Mapping the Missing Peace: What our Comparative Report reveals about youth, peace and reconciliation

The Missing Peace comparative report sits at the crossroads of two powerful global agendas: Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) and Women, Peace and Security (WPS). It asks a deceptively simple question: what happens when you take youth work seriously as peacebuilding, and actually map what young people and youth workers are already doing on the ground?

Across six countries, the project partners collected national data, mapped grassroots initiatives, and co-created an online tool that makes these efforts visible under the banner “Youth, Peace, and Reconciliation.” The result is a comparative picture of how young people – especially young women – are already acting as peacebuilders, and what they still need from institutions and policies to make that work sustainable.

What is the comparative report?

Work Package 2 of The Missing Peace was designed as the “state of the art” pillar of the project. It brought together national analyses and youth-led mapping to answer three core questions:

1. Where and how do youth work and peace/reconciliation efforts already intersect?
2. What are young people’s needs in learning about peace, conflict and reconciliation?
3. Which tools, methods and initiatives can be shared, adapted and scaled across borders?

To answer these, the partners produced:

National reports outlining the needs of young people in peace and reconciliation education and the existing landscape of youth work in this field.

National indexes and one comparative index capturing the “state of play” of youth work in peace and reconciliation across the consortium countries.

A digital mapping (“e-mapping”) of grassroots initiatives and a shared toolbank of methods hosted on an open, project website, under a Creative Commons license to support free reuse and adaptation. 

Key insights: what emerges across countries?

While each country has its own history, conflicts and social fabric, several common threads run through the comparative picture.

1. Youth are already peacebuilders – but their work is fragmented and often invisible

Across contexts, youth organisations, informal collectives, student groups and local NGOs are already working on dialogue, anti-discrimination, community building and memory work. Much of this is happening at the grassroots leveland is driven by young volunteers, youth workers and educators.

Scholarship on post-conflict Macedonia, for example, shows both the importance and the fragility of this grassroots layer: NGOs and local initiatives have done “an excellent job at grassroots levels,” yet their work is rarely recognised or adequately connected to official processes of reconciliation. The Missing Peace mapping echoes this broader pattern: youth initiatives exist, but they are scattered, under-resourced and not systematically linked to policy or formal peace processes.

The comparative report responds to this challenge by making these initiatives visible – placing them on a shared map, and treating them as knowledge sources rather than afterthoughts.

2. There is a clear need for structured, long-term learning on peace and reconciliation

Across countries, the national analyses underline that young people often lack sustained opportunities to explore conflict, historical memory, reconciliation and democratic participation in a critical but safe way. Peace and conflict may appear in school curricula or public debates, but they are rarely addressed through participatory, youth-friendly methodologies that allow young people to ask difficult questions and connect them to their own lives.

This mirrors wider research from post-conflict settings, which points to the need for structured communication, inclusive public debate and a “culture of dialogue” if societies are to move beyond purely legal or institutional peace. 

The comparative findings suggest that:

• Youth workers and educators need specific training and resources to address peace and reconciliation in non-formal settings.
• Young people want more than one-off workshops – they ask for continuity, mentorship and spaces where they can connect personal stories, community experiences and broader political structures.
• Young women often carry a double burden: they are affected by gendered violence and exclusion, and at the same time are key organisers, mediators and carers in their communities. Yet their roles in peacebuilding are still undervalued.

3. The missing “middle level” between grassroots and institutions

One of the lessons that resonates strongly with the Macedonian case – and with many other post-conflict societies – is the absence of a strong “middle layer” linking local initiatives with formal institutions and national debates. Research on Macedonia points out that while there has been significant work at both the grassroots and top political levels, the middle-range actors who could connect the two are often missing or under-supported. 

The comparative report shows a similar pattern:

• Youth workers, educators and local organisations are doing rich work on peace and reconciliation.
• Governments and international actors articulate high-level commitments to inclusion, reconciliation and EU values.
• What is often missing are structured mechanisms, platforms and partnerships that allow youth voices and practices to travel upwards – informing policy, shaping narratives and influencing decisions.

The project’s own structures – especially the transnational partnership and the online mapping and toolbank – become a practical response to this gap: they model how to build connectors between local practice and broader frameworks.

4. Digital tools can amplify youth-led peacebuilding, if they stay participatory

Finally, the mapping exercise and online portal confirm that digital tools are powerful multipliers, but only when they are co-designed with and for young people.

By placing case studies, tools and initiatives on a shared digital map and making them accessible under an open licence, the project:

• Supports peer learning between youth organisations in different countries.
• Creates a living resource that others can add to, adapt and use in their own contexts.
• Helps funders, policymakers and researchers see the breadth of youth-led peace work that is otherwise scattered and under-documented.

This aligns with the Erasmus+ emphasis on open access and with broader EU priorities on digital transformation in education and youth work.

Connecting to the UN Youth, Peace and Security agenda

The UN Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda – launched with Security Council Resolution 2250 (2015) and strengthened by Resolution 2419 (2018) and 2535 (2020) – sets out five core pillars: participation, prevention, protection, partnerships, and disengagement & reintegration. It calls on states and international organisations to recognise young people as partners in building peace, not only as potential security risks.

The Missing Peace comparative work speaks directly to this agenda:

• Participation – By mapping youth-led initiatives and creating national and comparative indexes, the project documents the actual contributions of young people and youth workers to peace and reconciliation. It treats their practices as political participation in the broad sense – as acts of shaping the social fabric and narratives of their communities.
• Prevention – Many of the mapped initiatives focus on dialogue, anti-discrimination, intercultural learning and critical reflection on the past. These are classic violence-prevention measures, aimed at reducing polarisation, stereotypes and grievances before they escalate.
• Partnerships – The project itself is a partnership between youth organisations, peace centres and non-formal education experts across countries. The comparative report highlights the potential of such cross-border cooperation to share tools, strengthen capacities and jointly influence policy debates at European level.

By grounding these pillars in concrete youth work practices, the comparative report shows what YPS looks like from the bottom up.

Why young women’s participation matters: linking to Women, Peace and Security

The Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda, launched with Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) and followed by a series of subsequent resolutions, calls for women’s full, equal and meaningful participation in peace processes, and for the protection of women and girls from conflict-related violence.

The Missing Peace project places a special emphasis on young women as a key sub-group within its broader youth focus. In practice, this means:

• Ensuring young women are present as participants, facilitators and leaders in mapped initiatives and learning activities.
• Paying attention to gendered experiences of conflict, discrimination and exclusion in needs analysis and case studies.
• Highlighting how young women’s community organising, care work and informal mediation often constitute unrecognised peacebuilding labour.

This intersection of YPS and WPS is crucial: young women are simultaneously framed in global policy as “youth” and as “women,” yet their specific realities often fall between the cracks of siloed agendas. The comparative report contributes to closing that gap by documenting where and how young women are already central to peace and reconciliation work – and where they face structural barriers.

Placing the findings in the wider European policy landscape

At European level, the project’s comparative work resonates strongly with EU youth and peace policies. The Council Conclusions on “Youth in external action” (8629/20), for instance, reaffirm youth as essential actors in building peaceful, inclusive and democratic societies, and explicitly reference the global Youth, Peace and Security agenda.

The Missing Peace comparative report aligns with these commitments by:

At the same time, lessons from post-conflict Macedonia – where reconciliation efforts have often lacked an “official truth,” sustained dialogue and strong middle-range actors – serve as a warning: legal frameworks and political declarations are not enough. Without meaningful youth participation and recognition of grassroots peacebuilding work, reconciliation remains incomplete. 

Why this matters now – and what comes next

The comparative report is more than an internal deliverable. It is:

• A snapshot of youth-led peacebuilding in Europe and its neighbourhood,
• A tool for practitioners seeking methods, partners and inspiration,
• And a bridge to policy, translating lived experiences of young people into the language of agendas and frameworks.

By publishing its outputs under open licences and hosting them on an accessible online platform, The Missing Peace invites others to reuse, adapt and expand this knowledge – whether you are a youth worker, educator, activist, policymaker or researcher. 

In a world where conflicts are increasingly complex and polarisation is on the rise, the message of the comparative report is clear:

If we are serious about peace, we must be serious about youth work – and about the young women and men who are already doing the slow, patient work of reconciliation in their communities.

Comparative Report – The Missing Peace

The Missing Peace project shows that when we map, recognise and connect these efforts, we are not just documenting what exists. We are actively expanding the space for young people to shape more peaceful futures.

---

“The Missing Peace” project is co-funded by the European Union through the Erasmus+ Program (Pr. Nr.: KA220-YOU-055CD22D).

---

Reference:

1. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1325 (2000) on Women, Peace and Security. (Digital Library)
2. Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, Miller / Pournik / Swaine, Women in Peace and Security through United Nations Security Resolution 1325: Literature Review, Content Analysis of National Action Plans and Implementation. (Georgetown Women, Peace & Security)
3. UN Women, Regional Office for Europe & Central Asia, The Past, Present and Future of Women, Peace and Security campaign paper. (UN Women ECA)
4. United Nations Security Council, Resolution 2250 (2015) on Youth, Peace and Security. (Digital Library)
5. Youth4Peace portal, Introduction to UNSCR 2250. (Youth4Peace Portal)
6. UN Office of the Secretary‐General Staff College (UNSSC), Advancing the Women, Peace and Security and Youth, Peace and Security Agendas (2020). (UNSSC)
7. European Parliament briefing, Strengthening the Women, Peace and Security Agenda. (European Parliament)