UNFPA’s role in peacebuilding
Building peace through inclusion, equality and opportunity
Peace involves far more than preventing conflict. It is achieved when people can live free from violence, fear and discrimination, exercise their rights, access essential health services and participate fully in decisions that affect their lives. By tackling inequality and exclusion at their roots, UNFPA helps societies build lasting peace, creating stability, trust and resilience – before, during, and long after a crisis hits.
When stability shatters and conflict erupts, women and young people pay the highest price. Yet they are also among the most powerful agents of change – often the first ones to step forward, bringing divided communities together, driving open dialogue and rebuilding the trust needed to prevent future tensions.
UNFPA works hand in hand with governments, civil society networks, grassroots organizations and UN partners to support peacebuilding by:
- Championing youth: Putting the global Youth, Peace and Security Agenda into action by backing local, youth-led organizations and ensuring that young people are leading peace initiatives, building intergenerational partnerships and shaping national policies. (More on this below.)
- Elevating women’s leadership and agency: Investing in women-led organizations and movements to advance women’s leadership, strengthen their agency and ensure that they have a central, deciding voice in rebuilding their communities and preventing conflict.
- Protecting safety and dignity: Working on the front lines to prevent and respond to gender-based violence, protecting human rights and ensuring safety and dignity even in times of crisis.
- Delivering life-saving care: Ensuring uninterrupted access to vital sexual and reproductive healthcare in fragile and conflict-affected areas, establishing the foundational health and rights necessary for long-term community stability.
- Uniting communities: Fostering deep social cohesion and inclusive dialogue among diverse groups, helping divided communities heal, rebuilding trust and preventing future tensions.
- Using data for resilience: Harnessing population data and demographic insights to map out vulnerabilities, helping local and national partners to spot emerging stability risks early and build systemic resilience.
True peace cannot be sustained when people are locked out of opportunities, denied their rights or left without access to essential services.
Investing in young people, empowering women and girls, addressing inequality and strengthening communities are core prerequisites for peace. By helping create societies where every individual can participate, thrive and contribute, UNFPA is dismantling the drivers of conflict and laying the groundwork for lasting peace.
Click on one section to learn more about it
Youth, Peace and Security Agenda
Young people are too often portrayed as vulnerable or at risk of violence. Yet around the world, the reality is entirely different: Youth are leading dialogue, promoting inclusion, preventing conflict and helping build more peaceful and resilient communities.
Established in 2015 by the UN Security Council Resolution 2250, the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda recognizes young people as essential partners in building and sustaining peace. It has since grown into a global movement that places youth leadership, participation and inclusion at the centre of peace and security efforts.
UNFPA has been at the forefront of the agenda since its inception. Together with the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs and the UN Youth Office, UNFPA serves as part of the UN Youth, Peace and Security Secretariat, helping drive implementation, coordination, advocacy and knowledge generation across the UN system.
UNFPA helps advance the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda by:
- Supporting youth-led action: Providing funding, resources and platforms to local youth-led organizations and movements.
- Amplifying youth voices: Strengthening young people’s leadership skills and ensuring that they have a seat at the table in decision-making processes.
- Bridging community divides: Supporting youth-led initiatives that counter discrimination, hate speech and misinformation, and fostering equality and social cohesion.
- Championing gender equality: Integrating approaches that empower young women to lead peace efforts safely and effectively.
- Turning global policy into local action: Partnering with governments and civil society partners to translate international commitments into concrete Youth, Peace and Security Agenda national action plans.
UNFPA has also helped shape the evidence base underpinning the agenda. In 2018, UNFPA co-led The Missing Peace: Independent Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security, the first global study mandated by the UN Security Council to examine young people’s contributions to peacebuilding and conflict prevention. Based on consultations with more than 4,200 young people across 44 countries, the study challenged dominant narratives that viewed young people primarily through the lens of risk and instead highlighted their role as partners in building and sustaining peace.
UNFPA continues to drive accountability by coordinating the biannual Secretary-General reports to the Security Council on the implementation of the Youth, Peace and Security Agenda and is co-leading the development of the Second Independent Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security, mandated by the Pact for the Future. Through research, policy formulation, capacity strengthening, inter-agency coordination and country-level programming, UNFPA helps ensure that youth perspectives are reflected in global policy discussions and translated into action on the ground.
UNFPA and the UN Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund
The Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund is the UN’s leading instrument for investing in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. It supports partnerships between governments, civil society organizations, local communities and the wider UN system to address the root causes of conflict and build more peaceful, inclusive and resilient societies.
Over the past two decades, the Peacebuilding Fund has been a catalytic and critical engine behind UNFPA’s peacebuilding work around the world. As one of the top recipients of Peacebuilding Fund resources, UNFPA transforms these financial investments into opportunities, safety, and dignity for women, young people and communities at large.
Between 2007 and 2024, UNFPA implemented 158 projects supported by the Peacebuilding Fund across 45 countries, mobilizing more than $112 million in investments in promoting peace. These programmes have strengthened youth leadership, promoted gender equality, supported peace initiatives led by women and young people, prevented and responded to gender-based violence, expanded access to essential services and helped communities build trust, resilience and social cohesion.
Stories from Around the World
The impact of peacebuilding is best understood through the experiences of the communities, young people and local organizations leading change on the ground.
Explore how Peacebuilding Fund-supported programmes implemented by UNFPA are helping young people, women and communities build peace, strengthen social cohesion and create opportunities for a more inclusive future.
Eastern Europe & Central Asia
- A new generation of peacebuilders in the Western Balkans, built by peers
- Youth-led initiatives for inter-community trust, inclusion and equality in the Western Balkans
- Nurturing safer digital spaces: Empowering youth against hate speech in the Western Balkans
- Youth peacebuilding in action: How young people are rewriting Bosnia and Herzegovina’s future
- A transformative journey of shared prosperity, climate resilience and community empowerment in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan
- Empowering youth and promoting peacеbuilding: From learning to leading
- Youth pave the way for peace and participation in Kosovo
West & Central Africa
- 800 young Central Africans combat misinformation, monitor the peace agreement and take up leadership positions
- Central African Republic: Investing in the implementation of the Political Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation
- From wounds to trust: Communities in the Central African Republic make peace sustainable through trauma healing and dialogue
- Fighting falsehoods in The Gambia: A new era of verified journalism
- A unified voice: Guinea launches the National Council for Girls and Women
- Resolving transhumance conflicts in Guinea-Bissau
- Seeds of stability: How Guinea-Bissau’s youth are transforming political dialogue for peace
- Youth work for a bright future in Mali
East and Southern Africa
- Carrying the voice of young people to build peace – convictions of a Congolese former child soldier
- Catalytic peacebuilding: Transforming communities in South Sudan, Colombia and Madagascar
- Independent evaluation finds a promising foundation for increased security and resilience in Madagascar’s Great South
- In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, peace committees reduce intercommunal conflicts
- From observers to negotiators: South Sudan’s youth take their place at the peace table
Latin America and the Caribbean
Asia and the Pacific
- Sugu Valley: A new dawn of peace in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea
- Fostering community reintegration and peace in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao
Updated on 22 June 2026
Key resources
- Second Independent Progress Study on Youth, Peace and Security (2026)
- Peacebuilding Fund Thematic Review on Youth, Peace and Security (2025)
- Secretary-General Reports on Youth, Peace and Security (2024)
- What Works to Amplify the Rights and Voices of Youth in Peace and Resilience Building? (2023)
- Youth, Peace and Security: A Programming Handbook (2021)
- UNFPA’s Role in Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace (2020)
- The Missing Peace (2018)
- We Are Here: An Integrated Approach to Youth-Inclusive Peace Processes
- Youth, Peace and Security in West and Central Africa
