Three essential ingredients for lasting, sustainable peace

UN Women supports the Young Women Peacebuilders Initiative and other programmes that empower youth leaders and help fulfill the promise of the global Women, Peace and Security agenda. And as world leaders mark 30 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action for gender equality, UN Women continues to amplify the voices of all women and girls – and fight for their rights to peace and participation.

We recently spoke with three young leaders who, along with their personal stories, shared three ingredients for peace to flourish.

For Olla Alsakkaf (30), the civil war in Yemen made peace work unavoidable. “The war was in my city… I was so close to the conflict parties, so close to the victims,” says the peace and climate activist, recalling her time volunteering in local conflict mediation.

Despite the direct toll conflict and the climate crisis have on women and young people, they are excluded on many levels of decision-making, explains Alsakkaf. Barriers to participation surround them and young women’s leadership is missing from these important conversations and spaces, from local peace negotiations to international climate change conferences.

In her home, the lack of reliable electricity and internet makes it difficult to connect and be heard. In 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alsakkaf recalls being invited to speak virtually at the United Nations Security Council about issues facing youth – only for her internet to get disconnected, cutting off her voice.

In communities around the world, social taboos hinder women’s issues like climate change, period poverty and violence from being discussed publicly. Those that do speak out are threatened by online abuse or even arrest. Meanwhile, local climate disruption and resource stress – especially water scarcity – fuel conflict. Women and girls, often responsible for water collection and caretaking, face the heaviest burdens, showing the gendered edge of climate insecurity.

From the local level to the international stage, women and young people should be seen as partners, says Alsakkaf. “In contexts like Yemen, women take on a lot of responsibilities in the home; they understand the impacts and consequences of the little details. And young people are using technology in better ways, gaining trust and achieving a lot of things faster.”

As Elene Gureshidze (22) crossed a street in North Nicosia, Cyprus, a piece of street art caught her attention. “My ancestors have self-harmed for generations,” it read. She was visiting from her native Georgia to participate in UN Women training under the flagship SheLeads: Upcoming Leaders Programme, when the art inspired her as a prompt for peace and reconciliation. She envisioned a pathway: acknowledge harm, accept responsibility, make room for conversation, and allow new generations to bring hope.

The workshop she was attending sought to do exactly that: bring together young women from conflict divided communities for intercommunal dialogue.

At first, the room was tense. History sat between the groups. “We didn't really have anything in common other than the ability to speak English and the willingness to build peace,” says Gureshidze. But she saw an avenue for connection: play. An avid athlete, she proposed a padel match, mixing players across ethnic lines so no one stood with their own “side.”

The change was immediate: cheering, small jokes, early ease. The playful competition paved the way for the raw conversations that followed on displacement, prejudice, and whether living together is possible again. “It was so interesting to talk with them. We disagreed – like we completely disagreed – but even the disagreements were very valuable information for me.”

Gureshidze says the experience provided lessons for her work in youth-led, cross-community dialogues: the goal is not to reach an agreement but to build trust. She invites parties to listen to understand, rather than to react; be willing to concede something real; and work together on something that transforms “the other” into a peer – like through the board game she and other young peacebuilders are designing to challenge stereotypes.

“We don’t want to be made famous after we are dead,” says Nil Bailarín (29). “We want to be heard before.” In the Antioquia’s Indigenous territories in Colombia where she comes from, leadership can be lethal. That’s especially true for trans women, she says. “People of cuerpos y espíritus diversos (diverse bodies and spirits).”

“There was a painful moment [in my childhood],” says Bailarín. “All the Indigenous trans girls in my community were pressured to cut their hair, to erase who they were. That injustice, and also seeing domestic violence in the community, pushed me to say: No more violence against women, no more violence against diverse people. That became my mission and still is.”

Growing up in a region still marked by the aftershocks of Colombia’s conflict – threats, kidnappings, killings – her focus became protection and participation. In 2022, Bailarín made history as Colombia’s first trans Indigenous governor. Today, she is an advisor on Indigenous governance and an advocate for inclusive leadership. With the Indigenous Organization of Antioquia and UN Women’s ProDefensoras programme, she gathers women defenders from diverse ethnic groups to build community. (The ProDefensoras programme is an initiative, supported by Norway, that has benefited more than 6,000 women human rights defenders in Colombia since 2020.)

Bailarín’s initiatives make safety concrete: internet access for her community so students can study without walking hours into town; or a small ecotourism association to generate local income. She serves as a role model and friend for all people.

“For me, peacebuilding means unity – resistance, justice, respect, connection to territory, and pride in our culture. The key is… showing young people that they have the right and duty to be someone, to dream of a future.”

UN Women is preparing the second phase of the Young Women Peacebuilders Initiative, alongside broader efforts to support young women peacebuilders. Member States and partners interested in contributing to these efforts are invited to contact [ Click to reveal ]