A cross-border research study extending the evidence base on youth contributions to peace in the Great Lakes Region — asking whether the Youth, Peace and Security agenda is known and used as a tool for peacebuilding at community level, and documenting what that looks like in practice.
In the borderlands of the Great Lakes Region, young people live at the intersection of some of the world's most protracted conflicts. They experience displacement, inter-communal tension, and the collapse of basic services simultaneously — yet in most policy conversations about peace and security, they appear as subjects of concern rather than as contributors to solution. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250, the landmark Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) resolution, was designed to change that. But whether it had actually reached the communities it was meant to serve — and whether young people there were using it as a tool for advocacy and peacebuilding — remained largely undocumented at the local level.
YSAT partnered with the United Network of Young Peacebuilders (UNOY), headquartered in The Hague, to fill that gap. The study — titled "Extending the evidence base on youth contributions to peace in the borderlands of the Great Lakes Region" — was implemented in DRC, Burundi, and Uganda in 2020. It assessed the awareness and application of the YPS agenda among youth in some of the region's most conflict-affected border communities, capturing how the pillars of the YPS framework were being understood, practised, and advocated for at the grassroots level.
YSAT's role was grounded in its position as a refugee-led organisation with deep roots in Rhino Camp Refugee Settlement — a community whose residents include South Sudanese youth whose lives have been directly shaped by the conflicts the study examined. The findings were published in the report "Youth in the Peripheries: Extending the evidence on youth contributions to peace in the Great Lakes Region," and have since contributed to international advocacy on meaningful youth participation in peacebuilding.
YSAT and UNOY co-designed a research study assessing whether the Youth, Peace and Security agenda was known and applied at community level in the borderlands of the Great Lakes Region. The study was structured to capture how the pillars of the YPS framework were being understood, practised, and advocated for in DRC, Burundi, and Uganda — three countries connected by shared conflict histories and cross-border displacement dynamics.
A total of 124 youth in the borderlands of Uganda and 150 youth in DRC were reached through the research process. Participants included young people living in refugee settlements, border communities, and displacement-affected areas — people whose daily realities the YPS agenda is meant to address. Their voices, perspectives, and lived experiences of conflict and peacebuilding form the foundation of the study's findings.
The research paid particular attention to the borderland dynamics that shape peacebuilding in the region — the movement of people, arms, and conflict across national boundaries, and the informal networks of community solidarity and tension that exist in spaces where formal governance is often weak. YSAT's presence in Rhino Camp, a settlement housing thousands of South Sudanese refugees, gave the Uganda component of the study a credibility and depth of access that formal research institutions could not replicate.
The findings of the study were published in the report "Youth in the Peripheries: Extending the evidence on youth contributions to peace in the Great Lakes Region." The publication documented what youth-led peacebuilding looks like in practice in communities that rarely appear in global policy discussions, and contributed new evidence to the growing body of work on meaningful youth participation in peace and security processes.
The research strengthened YSAT's engagement in international policy spaces on youth, peace and security. YSAT's founder John Jal Dak was elected as International Steering Group Representative for Eastern and Southern Africa at UNOY, headquartered in The Hague — a direct reflection of the credibility and visibility built through this partnership. The study continues to inform YSAT's advocacy on meaningful youth participation in peacebuilding at regional and global forums.
Youth reached in the borderlands of Uganda
Youth reached in the borderlands of DRC
Countries covered across the Great Lakes Region
Published report: Youth in the Peripheries