Statement by Ambassador at the UN Security Council
meeting on security challenges in the Mediterranean.
President, to achieve lasting peace, the whole of society is
required to participate in building it. Without the diverse
perspectives that youth and marginalised groups represent, we
will struggle to build peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable
societies.
I wish to make three points.
First, the Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund is a key
instrument promoting the positive role of young people as agents
of peace. The UK has provided over $35 million
to the Peacebuilding Fund since 2020, which has
implemented youth-related projects, including in Montenegro,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Libya. We welcome the implementation
of the Peacebuilding Commission's Strategic Action Plan on youth
and peacebuilding, including the annual meeting on youth, peace
and security, as well as efforts to integrate analysis that is
sensitive to this agenda into the commission's key deliverables.
Second, there is clear evidence that young people, especially
young women and girls, are disproportionately impacted by climate
change and biodiversity loss, often exacerbated by existing
inequalities. But they are also agents of change in the response.
In the Mediterranean region, heat waves, floods, sandstorms, and
water stress contribute to the loss of food security and
livelihoods, directly affecting the drivers of migration. We need
to manage, carefully, the emerging challenges and opportunities
of migration, including by recognising the role of young people
in delivering adaptation solutions that provide people with
options for sustainable livelihoods that do not compel them to
migrate.
Third, young people live with the effects of conflicts they
did not start. Young people, especially women and girls,
should be meaningfully included in discussions that affect their
futures, including in this Council. So we should
translate our commitments into action by strengthening their
full, equal, safe and meaningful inclusion in decision-making and
peace, development and mediation processes.
President, we will continue to work with the international
community to amplify youth voices and harness their lived
experience across peace processes and the work of government.
