Nigeria’s foremost peace advocate organisation, the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) Nigeria has trained 40 youth drawn from across the country as trainers to drive the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) in remote parts of the country.
The three day train-the-trainers workshop held in Abuja in partnership with the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) saw the young men and women equipped with leadership, peace-building capacity training that would enable them train other peace advocates across the states of the federation.
In her opening remarks, National Coordinator of WANEP Nigeria, Chief Mrs. Bridget Osakwe, bemoaned the apparent lack of knowledge and understanding of the UN-YPS among Nigeria young population and affirmed that the country needed the youth to be at the forefront to drive the messages of peace building, conflict resolution and coexistence for a united Nigeria.
According to her, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) on December 9, 2015 following a series of advocacy efforts from a number of non-governmental organisations.
Chief Bridget said that “It was obvious that most participants were not aware of the resolutions as they have little knowledge to Women, Peace and Security, and Youth Peace and Security. Since Nigeria is a country with the largest population of youth in the world, it simply means that their lack of knowledge and understanding to the agendas is tantamount to lack of proper implementation of the agendas even at the local level.”
“It was passed after more than 10,000 young people called for it in the Amman Youth Declaration, adopted during the Global Forum on Youth, Peace and Security agenda which was very much inspired by the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS).
“This training brought together 40 young women and young men from across the states in the country and the federal capital territory from conflicts affected communities, those from religious and ethnic minorities, refugees and displaced women, women with disabilities, and other marginalised groups.”
On her part, Head of Programme at WANEP Nigeria, Mrs. Patience Ikpeh Obaulo, said the programme was aimed at raising awareness and consolidating knowledge on the WPS and YPS agendas amongst young persons and enhancing their leadership and peace rebuilding capacities in order to advocate for the implementation of the WPS and YPS agendas.