Cross-Border Youth Centres For Peace (The " Activities")

The Special Envoy's Strategic Roadmap 2015-2017 identifies mobilizing " forces vives", i.e. women, youth and civil society, in the Great Lakes region as one of nine priorities. It encourgaes building constituencies among different groups around the PSC Franmework and promoting a shared vision of peace  and prosperrity in the region. The PSC Framework's Regional Plan of Action, endorsed by the Heads of State of the region, has also identifieeeed youth as a cross cutting priority and includes it in various benchmarks:

• 1.5 stipulates support to  the ICGLR Youth Forum
• 2.1 targets disengaging youth from the negative forces
• 4.1 urges the creation of the economic and social opportunities (microfinance facilities, creation of markets, cooperatives) and building the capacity of youth (training on the trade policies, market management and custom regulations) for cross border legal trade and commercial exchanges including promotion and protection of rights. The Trust Fund's Terms of Reference also identifies cross-border projects with youth participation as a priority.

The UNCTs Regional Strategy Paper identifies Youth  as a stand-alone programmatic pillar, and builds on the work that UN Habitat, UNFPA and UNICEF have done in the past both at normative and operational levels. The key focus of the Goma Youth Centre for Peace initiative is youth empowerment for improved livelihood opportunities and civic engagement. Since youth is a cross cutting issues, the centre will utilize an integrated approach,(specifically youth targeted interventions as well as mainstreaming youth engagement:

• Establish or expand youth centres and employment hubs.
• Create opportunities for dialogue and conflict resolution between communities especially cross borders.
• Introduce green jobs as an essential part of protecting the bio-diversity and sustaining the economy.
• Undertake situational analysis of the state of urban youth in the Great LAKES region.

This proposed joint O/SESG-UN Habitat project is  a pilot that will expand further as part of the One UN Regional Program. It follows up on discussions between the Special Envoy and UN Habitat in September 2014, and recommendations for O/SESG to team up with and support UN organizations to implement the PSC Framework with bottom-up projects in DRC which will be subsequently scaled up regionally.