions are in the driver's seat of you know the implementation of the national national plan youth peace and security and also by by implication the evaluation of the national action plan for youth peace and security because with this coalition we'll be able to uh ensure that what is what we have agreed on because we have already also agreed on some key areas for implementation in these pilot states because we felt that we cannot implement everything in the document so we have picked up we have selected some key areas for implementation in the pilot state and the young people they are aware of these key areas and they are actually pushing for the implementation and also by implication evaluation at the state level and so as we are implementing at the state level especially in the pilot states we're also making deliberate efforts to strengthen the state coalitions for youth peace and security so that they can engage actively at that level uh with uh uh state actors thank you so much Ms Ekbon and with this response I would like to thank all four of my panelists for their insightful contributions I hope this will help multiple stakeholders including young people to find avenues and directions for implementing IPS agent nationally and with this I hand over back to my dear colleague Paula Boris Thank you Midru and also our biggest appreciation to well for you for moderating this panel but also for our guest speakers we have learned a lot about this and one of the common things that I have been um seeing is that um coordination cooperation between stakeholders and engaging them from the beginning is crucial for for these national action plans to be sustainable and to be successful while we are implementing them and this includes working with institutional institutions national and uh national and uh local level including the society itself but also young peace builders um so they're able to identify like the different needs and they're able to gather like some ownership the other thing that I that I heard it was like that it's important to learn from other national action plans that have already been implemented or that are a little bit more advanced than the U that the YPS like the women peace and security so we can learn and we can we don't we don't have to start from zero but we can learn from those spaces um as well and then some of the challenges that we need to continue learning and to and to share among themselves and among the the the field is to continue to think about how do we sustain to track and to measure all of these implementations because the implementation part or the launch of it is just the beginning but we need to to continue to sustain it and one of the things that I that I want to highlight as well from the Nigeria um what uh he was mentioning was to create that ownership is important so um creating that co-share between the the government the youth but also the civil society it's important to continue uh with this efforts um so basically thank you all again for for joining us and hopefully we will continue to have more and more countries that uh adopt and implement a national action plan um and with that more hopefully more peace building projects will include youth at the center so we are also excited to share that next year we will we will be launching our youth center peace building framework rethinking youth inclusion through a youth powered approach and this framework specifically explores youth engagement in peace building projects and how youth participation can be embraced and can be in place in each stage of a peace building project cycle so it's not only about the peace processes like the high level peace process but also the the community peace building projects so stay connected at usap's network if you're interested in reading it and this conversation as well will remain posted at usap website so we invite you to share it with your networks and we hope that you enjoy this conversation and learn from our guest speakers and thank you all for joining and have a great rest of the day of the week or night whatever you are thank you