Youth and Women: Intersection of Identities in Peace and Security

Image by David Bomberg’s ‘In the Hold’ (1913) © Tate Images

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The United Nations Security Council Resolutions 2250 (2015) and 2419 (2018) underpin the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) Agenda. Resolution 2250 recognizes that young people play an important and positive role in the maintenance and promotion of international peace and security. It acknowledges the positive, enduring impact that young people can have on the resolution of conflict and the process of peacebuilding. The YPS Agenda contributes to the sustainable peace agenda of the UN and the fulfilment of the Sustainable Development Goals. Specifically, the YPS Agenda recognizes the potential, ability and contribution of 1.8 billion young people from around the globe to resolving humanitarian conflicts, post-conflict reconstruction, rehabilitation, recovery and reconciliation.

Both the YPS Agenda and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) Agenda seek to highlight the critical need to include identities marginalised and excluded from peace processes. While implementation of these Agendas has been far from consistent, there is promise in the eagerness displayed by the diversity of young people for the resolution of conflicts and the building of peace and security across the globe.

The webinar will focus on the YPS Agenda in the light of the contribution that young people have historically made in peace processes, including the impact of durable peace on young people. Current global issues of concern as identified by young citizens will be discussed; including how these issues differ from, or are similar to priorities promoted by the UN or state bodies; and where there is overlap with the WPS Agenda. Specifically, the challenges and opportunities for the safe and equitable inclusion of young people in peace processes will be examined. Finally, the webinar will reflect on Australia’s potential to promote the diversity of young people to participate as decision makers in global peace making.

Speakers

Associate Professor Katrina Lee-Koo
Dr. Helen Berents
Dr. Primitivo Ragandang
Dakshata Sharma

Facilitated by Arushi Ganguly, Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs at the College of Asia and the Pacific

Katrina Lee-Koo is an Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations at Monash University and a researcher at Monash University's Gender, Peace and Security Research Centre. Dr. Lee-Koo's research focuses upon women's leadership and inclusion in peace and security sectors, women's political leadership and the gendered politics of armed conflicts. Her research has been published in leading journals. She sits on the editorial board for the Australian Journal of Political Science, the Australian Journal of Politics and History, the Australian Journal of International Affairs and Politics and Gender.

Helen Berents is an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow in the School of Justice, Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice at the Queensland University of Technology, and a Chief Investigator with the QUT Centre for Justice. Her DECRA Fellowship examines youth peace advocacy and leadership in the context of the emergent global ‘Youth, Peace and Security Agenda’. Helen’s research is interested children and youth, peace and conflict, and local responses to violence and insecurity. She draws on feminist international relations, critical peace studies, and the sociology of youth to inform her work on representations and participation of children and youth in peace and conflict, everyday approaches to peacebuilding, and local-global relations in peace and security governance.

Primitivo III Cabanes Ragandang specialises youth in (post) conflict contexts. He is a Political Science Assistant Professor at Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology in the Philippines, where he earned a doctorate in Sustainable Development Studies in 2018. He is currently pursuing a PhD at The Australian National University, exploring the intergenerational intersect of community resilience and collective memory in a hybrid political order.

Dakshata Sharma is passionate about social change and education as a way to move towards an equitable future. She works for a specialist homelessness service which services women & families at risk of homelessness, domestic violence and systemic disadvantage, working within a mentoring program providing pathways to study, training and employment for women. Outside of her interest in the DV space, Dak volunteers within a girl-led, youth organisation, which empowers girls and young women to discover their potential as leaders of their world. She was recently nominated as the Youth Volunteer of the Year at the North Sydney NSW Volunteer Awards 2021.

Women, Peace and Security 2021 Webinar Series

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) webinars are focused at examining the implementation of the WPS agenda at the local, national and global contexts. It has been more than 20 years since the adoption of UN Security Resolution 1325 (in 2000) yet the progress towards the goal of peace, human rights and security, gender equality and gender justice has at best been slow. This series provides a forum to hear diverse voices and perspectives - academic, civil society, government, peace builders and women human rights defenders - and to critically examine these complex challenges, with a goal of promoting the meaningful participation of women, in all their diversity, in all aspects of peace and security.

This webinar is the fourth in the ANU Gender Institute Women, Peace and Security 2021 Webinar Series.