So, you know, I've talked, we've talked a lot about kind of the kind of nutty left, the woke left's anti-racism in quotes, anti-racism or racist agenda. We've talked a lot about how it seems like in the political realm a lot of the wacky left's agenda is being successfully rebuffed by voters whether that was, as we saw, that was in Northern Virginia, sorry, yeah, in Virginia, including Northern Virginia, last in November in the vote there for governor and then we saw it in San Francisco, we've seen it in Minneapolis, we've seen it defund the police, we've seen it CRT in the schools. We've seen generally a voter backlash including in pretty left wing cities around the country against kind of the wacky left. I'd also say that, you know, while a lot of businesses give the agenda of the left a lot of credence and they bring in DEI and they do courses and they do all of this stuff, my general sense of business is that it is, it says what it needs to say to keep on going but none of this is taken too seriously, generally I think even young people who kind of believe in the left's nonsensical ideas, wants to actually have to live in the world, they have to make a living, they have to go to a job, they actually have a reality and there's a reality check, they actually have to have goals, they have to achieve those goals if they don't achieve those goals they can lose their job. I mean there's actually an impact of reality on their lives, so I'd say the impact of kind of the left's more wacky agenda is mitigated by young people when they go into the real life work environment, they get slapped around, they get woken up, they get a dose of reality which moves them away from the craziest of the ideas, so I think that business generally happens to young people, I think it certainly happens politically, it's happening to the radical left, their ideas are being rejected, again whenever the ideas clash with reality, people's desires to live a better life, to live just the basics, not to have crime in the streets and have their kids get a decent education and not have complete horror in the streets around them and some cleanliness and not have being attacked by homeless people and they have a basic police force and their kids actually study history. People reject the ideas of the left and so I think in much of the world in which we live these ideas are being chipped away out, they're being challenged, they're being rejected, they're being questioned and there is a mechanism by which in a sense a self-correcting mechanism as things move further and further to the left, they kind of get slapped around and beaten back. I've said this many times, Americans are not nihilists, most Americans don't advocate for nihilism, don't want at nihilism, don't support nihilism, indeed reject nihilism and as a consequence these ideas don't really plant themselves in the culture and sustain themselves over time, not in many, much of our activities that we engage in, except in one area but it turns out to be a very, very, very, very, very important area but except for one area and that is academia, that is the university and ultimately our entire educational program but particularly the educational programs that are now beyond the reach of parents who care about their kids. Wes, wow, Wes just contributed $100, that's fantastic, really appreciate that so you know when it comes to K through 12 there's some self-correcting mechanism, parents but what is the self-correcting mechanism in academia and I would argue that there really is none, it could be students not going to certain universities because they've gone so wacky left but students are not self-aware enough, students are young, again there's no self-correcting of the parents coming in and dictating students off and go to schools not based on what their parents want, based on what they want, they go study what they want and parents are much more flexible than they are in lower grades and the only other mechanism to rein in our universities are alumni and we'll talk about that later so we'll talk about why you know that is in a sense our only hope is to control the nuttiness on our universities is for alumni so let's go through what it is about universities that makes it so difficult to self-correct and what is the problem right now in universities and let me start by just acknowledging look that we all know that the universities are left, way left of center, have been way left of center for years and years and years you could argue for decades they certainly were left of center when I was getting my PhD that's many decades ago and you know we really the left does be taking over the universities and this is not no secret everybody knows this the left has been taking over the university slowly but systematically but not as a conscious plan but just as a as the way it happens right the YBS support page is down huh interesting bookshow.com see that's up let's click support I don't see the support page where's the support page maybe it is down all right I'll have to sponsor pages down right I'll talk to my IT people and find out could be that they're working on it and they're they're doing things Glenn thank you for the 50 dollars Emmanuel thank you for letting me know that the support page is not working and for the 20 dollars I really appreciate that all right so we all know universities have been left they've been left forever they've been more and more and more left over time simply based on a pretty straightforward simple mechanism and that mechanism is tenure so the way university the way universities work is um the way universities work is you you uh you get a PhD so let's assume you've already been accepted into grad school you you apply for grad school you get accepted into grad school you get a PhD and now you go in the job markets um historically you go in the job market uh they they base the decision on how good you are what you published the dissertation you go typically you go to different universities that want to interview you you present your work they evaluate that work and then based on all of that based on the quality of your work they will uh tend to offer you a position then you they offer your position is what's called an assistant professor you go in and your work is an assistant professor and uh after seven years six seven years uh and it somewhat varies I guess depending on department and depending on university you go up for tenure that is after six or seven years the university decides do they want to keep you or don't they want to keep you and um so they look at all your research and then they look at all your teaching and your teaching evaluations and they look at what they call a service you know the committees you've served at the universities all the stuff you've done in terms of the universities in terms of the university uh and faculty commitments and then they basically make a decision about whether to offer you tenure or not and and if you're offered tenure uh and you accept then you basically got a job for life very difficult very very very difficult to fire a professor who has tenure um you can show up when you want you can do the work you can not do the work as long as you basically teach your load maybe do a little bit of service although even that you can get away with not doing anything not doing being on any committees uh but as long as you do your teaching as long as you don't uh assault anybody um it's very hard to lose your job um as a tenure professor very very very difficult so you got a job for life now if you want to make full professor that's the highest um standard so as a tenured professor you're an associate professor to make full professor you have to um you have to again publish and everything and you go up and and there's a committee and they decide whether to give you a full professor should put on now if you do not get tenure you're out you've got a year to leave the university and during that late yeah you can look for another university job but you didn't get tenure it's a little tainted already uh you might become an adjunct uh you might get another university job but probably not a tenure job uh you're basically out of influence in terms of academia so for every uh you know student what's that wants to be a university professor the key is uh you know get do your PhD which usually takes about six years five six years get a PhD don't piss people off too much uh get good recommendations from the people you got the PhD from a writer dissertation it's acceptable to schools get job offers get a job then spend six years writing papers getting published again getting published peer reviewed your peers are viewing you and then a committee decides whether they want you as a faculty member forever at the university or not once you're in you can pretty much do what you want say what you want you know the consequence of that as well but basically they can't fire you and you got a job for life that's the way it works now think about it if you're already a tenure professor at a university who do you want to hire who do you want to surround yourself remember when you choose somebody for tenure you're choosing uh you're choosing somebody that is gonna be your colleague for many many many years you're gonna see him around the corridors around the school uh in in in you know department meetings for decades who are you gonna choose to hang around what are you gonna choose people you you like people you tend to agree with people who are not gonna shake things up too much people who uh you know are not gonna be your ideological or personal enemies so the tenure decision and the original hiring decision are very much about the kind of people you want to surround yourself with and the kind of people who are going who do the kind of work that kind of fits in with your work so it's a it's kind of a self-reinforcing so once let's say that for example the left gets a foothold in a particular department um you know they're likely to want to hire people like them and they hire people like them and then they're more of of you know a particular point of view in the department and they might want some diversity among point of views if they're a little bit intellectually curious but generally within a particular context a particular framework we don't want anything a little too much to upset things and then the people who you hire that are cutting edge tend to be cutting edge in your direction so if you're on the spectrum of I don't know kind of center left all the way to wacky left being 10 and center left being one you know if you're one maybe you hire a three but then once you've got a few threes in the department they tend to hire fives and once you get a bunch of fives in the department they tend to hire sevens and you can see that over time these department tend to drift leftwards to a large extent because the graduate students come from a particular ideological philosophical political background most phd students are you know tend to be from and off the left that form of collectivism there's some on the right and and what you see is they concentrate in certain departments in certain places even in certain fields some areas have fewer people of the right and some places have more of them and and how you define right and left as we've talked so many times is ambiguous so what you see is this trend of departments moving more and more and more to the left in a sense phd students knowing this so they either don't go into grad school and get a phd if they're not going to fit and if they do go in they want to push the envelope a little bit they're going to push it further out left whether that's further out towards socialism further out towards what's not called critical critical theory critical race theory critical literature theory whether it's further out towards postmodernism whatever it happens to be in that department they're pushing out and I think this is how over time by people voting in the people they like by the or the people that support their point of view this is also what happens in journals you know your best chance of getting published in a book in a journal is taking an existing theory taking a theory that people basically represent the consensus and basically reinforcing it a little bit or pushing it in the boundaries a little bit but not challenging it too much challenging might not get published the top journals tend to publish things that incrementally move the field within a particular context that is already acceptable so you get in academia a constant reinforcement of the prevailing ideas constantly being pushed further and further to the left because the left is what dominates our universities so even though for example in economics the way the the let's say in economics the more pro markets there's been an increase in the numbers in certain places and there was a period in which it really had a sense that free market economics was taking over it was everywhere it was it had the chance to really really dominate it never really happened partially because economic departments didn't let it happen and what what has landed up happening for example in economics is that the good guys the better guys the free market people have tended to concentrate in particular schools in particular places yes harvard might have wanted to and and all the top schools have wanted to but those departments are dominated by different forms of statist economists who then hire statist economists and they might have wanted to free market guys in order to have some intellectual diversity but not too much as to reshape the character of that department to reshape the type of people they're interacting with now what's happening right now at universities is that they have become dominated by uh you know by de i by um let me just fight once i know yeah there it is uh by de i diversity diversity um uh something in inclusion what's what's the e stand for i had it a second ago um thank you equity so diversity equity and inclusion diversity equity inclusion um and that that is the new politically correct thing that has to be emphasized and what is what does it mean it's really kind of the old standard of making sure your department is diverse making sure you have minorities represented and so on but it's it's taken a nasty twist right it's not just representation it's now much more than just representation so when i was interviewing for a job when i got my phd in finance it was interviewing for a job at a university the the the chairman of the bottom basically told me look you're on we really like you and we want to hire you and i think we're going to hire you but we can't yet make you an offer because there is a a a black woman who is on the market uh at the same time as you and look we have to offer her a job because that way we can tell the university you know authorities the the people you know the administrators we can tell them you know we after the job took a woman we after the job somebody was black and they can tick that box she turned us down so what could we do we had to hire this you know Jew with white skin right um which which the which the authorities did not like because for a variety of reasons and this is a true story and they said but don't worry we're going to offer her the job but don't worry because everybody's going to offer her the job all the universities are going to offer her the job and it's almost it's very unlikely very unlikely that she accepts our offer given that some much more prestigious universities are going to offer her the job why are they going to offer the job because she's basically the only black female on the market this year so she's going to get an amazing job at an amazing salary somewhere so don't worry we'll offer you the job next once she says no and indeed you know a lot happened there was a lot of drama around my hiring for a variety of reasons primarily um a variety of reasons um and ultimately uh and ultimately uh you know and uh part of that had to do with actually me me being Jewish and there being too many Jews in the department but nobody officially said that but that was implicit but ultimately I got the job because she turned them down so this stuff has always been has been going on for a long time for decades now this idea of diversity and we need women and we need we need minorities in the department and that's skewed kind of the hiring to some extent and created really justices imagine if I'd not gotten that job this is the job I really wanted because not because they like somebody more than me not because somebody else was better more qualified than me not because uh they had a better dissertation to me they presented better than me they taught better than me or anything like that no they would have gotten the job because of the color of this kid so that's been going on for a long time a long time but DI is different DI is different now I'm I'm going to read you from a post on John Cochran's Grumpy Economist blog which I highly recommend always have one of my favorite economists by far well how can he be one of them by far but he's certainly one of my favorite economists he is quoting so I'll be quoting from him quoting an article that was published uh where was it published oops not that one um it was published in the new discourse by um Stephen Brent Brent oh excuse me and Kobe uh German let me drink some water I'll also be quoting uh or we're telling you the story or quoting from this article by uh Joseph uh Joseph H. Manson who's got I guess a blog as well or a sub stack um where he's he's talking about why he's leaving the university which was published I think a couple of days ago why why he's a tenured faculty and he's leaving he didn't have to leave they can't fire him but he's leaving anyway let's see um I mean I like I like John Cochran Cochran says you know I hate to use the wellian or wellium term DEI and he's right because DEI is not about certainly not about equity not if you understand what equity is and and and not about inclusion or diversity ultimately it's about politics he says um I hate to use the term DEI it is really CPE so DEI is really CPE what does CPE stand for according to uh John Cochran conformity preference and exclusion I like that conformity preference and exclusion okay see is the quote this is what DEI now is all about it's right and I'm quoting by 2019 eight of the 10 and this is often the University of California University 10 uh eight of the 10 University of California campuses mandated that ladder rank faculty recruitment require candidates to submit diversity statements notice this is not about whether you are represent diversity whether you are minority or whatever but your attitude towards diversity that is you have to submit a diversity statement that and I'm quoting again these statements ask candidates to discuss what they have contributed to the university's goals of diversity equity and inclusion so what they're asking you is not I don't know how do you add to the racial or sexual diversity uh uh in our department in our campus which is kind of a question they could never ask in the past but kind of what they were all thinking in the past the question now is what have you done to contribute to the university's goals of diversity equity inclusion what are your views on DEI and what have you actually practiced I mean have you gone to a black lives matter demonstration have you smashed some windows have you signed some petitions have you done something in other words have you been an activist what is your opinion in a sense about DEI so they uh this is again from University of California and this is from the article quoting um they de-alignate criteria for scores ranging from one poor to five excellent an applicant who doesn't discuss gender or race ethnicity should receive a poor score as should an applicant who sees DEI as anti-ethical to academic freedom or university's research mission so if you have a particular political view philosophical view the DEI is not consistent with university's mission that it's not consistent with academic freedom you don't have academic freedom you basically get a poor score so as an applicant who discusses DEI as core values that every faculty member should actively contribute to advancing should receive an excellent score so basically if you agree with their political agenda if you agree with their philosophical agenda then you get an excellent score and if you get if you don't you get a poor score now okay so they rank my of user DEI why does that matter well it matters because this screen is done on all job applicants for academic jobs at the university and only the people who get acceptable scores their resumes their hiring package is then passed on to the departments to review so note that anybody who's not does not have a positive view of DEI who's not an activist with regard to DEI or or pretends to be an activist or argues for activism with regard to DEI doesn't even get the hiring package at the department level to be reviewed at the departmental level for hiring the screened out screened out now you know in a kind of a talk that one sociologists gave actually this is an article she wrote on the pages of inside higher education trying to explain to people how to write their statement right the DEI statement the diversity statement she says don't worry about being too political right because if you write something not too political it might come across as blasé and people and you'll get a poor score indeed you should demonstrate that you have quote awareness of how systematic inequalities affect students ability to excel unquote and you should show your commitment to activism and you should tell your story you know of the obstacles you faced or or if you haven't faced obstacles as many of us obviously have not faced obstacles you need to acknowledge your privilege she recommended that applicants focus on quote racial oppression sexism homophobia transphobia ableism or some other commonly recognized form of oppression and when it comes to teaching she encouraged applicants to express their commitment to anti-racist pedagogy so basically what they're saying is if you want to job at our university at one of these eight of ten uc campuses university of california campuses and this by the way supposedly now i haven't fact-checked all this this could be an exaggeration this could be over the top i kind of remember lying on john carquin fact-checking it maybe he has maybe he hasn't hopefully he has but i think this applies across the university so this would apply to stem this was applied to any position to a business school so any position being high as you're coming out of grad school you have to provide a statement a diversity statement so here's what happens i i already described this but this is in their terms in 2018 the university began to experiment with the use of diversity statement as the initial screening device in faculty searches and i'm quoting from the article in a presentation prepared by uc davis vice provost for academic affairs search committee members were instructed to review a candidate's contribution to a diversity statement before any other part of the application and candidates who do not look outstanding with regard to their contributions diversity would not advance for further consideration in the hiring process in other words only people with the right politics get to move forward only people with the right politics get to be considered for a job uc bookly has published information about the effects of the policy mandating the use of diversity statement as an initial screening device in one faculty search less than one quarter of otherwise qualified candidates had submitted diversity statements that were sufficient for advancement to the next stage of hiring so 75 percent were not deemed acceptable from political perspective for political standard political ideological standard this is a binding constraint now this will turn almost immediately these departments overwhelmingly you know wacky left all the way out there politically that's who they're gonna hire because that's the only people they have to hire from the system will not allow them to hire anybody else during job talks you know where you go to the university as a grad when you're finishing grad school and you present kind of the work that you're doing your dissertation during job talks candidates were asked to explain their ideas about diversity and their responses determine whether they were eligible to be hired in the late stages candidates were limited because they were perceived as being insufficiently committed to DEI regardless of the academic qualifications and this goes on and on and it's it truly is scary and what what happens is that you know you you start building up a faculty that is more and more and more you know aligned with the craziest most left-wing ideas possible and and this is what this guy Joseph H. Manson describes he says he's been a tenure tenure truck professor since 1996 well tenured since 2000 in anthropology department at UCLA and you know for a long time he says this anthropology department and he considers anthropology department was very collegial there was a variety of different points of view generally people tended to be kind of left of center as most academics were but he says gradually one hire at a time practitioners of critical i.e. far left postmodernist anthropology some of them lying about their beliefs during job interviews to not seem as wacky as they really were came to comprise the department's most influential clique they slowly grew also remember they are true believers like if you're like center left eh well why can't we all get along but the the the postmodern left they're true believers they believe everybody else it's not only wrong but but harmful so they stick together and their passion and their fight he said he says there's so many he's so many of these you know they're particularly nasty they are super intimidating and he gives an example of how they've treated a particular colleague of his his name is Jeffrey Brattingham and Jeff developed a simulation model of the geographic and temporal patterns of urban crime he created a predictive software that he that he marketed to law enforcement agencies now you can imagine what the far left thinks of somebody who has a software program that predicts based on area based on demographics based on you know geographic and and over time where crimes are going to be committed you can imagine that they think that this guy is a racist nasty horrible person plus he's working with the police the enemy so they started going after him and they harassed him and and and and and uh you know accused him of racism and everything else and and you know Manson here says look Jeff it's not a racist he's a standard issue liberal democrat didn't matter they restricted his teaching his ability to teach courses uh they reclassified him they harassed him you know so he basically basically Jeff this faculty member stopped attending faculty meetings because he was always put down he basically went silent didn't interact with anybody did his teaching they can't fire him he didn't fight them nobody stood up for him and he just in a sense disappeared I mean they literally tried to you know organize demonstrations against him get the administration to fire him I mean the guy's not being fired he's got tenure it's very hard to fire a tenured faculty but he's also work conditions are horrific um now he says not only was Jeff ostracized he was unpersoned I don't know if that's a word but unpersoned none of the faculty talked about him as if uh you know whenever they could avoid it the department chair for example would open every faculty meeting by solemnly intoning that our department was a community a family and we're here for each other except when we don't like you and then we're not there for you other colleagues who are not part of the fall left were always kind of embarrassed by this and they kind of supported Jeff but they didn't want to talk about it and they didn't want to they were basically completely in denial and they realized this was all bullshit but nobody wants to fight what are they gonna fight for the left has them all high ground here and Jeff himself in the story refused to defend himself he just went silent just turned his back he'll retire one day and he'll be replaced by more of these fall left and they'll hire more of them and more of them and they're committed they're devoted and this is of course all over he says all over UCLA he says not only do you have this DEI but the other part of kind of the the wacky left is a real hatred of Israel anti Zionism which is as he describes it here a thinly disguised hatred of Jews basically people are advocating kind of the worst anti-Israel anti rhetoric and this is supported by grad school students are supported by faculty supported by academic departments taking political positions nobody stands up against them and when somebody does UCLA goes after them and it's well documented and I've talked about on the show different examples of UCLA professors getting harangued suspended and ultimately leaving so Joseph Anson has decided he's leaving he's got many years he could still stay at the university he could get a salary he could do very little he could be like Jeff not interact with anybody teaches classes get a nice pay but instead he is retiring why because it's too painful it's too painful for him to see what's becoming of his department what's becoming of his university it's too painful given that he's a Jew to see the hostility towards him and his fellow Jews I guess on campus it's too painful to see meritocracy free debate out the window I need rather leave and fight from the sidelines and indeed that is what he is doing now this is only going to get worse there's no self-correcting mechanism here there's no constituency that is going to say but this is all wrong this doesn't the professors are not going to do it too many of them uninterested too many of them think that the far left has the more high ground even if it's implicit even if they don't agree with them too many of them are older the younger people coming up are the more radicalized there's nothing to fix this there's no marketplace I mean the marketplace would be students students would stop going to these universities but where else can they go and we'll get to that in a minute I mean there's a sense in which the one mechanism to fix this is alumni stop giving contributions stop giving donations for years and years now I've been telling business groups if you want to save America if you know help this country the one thing you can do is stop giving money to your alma mater but nobody listens I know people who are very friendly towards objectivism super wealthy billionaires who could do whatever they want with their money give it to anybody who want say whatever they want nobody can touch them in a sense and yet they will give to their alma mater they will sit on boards at their alma mater they'll bitch and complain about it constantly oh the universities are so left and they'll write another five million dollar check partially because that way their kids can go to that alma mater to their university why do they want them to if they're so damn left because the prestige the prestige of the university the prestige of being on their board the prestige of just getting along the prestige because everybody else on the board is a big shot businessman like them cc this pattern of wealthy americans whether they're conservatives or whether they're just center right or whether the libertarians who continue to fund the universities continue to write checks and they think that they're writing it to this program or that program and somehow it's included or they're building a building that everybody knows money is fungible everybody knows that if you write a check to university that's not very very clearly delineated towards something new you're basically finding the status quo funding the status quo getting worse funding the move the move towards even worse and worse and worse i remember years ago the the board of regents of darmouth tried to rebel against the university against its hiring against its move towards the left and they were ultimately crushed in many ways the existing university systems particularly the big ones particularly the public ones but even you know in some extent the ivy leagues are worse than anybody are doomed there is no way out of this cycle the only way out is for students to stop going and for that students have to have an alternative and here i think there is some hope we saw the university of austin last year i think they just started offering classes or they're starting in the fall i saw another university started in in um in savannah georgia where jordan peterson i guess is the chancellor something like that that is trying to be an alternative to the existing universities there are now online universities online degrees online classes there's of course youtube where people are learning a lot of stuff they are uh these boot camps where you can learn programming and learn particular skills and some of these boot camps you don't actually pay tuition until you get a job and then you pay up a cent of what you earn so slowly we're seeing alternatives but it's slow in the meantime the universities are breeding ground for worse and worse and worse graduate students which means worse and worse and worse future professors which means worse and worse and worse intellectuals who then influence everything about our culture because they're the people who are quoted on television the people who write the books the people who advise presidents are the people who influence what is going on and there's no there's no surprise that the right in the united states is rebelling the right in the united states is rebelling against what they call the elites what they mean by the elites they mean these university professors and the people they influence the people they train the people who take them seriously there is a real rebellion against this nutty left the rebellion is not in academia it's outside of academia it's about academia it's about the influence academia has and it's about the people who've been influenced by that academic academic these academic programs i as you know i don't think it's a good way in which to address them i don't think the right knows what they're doing i think the right ultimately is going to be as bad as the left but this is what the rebellion is about if you want to rebel against academia then it makes complete sense in us in a way to vote for donald trump right he's the opposite or at least presents himself as the opposite is more similarity to them than most people realize so this is what they're rebelling against and they were rebelling against you know points of view about race and diversity and the nature of reality and the nature of sex and gender and all these things thank you for listening or watching the iran book show if you'd like to support the show we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me you get value from listening you get value from watching show your appreciation you can do that by going to your own book show dot com slash support by going to patreon subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution uh on any one of those uh any one of those channels also if you'd like to see the iran book show grow please consider sharing our content and of course subscribe press that little bell button right down there on youtube so that you get an announcement when we go live and for you those of you who already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show thank you i very much appreciate it


Hello. Greetings from Washington, DC. I'm very happy to welcome our global audience today. Welcome to the United States Institute of Peace. My name is David Yang. I'm USIP's Vice President for Applied Conflict Transformation. USIP is an independent nonpartisan national institute. We were founded by the US Congress in 1984. Supporting youth peace builders is one of USIP's greatest priorities. That's why I'm particularly excited to welcome you to this forum, which is devoted to the fifth anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on youth, peace, and security. In our program today, we will reflect on the progress that has been made on the YPS agenda and the challenges that remain. USIP seeks to work with youth as critical stakeholders and partners at all levels of peace building. We do this through our Generation Change Fellows Program. The program trains youth leaders on leadership, the reduction of prejudice, and the transformation of conflict. We aim to increase the ability of leaders to transform conflict at the local level and also to reduce the isolation they may feel as peace builders. The program currently has about 300 fellows from 26 countries across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. We're fortunate that today two of our panelists are alumni of the Generation Change Fellows Program. These colleagues Lorena and Midrill also serve on USIP's Advisory Council for Youth. The Council is built on the belief that youth bring distinct and important insights to peace building. The Council also elevates youth voices and experiences into international forums wherein the past youth representatives have been too few. If you're interested in hearing more about today's topic, please attend tomorrow's virtual session at PeaceCon, which USIP is co-hosting with the Alliance for Peace Building. You can get more information on tomorrow's session at AllianceforPeaceBuilding.org. Before I turn over the podium to my USIP colleague, Rebecca Ebenezer-Aviola, I'd like to share a dedication. I dedicate today's forum to the memory of Congressman John Lewis, a representative Lewis passed away last July at 80 years of age. He was one of the great civil rights leaders in the United States, and he was a good friend and strong supporter of USIP. While still in college, the young John Lewis was already a leader in the student movement that sought to desegregate America's public spaces. He was the chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which in the US was the only national civil rights organization led by young people. At the time, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote, an electrifying movement of Negro students has shattered the placid surface of campuses and communities across the South. Though confronted in many places by hoodlums, police guns, tear gas arrests, and jail sentences, the students tenaciously continue to sit down and demand equal service at variety store lunch counters and extend their protests from city to city. It is no overstatement to characterize these events as historic. Never before in the United States has so large a body of students spread a struggle over so great an area in pursuit of a goal of human dignity and freedom. This past summer's global protests for racial justice were also led by young people. A few days after Representative John Lewis' death, The New York Times published his farewell note, which really reads like a letter to young peace builders. Representative Lewis wrote, While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life, you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the Great American Story, when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Then reflecting on his college days, Representative Lewis continued, Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of non-violence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. So when you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state, it is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we call the beloved community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.  In my life, I've done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and non-violence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring. When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last, and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide. Thus as we celebrate the fifth anniversary of Resolution 2250, let us celebrate the life of the young John Lewises around the world, and let us redouble our support for youth peace builders wherever they are courageously working. I'd like to thank Rebecca and her colleagues at USIP Paula Porras, Paul Lee and Allison Milovsky for driving USIP's work on youth. And I thank Lorena Miedrila and Cecile for their leadership and for joining us today. And now over to Rebecca, who's usually based in wet and steamy logos, but who's currently studying in wet and chilly Aberdeen, Scotland. Thanks, Rebecca. Thank you very much, David, for those inspiring words. As David mentioned, tomorrow, December 9 marks the 50th anniversary since the adoption of the first ever UN Security Council Resolution on Youth Peace and Security, that's UNSCR 2250. Prior to 2250, there was no comprehensive framework with which to address the specific needs and opportunities of young people. On 2250, field this gap by providing a framework for viewing, addressing, designing and evaluating peace building activities involving young people. This policy framework focuses on five action areas that make up the youth peace and security agenda. These are participation, protection, prevention, partnership, and disengagement and reintegration. 2250 has been followed by two other resolutions on YPS. These are SCR 2419 in 2018 and SCR 2535 in 2020. And all these resolutions are calling for and emphasizing on the need for full youth participation in peace processes. It's been five years since 2250. What progress have we made? What barriers still exist? And what opportunities can we explore as we continue to strive for meaningful youth inclusion, a lot of aspects of peace building interventions. To help us unpack these issues are three peace builders that are joining us today. Lorena Gomez, Mridul Upadiye, and Cecil Mazakurati. Lorena is a youth peace builder from Colombia. In addition to serving as a member of the USIP Youth Advisory Council, she's also a social entrepreneur, travel builder, and a journalist with a focus on ecotourism. I think you can see from her background. Mridul is serving the second term with the USIP Youth Advisory Council, and is also a generational change fellow from India. Mridul is the Asia coordinator of the UNOY and the co-founder of Youth for Peace International. What's not least is Cecil Mazakurati, who is the head of the Secretariat on Youth Peace and Security at UNFPA and represents the United Nations Peace Building Support Office as the co-chair of the Global Coalition on Youth Peace and Security. Thank you to all the panelists for joining us today. And for all of you who are watching this webcast, remember that you can follow us on social media with today's hashtag. hashtag UNSCR20250. And if you have a question, please use the chat box function located just below this video player on the USIP events page. So let's get started. Cecil, can you walk us through the journey of the adoption of the first resolution on YPS? How did it come about? What prompted it? And who was involved? Thank you, Rebecca, and thank you USIP for organizing this event. Happy birthday to Resolution 20250. It's really exciting to already be celebrating this fifth anniversary. And so five years ago, the adoption of Resolution 20250 took everyone by surprise. The Kingdom of Jordan, who had a seat in the Security Council at that moment, had committed to getting a resolution on young people adopted. But nevertheless, it seemed really far-fetched. We all know that the Security Council can be very divided, including among its permanent members. The Security Council had said very little about young people. And as we know in international for rights, it's very hard to get new language adopted by member states in resolution. So it didn't seem at all, frankly, likely that it would happen. So it really was a feast when the text was adopted. It really was a momentous achievement by the Kingdom of Jordan who was able to bring together the members of the people and get the resolution unanimously adopted. A resolution that included a lot of new language around young people and peace, including language coming from young people themselves. And from in particular the Amman Youth Declaration, which had been adopted by hundreds and thousands of young people around the world the previous summer. And that's really where youth peace and security and the resolution comes from. It comes from young people. It comes from young peace builders throughout the world, who for years before the adoption of 2250, loved their government, loved international and non-governmental organizations, loved the United Nations people like me to say, we need a text that would say young people have a place at the table. We need a resolution similar to the Women Peace and Security Resolution Resolution 1325 because we see how for women's groups and women peace builders, they can really use it to engage with their government. And so it's young people that started this process with various organizations at local level, at international level, the United Network of Young Peace Builders, which Marie Dole is a member of, was really leading the charge. It's a network of youth peace building organizations. And their members were very engaged and really started this movement. Another key constituency was international peace building organizations, non-governmental peace building organizations. What is now called youth peace and security really came from the youth peace building field. And for peace building organizations, it was always very clear that you can only build peace working with local actors, including young women and men. And so pushed by these two main constituencies, slowly the UN system member states got interested and started getting engaged. And at first it really was just a network of individuals in various organizations who all got interested and committed and decided basically to join forces and create this partnership beyond organizational structures to push this discussion and help push the call of young people. So we created an interagency platform, which is now called the Global Coalition on Youth Peace and Security, which originally was called the interagency working group on youth and peace building when it was first created in 2012. And really already at that time with the idea, again pushed by young peace builders, that a resolution was what they wanted. At that time adopting a resolution seemed really far fetched. So we developed guiding principles, overarching principles that should guide our engagement with young people in peace building, be gender sensitive, protect young people, reach out to the most marginalized and ensure diversity of young people are engaged. And this also helped pave the way towards the adoption of the resolution. So in the end it really is I think the illustration of the famous quote by Margaret Mead never underestimate the power of a small group of committed people to change the world. In fact, it's the only thing that ever has because it really was this small coalition of various individuals that was eventually able to get the resolution adopted. Thank you, Cecil. Lorena, let me come to you as a young person from Columbia. What is the significance of 2250 to you? How has it impacted your peace building work? Well, I want to first say hello to everyone who's online. And yeah, welcome you all. Thank you for being here. And yes, I guess my answer to that question has a story behind because this resolution came to my life in July 2018, because I didn't really know about the resolution before. But then there was you an officer, his name is Mauricio Artilla Artiniano, he's from Costa Rica. And he works with the UN verification mission here in Columbia. And he decided to activate this resolution in order to do something with the park, with park guerrilla transition base camps. So he wanted to help them activate their local projects. And he used the resolution to enable the UN to lend us the helicopters. And he called upon a group of youth peace builders and social entrepreneurs who could support and help activate their projects. So he called a big group of ours and thanks to him and the resolution we were able to travel to these areas. I went to one of the areas who were really at the heart of conflict in Columbia. The name of the place is Elcaguan. Normally Colombians are usually quite scared about going there, but it felt good to feel that the UN was with us. We felt secure enough in order to access the place. And then we were the first visitors of this rafting project that has been growing after our visit. And that was the first time I came really into intimate touch with former guerrilla combatants. And it was an important experience also to me, not only as a Colombian, because it meant a lot to see that place from a different perspective and understand these people's point of view. But also professionally because it enabled me to see the challenges that haven't been noticed yet in tourism and post-conflict projects. And that is that mainly these tour guides, emerging tour guides, they really lack, they need to strengthen their interpersonal communication skills in order to create conversations that inspire oneness instead of division. Because everybody, especially Colombians, when you visit the place, there's a lot happening in between at an emotional level. So meeting them was very illustrative for me. And that was the first opportunity that allowed me to notice that, develop concepts and some work around that topic, like thinking of the psychological process. So these new tour guides want to develop because they also want it as well for them to tell their stories and manage difficult conversations and have a tourism narrative that connects everyone and avoids conflict or prevents it by generating a proper context and humane connection. So it was actually amazing because three years later, I was hired by these same social project, they are now a social enterprise called Caguan Expeditions. And they hired me because I had the experience no one else had before to assess them as someone who works in ecotourism and narratives. So just last October, I was able to go back and use all that previous experience to assess them. And since there was trust already, I was able to share with them three weeks and have a lot of coffees and understand them well and help them feel the narrative. So really this resolution ended up being a chance for me to access a new part of Columbia, not only regionally but also the opportunity to work with a new community because I had always worked with Indigenous people, but there is a completely different approach when you go to another group. So they have a very special dynamic and that also impacted my peace building work because I learned this strategy was not about doing workshops but rather having a lot of night coffees with them with long conversations about life. So yeah, I would say that's how it has impacted and last but not least, well it also showed me in the process I realized because I am young, I am a peace builder, because I normally didn't use to call myself like that, I just did my work. So I realized this resolution exists and there is a whole movement, an entire movement around youth, like using these two keywords opens a lot of doors, and that's how I also got engaged in a program, the University of Georgetown organizes for Latin American leaders, youth leaders, and also with the USIP. So I'm personally very thankful to that resolution, it opened a whole new world for me. Thank you Lorena for sharing those personal stories. Ridu, let me come to you. How would you say the role of young people have changed in peace building interventions and what has 2250 got to do with that. So as it has been previously mentioned by Cecil and Lorena, young people work and young people are anyway doing a lot of peace building work, despite all the barriers that they were facing or if they are getting supported or not. So I would not say that the role has changed role is still the same young people are contributing to peace building interventions. What has changed is something else. So why we wanted this resolution was that young people were asking for recognition and support so that they can do more work so that they can get protected so that the voices can make direct changes in the institutions and in the systems. And that is happening slightly and UNSCR 2250 actually became that global consensus on young people's positive role in peace building. So yeah, that mindset change, I think that is something what UNSCR 2250 has brought before that there was nothing we kept saying there was some research that we kept showing to the people to the stakeholder that young people are doing at large young people are coming from positive intentions and contributing to peace building, but this resolution actually became that global consensus, and the five pillars of UNSCR 2250 which is participation, protection, partnership, participation, and disengagement and the integration. So these five pillars actually became the key important thematic directions of recommendation to advance the youth peace and security work. So, yeah, the role of young people hasn't changed, but how others stakeholders are engaging young people that has started changing slightly. Thank you, Maridol, and I can say that that's some progress that has been made if engagement with the way others stakeholders are engaging with young people have changed that some significant progress. Cecil, I wonder if you can articulate some other progress that have been made in the YPS space since 2015 when this resolution was adopted. Thank you, Rebecca. Well, to me, the most significant progress is when it has, when we see that the resolution has had an impact on young people's lives, you know, including their individual experiences like the one we just heard from Lorena, I think it's a great story. If we take a more macro level perspective. So what has changed, I think significantly is the narrative about young people's relationship to peace and security. Thanks to, again, young people's advocacy primarily, and with the help of the resolution, we shifted from a predominantly negative discourse about young people as a threat for peace, which generally had a subversion, which is youth unemployment as a global threat for peace towards a positive narrative, recognizing that it's only ever a minority of young people who are engaged in violence, that in all contexts, the majority of young people are peaceful and want to go on with their lives like everyone else, they want to go to school, they want to have a job, they want to have a family, and that some of them are doing tremendous piece building work that has not been recognized, funded and supported enough. And that narrative, which was not at all the dominant narrative in 2014, even in 2015, and even in 2016, I think now we've really seen an evolution. We see much less automatic association of young people and violent extremist groups of youth unemployment as a problem for peace. I think the narrative has been really refined, and really everyone has seen that actually evidence tells us that young people are peaceful and that we should be focusing on that. So that I think is the most significant progress. With that came, of course, the political buy-in. It started in the Security Council, but we saw it growing well beyond the walls of the council with white support from numerous member states, which of course is very important because that's part of the reshaping of this narrative. And most importantly, of course, is the progress and impact at field level. And so we've seen more interventions, programs supporting the work of young people. I think we've seen much better programming in part of the work I do is to work with or field colleagues in developing programs on youth peace and security. And we see a lot less of let's create a network of young people and a lot more of they are young people who are active for peace. Let's find them. Let's see what they need. Let's see how we can support them. Let's put in place mechanisms that are sustainable and durable and that do not create top-down approaches that are really supporting bottom-up approaches. I think another important indicator of progress has been the building of coalitions on youth peace and security. And we've seen coalitions at the national level in a number of countries, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Nigeria, India as a regional knows more than anyone. And many others they are regional level coalitions and these coalitions were bringing together partners, again, from a civil society from government counterparts from the UN have really been instrumental in pushing the agenda at regional level. I want to say a couple of things that I think have not progressed enough because it's important to keep that in mind as we enter into this new phase. And two things in particular. The first one is funding, because we can talk about youth peace and security as much as we'd like. If we don't actually support the efforts of young peace builders, we're not going to get really far and we know a lot of the youth peace building work is done by very small organizations that might not even be an organization, the bank account might not have a structure, but nevertheless, it's, you know, a lot of volunteers who are full of great ideas. How do we support them for the fantastic work that they do? And that is still really a glaring gap, I would say, of the youth peace and security agenda. And the other areas where things have not progressed, where actually things have gotten worse, I think, is the protection of young peace builders. It's always been an issue, young peace builders, young and old human rights activists have always been under threats. But we've seen in the past year, an important restriction of the civic space. We all know it. And we've seen it directly on young peace builders. We've seen an increase in the threats and harassments they face. We know that young peace builders who are also directly engaging with the international community, with the United Nations and with others are being directly threatened and punished for that. That I think is a dramatic evolution and really something we need to prioritize going forward. That's such an important point to touch on that even though we've made so much progress, there's still some areas that still need a lot of work. And Ridul, I wonder if you can speak more to that from a young person's perspective. What are those barriers that still exist? Cecil has mentioned quite a few, but from your own perspective, at the national and community level, what would we say are some of the barriers that still exist to meaningful youth involvement, meaningful youth engagement in peace building. Yeah, so I think Cecil has already pointed out a few. I will just try to like picture this in two ways. One is the micro kind of things and one is micro kind of things. If you want to understand the micro kind of things then you can read the resolutions, the five pillars, those were existing barriers, those were the challenges and that's why we wanted to have this resolution. So how much participation is happening, who is participating, are young people being able to participate socially, economically and at a meaningful and active level in the decision making, that's there. Physically of course. So then how much partnership is happening between the stakeholder to do peace building work and how young people are contributing to that, the protection of young peace builders, that is already mentioned. And then it's the prevention part. How much we are working on the prevention instead of let's say mitigating the effect of it, and what are the strategies of prevent. So is it a building part or is it preventing or actual, let's say, whole of society approach from the very beginning. That kind of prevention and then the disengagement and the integration so all of these pillars are itself an answer to some of the challenges which were identified. So that's one now going deeper into these conversations so funding protection. These things are already mentioned I will just slightly elaborate on these points. So how about participation itself. So the important thing about participation is that. Okay I'll come to the implementation part later but in order to ensure meaningful and active participation and decision making young people actually need to have some kind of representational role right like in a country like India where we are having 400 million young people these 400 million young people themselves cannot directly engage in decision making. So they need to have a consultation done with young people. We need to identify priorities a coalition need to be built a research need to happen. All of these kinds of things are need to happen, but young people are not trusted with big consultations or running a network or running a coalition. This is left with big organizations I NGOs. So you know if young people are not supported for research and for running these consultation, how young people will be able to identify the national level priorities and be able to introduce it to the decision maker. So that's the kind of approach that's one barrier, which we are facing in the community. Now going to. Okay just adding to it, which I would want to even bring later, which is, even if let's say we are having these priorities with us. What is happening now with these resolution we are talking a lot about implementation. So the advocacy can be very much right based where we are like okay we are the young people this is our issue. This gives us space, and we want to decide for ourselves. So it's a very right based, but unfortunately it seems that implemented implementation cannot be right based implementation looks merit based whoever has the resources, whoever has the capacity, they will be implementing. So now when we are talking about implementing of UNSCR 2250 there young people can be sidelined or token tokenize very easily. It's like if you have the resources, if you have the understanding of how the implementation need to happen, then only you will engage in the decision making of the implementation. So that's also a barrier around participation, going further. The second part is protection which is already mentioned, and this protection is not only limited to like political protection but social and economic protection as well. Like once someone start working in peace building field, if that the volunteering is the only option for them. It's not only the brain brain happening after some time but it is the peace building potential dream happening. Young people very early starting volunteering with organizations doing a lot of peace building work, but then they feel then they see that there is no like future in this field they are not able to earn their livelihoods and this and they had to switch to some other field. These amazing young people you see and you get very disappointed when your team members are leaving because we cannot sustain them, because our organization is zero budget initiative or we are not able to use the fund. And that's a very huge thing. Second part is social protection as well. So the society itself, it's the idea of how young people are seen as opportunist as someone who are doing this work to join UN or to attend conferences and this narrative itself that the trust of community is not there. So that kind of protection actually harms young people a lot when we are having any partnership the trust when we don't see it just demotivates us a lot. So these like other than the physical protection and so the physical and mental protection is also very important reason being one more thing because this protection, if you're talking about human right defenders, then they still have some kind of support groups, but young people support group is not there. Still, so global coalitions thematic working group is working on that creating that kind of support group for young people. But that is something that we need to work on. And the last part is funding, of course, that that contributes to a lot of things. So, I'd like to follow up on what Cecil and Riddle have mentioned about some of these barriers you've mentioned funding lack of resources protection. What would be your recommendation for overcoming these barriers. And any of you can answer, Lorena Riddle Cecil, what else, what would be your recommendation. There are already recommendations, I think, not just from three of us, but 4,230 young people, we have this independent progress study on with peace and security the missing piece. Young people from all over the world have called different stakeholder for the kind of things that they want the kind of implementation that they want how inclusive it should be. What can be the guiding principles. That is also lined up it just now we need to act on it different stakeholder need to do a little bit more to be able to work on it I think that that's my feeling when I see. Lorena. I think there's sort of an approach that might be missing. It's not only about participation participation is not just giving a chair to someone and have nominal participation, you know, it's really how to have intergenerational dialogue which I think is an approach. We're probably missing because it is also true and I've noticed that and learned it a lot from indigenous communities. We cannot be. We cannot know a lot of things if we don't learn from elders, and they also get energy from us. There's a mutual, mutually beneficial relationship that we should poster. And we should also that in, let's say, for instance, a mutual feedback and dialogue spaces and decision making that includes enough people from both sides and like dialogue in that sense that makes it more horizontal not just have one representative and all use or whatever because that ends up being a lot of responsibility and it. Well, it's a minority that's seated on the table, instead of promoting like real dialogue between generations which I think it's much more useful and in that sense you can create a common agenda and assign a common budget. Because without budget, there's, as we say in Colombia, in rural Colombia, like there's no reality as long as you don't have a clear budget, like nothing will happen. Just based on words. And, and adding to what they said, what Murdo and Cecil mentioned about what might be missing. I want to add that I'm probably adding the concept of supporting social entrepreneurship and talking about budget could also strengthen the resolution because it makes having a social enterprise makes you less gives you autonomy. It really creates an idea of abundance and yeah, it activates more processes just that don't necessarily need to be attached to what's happening in the biggest in the big scale now. So, that makes it easier to keep on moving while things move on the international in the international scenario. Just two more things I would like to add. There's, we can also start talking more about causes of peace, following what Cecil said a while ago, instead of causes of violence and conflict like we should insist in that language and think more about how you can flourish and have meaningful jobs, how they can have and how they make sense, and strengthen their identity because I think as long as people, as long as you know who you are, you're not going to let someone else convince you of who you have to be, in order to be accepted feel accepted feel masculine having a gun or anything like that. So I think really focusing on a personal development approach, which I know several programs are doing already but maybe including that in the resolution and as Cecil said a while ago again, is changing the narrative like improving the narrative that already exists could sum up a lot. And as a strategic idea, I would say journalism is a key, is a key point here, I believe, and media that helps protect youth leaders. So, but, but well with that one, just to say, Okay, no, I'm going to leave it there. And I'll let you continue. Thank you, Lorena. We're even still going to unpack many of the things you said about some things that are missing from the resolution. But first, let me remind everyone that is watching right now that you can interact with our panelists by dropping your questions in the chat function under the webcasts. All right, and earlier in the conversation, Cecil talked about WPS that's women peace and security agenda. Many people consider WPS as the older older sibling to YPS, you know, and it has been a guiding light for for the youth peace and security agenda, which we all know is quite a is still a developing space. Cecil, what do you think we can learn from WPS and other inclusive spaces that can be adapted to YPS what opportunities you think we need to explore to improve the YPS agenda in general. WPS is definitely the older sister of resolution 2250. I mean, it was an inspiration. Again, it's young people who said we see how 1325 is useful to women's groups, we want something like that that will help open the doors for us. So it's really, I mean the two resolutions are the two agendas are really the two facets of the same coin and that coin is the inclusivity of peace as a condition for its sustainability. And there's so much that YPS learned from WPS and first and foremost the centrality of a gender analysis in everything we do that is related to peace and security, and youth peace and security is fundamentally a gender agenda, because it is about deconstructing violence in young communities and passive feminities. It is about promoting the leadership of young women.  It's a very first lesson for from from WPS. And so what actually happened in 2000 and early 2016, just after the adoption of resolution 20 to 50 as I said earlier, we didn't expect the resolution to be adopted so it caught all of us by surprise and so in early 2016, the whole coalition of actors working on these issues without okay and now what what do we do so we thought well let's ask women peace and security colleagues, what's their advice to us because it's been 15 years for for implementation of the WPS agenda. Let's hear what they have to tell us about what we should do and not do. They told us a lot of really interesting things that we followed quite scrupulously. They told us build the evidence base demonstrate provide evidence provide data about how young people contribute to peace which is what we did with the progress study on youth peace and security that we don't just mentioned that was based on extensive research consultations country case studies etc. They said, raise awareness. It's not because you have a resolution that people know it that people understand it and that people are going to use it, take any opportunity you have to make it known to talk about it, and to bring this narrative forward, which is also something that we and I say we as it's really the real real collective of organizations and partners, did with multiple events on youth peace and security, including among others with us IP. They said prioritize partnership and build coalitions which is also something in that case that was a condition to the adoption of 2250, but that has continued to be prioritized and I've mentioned the coalitions at country and regional level. They also say prioritize localization support the work of local actors so that the implementation is bottom up and it's not top down, because that's the only way of course it will work. So if you say prioritize accountability and monitoring, you need concrete indicators, you need specific accountability systems, you need system wide action plan so that everybody has the same vision and the same objectives. And I would say that is maybe the one part of their advice that we haven't been able to do so much progress on we've talked a lot about youth let accountability systems. Support young people holding governments, multilateral organizations, including the security council accountable for the implementation of 2250, but there's still a lot more work to do there. I think one of the fundamental lesson that we've. I think that we're all learning WPS and YPS is how do you keep the balance between the keeping the political edge and the movement that's really behind this agenda. Again, it comes from people who want war to end. But at the same time, when you want organizations to embrace it, you need also concrete so smaller scale objectives right so you need to be able to say we're going to increase the number of female in our armed forces, and we need to have to reserve seats for women young on the table so how do you balance the technical checklist approach that is needed for progress to be done, but how do you keep the political momentum and the political edge that is I think the fundamental challenge of these agendas. So if anyone has suggestions that would be great to hear. And please definitely drop those suggestions in the chat box we would love to hear your thoughts. So. Now, looking at the YPS, all the resolutions, there are already three resolutions now since 252 other resolutions are followed really quickly in 2018 and we had 2535 just this year that was adopted. What do you think is missing in these resolutions or what do you think needs to be added in future resolutions I know Lorena has already started touching on those in her earlier contribution, you know, but just in your own opinion. In fact, would even say we need more resolutions, you know, you know, do we need more resolutions and if we do what should be in those future resolutions what do you think is missing in this current resolutions. And again, any of our panelists can answer. Here we go. Please go ahead. We need more resolutions. There's one point that we can think of, because of which that we have it seems to be sufficient in order to do a lot of peace building work in the near future. The other mindset also says that we need to have more resolution, just so youth peace and security is continuing to be in the discourse. And when I'm saying so, we need to be very mindful about the political dimension or the divide that the council members have at the Security Council, which is what Cecil was mentioning in the beginning. Somehow we need to go beyond that divide because currently that divide is creating a lot of intended and unintended consequences. I give you this context. The resolution says that majority of young people are not the victim or perpetrator of violence, but the peace builder or somewhere living their own lives, not like in the violence or doing something to not have the conflict. We are having that kind of dimension, but as much as we are talking about counter violent extremism or preventing violent extremism or counter terrorism, we are creating something counterproductive. We are creating again and again, or we are highlighting again and again the same perpetrator and victim role. Since 911 in the same Security Council, which has produced three resolutions in the last five years, since 911 it has created 82 resolutions on counter violent extremism and PV. 82 every year it is creating four resolutions. You see so over the 19 years it is producing every year for resolution at least four or five resolutions, but in youth peace and security we are having only three. It seems that we need to produce more so that we are having more of these conversations, otherwise the attention, otherwise the discourse is going somewhere else, even after having the same positive discourse in the same council. So this is what I think. I think that I would say, yeah, it's because the narrative needs to evolve. We need more resolutions in order to speak in a in a way that makes helps youth make more sense and everyone, because if we emphasize and I agree with myrtle, if we emphasize always in counter violent extremism, we're always talking about how to attend disaster. This works like in risk management programs instead of real prevention, but prevention not thought only as prevention, but how can we help others really flourish and become themselves and engage with their surroundings, including nature as a living being to which you should also relate in a peaceful way because it is not only between humans we need to make peace. So I think it's more about how to help youth grow in a meaningful way and not just how to avoid them taking arms because we can be violent in so many ways. That's why non violence. I love that David in open the introduction and talked about non violence consists not. It's how can we react non violently, even with our families because I've seen even the root of these violences starts in the families. So how can we have also family approach, because many of these youth, at least in Columbia, and in general in Latin America, they go out from their houses because they don't feel accepted they have a violent family so they just want to go and find a group to belong to. And that's what they get involved in this kind of yeah, and groups that use arms and drugs. And, and adding to that, as well in a way to help protect I was about to mention the journalism point. I believe that is incredibly important and we need to find a strategic ways for us to go through media and tell our stories. And because I, I recently met a social leader in Columbia he's a well experienced and communist leader. Well, I mean, communist now he belong to park and he's a farmer. The point is, he said something, he said something like, you know, I'm more afraid of someone who knows how to write. Can you hear me. Yes, go ahead Lorena. Sorry, last connection for a second. I'm more afraid of someone who knows how to write well and can use a pen than from someone who has a gun. He said journalism has created conflict in Columbia more than anything else like biased words. So we should also make an emphasis on that, I believe, and look for strategic ways, at least in my case, I try to do, I do travel writing as a side approach to mention things in order to keep myself safe. And also what I like about tourism narratives is that I help people tell their own stories. So that doesn't put me at risk, but it's more like something that's collective and doesn't have a one single face. So we can look for strategies in terms of media that can strengthen that our security. And just to finish, I would say, yeah, education of the heart like, let's not forget that approach. Just recalling that he's holding his Dalai Lama. Thank you Lorena for mentioning that. So still do you have anything to add. We have quite a number of questions in the from our audience. Just very briefly, I mean, there's a lot more that resolutions on youth peace and security could say there's a lot more to say about the role of young women for peace and security. There's a lot more to say around human rights and protection issues. There's a lot more to say on the relationship between climate change and peace and security and the role of young people in raising attention and awareness on all that. There's more operational directions that could be given. And we know that it's not because we have good language that we can't go back and we've seen it at sadly this year with the 20th anniversary of Resolution 1325 and the failed attempt to have a new resolution on women, peace and security adopted because some council members felt that the proposed text was going was going back on a number of elements that were already acquired. So we have to be we have to keep growing and pushing, including at the political level for this agenda but I just want to end by saying that Resolution 2535 which was adopted this summer really is a fabulous resolution in the sense that it includes all these very operational and concrete elements. It tells the United Nations in particular do this, develop these guidelines, prioritize protection, appoint focal points etc. So these types of resolution really helped pave the way to do some very good work. So, so at least we have a very good foundation to work on. I agree 2535 really lays some concrete recommendations, you know on how to operationalize, you know the YPS agenda. Somebody is asking in the audience. The question is do you think setting up a specific youth peace security UN fund to support grassroots young people's initiative for transformative change. Do you think that would help? The complicated funding on youth peace and security will help is needed. Should it be with the UN, should it be with other partners. That's another discussion I mean we've tried within the UN to get funding allocated to youth led organizations and very often it's very complicated because of a number of administrative requirements, donor requirements etc. It is needed. They are efforts within the UN system such as the youth promotion initiative from the peace building fund to allocate funding to civil society organizations so that they can do their work on youth and peace building. But what we've seen is that very often it's very hard for youth organizations to access this funding because they don't have an annual budget of $300,000. They don't have audit reports. They don't have all these requirements that are normal for a big donor to ask. So what we need is a funding system that is also really tailored to the needs and to the capacities of young people. You know, have them do a proposal through video. Why do you need to read necessarily a results matrix have them do and you know monitoring of their projects through you know visual based forms etc. So there's a lot that can be innovated and get that going to be thought about but for sure we need dedicated funding. Yeah, I'm just adding to it. It should be probably independent and multi partner so that the community itself can own the decision making as well. Thank you. We're going to the end of our session today, but somebody asked us to rate to rate the five pillars. Does anybody want to take that. How do you want me to to mention participation, partnership, prevention, protection, disengagement and the integration. Thank you so much. And thank you all to all our panelists for joining us today it's been a really engaging conversation with you all and see you another time. Thank you for joining us. Bye for now. And I send a big hug for everyone to everyone from the Columbia and Amazon. Thank you.