Peacebuilding is rarely a sequence of grand gestures or televised handshakes; rather, it is a quiet, grueling, and generational labor that takes place in the shadows of systemic collapse. It is a process defined by persistence under extreme duress, often carried out with a scarcity of resources and an abundance of risk. Historically, the corridors of power where peace is brokered have been the exclusive domain of elder statesmen, yet a fundamental shift is occurring. Across the globe, from the war-torn highlands of Yemen to the divided streets of Cyprus and the Indigenous territories of Colombia, young women are stepping into the vacuum of leadership. They are proving that for peace to be truly sustainable, it must be built upon three indispensable pillars: inclusive participation, radical dialogue, and physical and social safety.
The necessity of youth leadership in this arena is not merely a matter of representation; it is a matter of efficacy. When young people are sidelined, the peace that follows often fails to address the very grievances that fuel future cycles of violence. Today’s young women leaders are not just asking for a seat at the table—they are redesigning the table itself.
In Yemen, a country grappling with what has often been described as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, thirty-year-old Olla Alsakkaf has spent her adult life navigating the intersection of civil war and environmental collapse. For Alsakkaf, peace work was never a career choice; it was a survival mechanism. Growing up in a city where the front lines were visible from her doorstep, she witnessed the immediate, visceral impact of conflict on the most vulnerable. As a volunteer in local conflict mediation, she saw how the breakdown of civil order disproportionately silenced women and youth, even as they bore the brunt of the violence.
Alsakkaf’s work highlights a critical but often overlooked dimension of modern conflict: the climate-security nexus. In Yemen, the scarcity of resources—particularly water—acts as a catalyst for local skirmishes, which then feed into the larger national conflagration. As a peace and climate activist who founded the Peace Environment for Development, Alsakkaf emphasizes that women and girls are often the primary managers of household water and resources. Consequently, they possess a granular understanding of the conflict’s drivers that high-level negotiators often lack.
However, the barriers to their participation remain formidable. Alsakkaf points to the "digital divide" as a modern tool of exclusion. In 2020, she was invited to address the United Nations Security Council virtually—a platform that should have amplified the voices of Yemeni youth to the highest levels of global governance. Instead, a sudden loss of electricity and internet in her home disconnected her mid-speech. This incident serves as a metaphor for the broader systemic hurdles: even when invited to speak, the infrastructure of the Global South often fails to support the participation of its most vital advocates. "In contexts like Yemen, women take on a lot of responsibilities in the home; they understand the impacts and consequences of the little details," Alsakkaf notes. "And young people are using technology in better ways, gaining trust and achieving a lot of things faster." Her pride stems not just from her own survival as a "fighter," but from watching the people she trains evolve into leaders in their own right.
While Alsakkaf focuses on participation, twenty-two-year-old Elene Gureshidze of Georgia emphasizes the necessity of dialogue in healing historical rifts. Georgia itself remains a landscape marked by "frozen conflicts" and territorial disputes, a reality that Gureshidze carried with her to a UN Women training program in North Nicosia, Cyprus. Cyprus, divided by a UN-patrolled buffer zone for decades, served as a poignant backdrop for an experiment in intercommunal reconciliation.
Gureshidze’s approach to peacebuilding is rooted in the recognition of shared trauma. While walking through the streets of Nicosia, she encountered a piece of street art that read, "My ancestors have self-harmed for generations." The phrase resonated deeply, suggesting that prolonged conflict is a form of collective, multi-generational injury. To heal, Gureshidze argues, communities must first acknowledge this harm and then find unconventional ways to reconnect.
In the SheLeads: Upcoming Leaders Programme, Gureshidze observed that formal dialogue often begins with tension, as participants carry the heavy baggage of their respective national histories. To break the ice, she turned to an unexpected tool: sports. By organizing a padel match and deliberately mixing teams so that ethnic lines were blurred, she replaced suspicion with the "playful competition" of the court. This simple act of physical cooperation paved the way for difficult, raw conversations about displacement and prejudice.
Gureshidze’s philosophy is that the goal of dialogue is not necessarily to reach a total consensus, but to build a foundation of trust that allows for disagreement without violence. "Leadership doesn’t come from others. It comes from yourself," she asserts. By designing board games that challenge cultural stereotypes and fostering cross-community exchanges, she is working to transform "the other" into a peer. Her work suggests that peace is not the absence of disagreement, but the presence of a relationship strong enough to withstand it.
However, neither participation nor dialogue can flourish without the third pillar: safety. In the Indigenous territories of Antioquia, Colombia, twenty-nine-year-old Nil Bailarín understands that for many, the price of leadership is death. Colombia’s 2016 peace deal was a landmark for the inclusion of gender perspectives, yet the reality on the ground remains perilous for human rights defenders, particularly those who identify as "cuerpos y espíritus diversos" (diverse bodies and spirits).
Bailarín, who made history in 2022 as Colombia’s first trans Indigenous governor, grew up in a region haunted by the aftershocks of decades of war—kidnappings, assassinations, and the forced erasure of identity. She recalls a childhood where Indigenous trans girls were pressured to cut their hair and hide their true selves. This intersectional injustice became the catalyst for her mission. "We don’t want to be made famous after we are dead," she says with chilling clarity. "We want to be heard before."
Through the ProDefensoras programme, an initiative supported by UN Women and Norway, Bailarín works to protect women defenders from diverse ethnic groups. For her, safety is not an abstract concept; it is tangible. It looks like securing internet access so students don’t have to walk for hours through dangerous territory to study. It looks like establishing ecotourism associations that provide local communities with economic independence, making them less vulnerable to the influence of armed groups.
Bailarín’s leadership is a testament to the idea that peacebuilding is inseparable from the defense of identity and territory. "For me, peacebuilding means unity—resistance, justice, respect, connection to territory, and pride in our culture," she explains. By serving as a role model, she is teaching the next generation that they have a right to dream of a future that isn’t defined by the violence of the past.
The stories of Alsakkaf, Gureshidze, and Bailarín illustrate a broader truth: the next generation of peacebuilders is already at work, often in the most precarious conditions imaginable. They are moving beyond the traditional frameworks of security to address the root causes of instability—climate change, digital exclusion, historical trauma, and the marginalization of LGBTQ+ and Indigenous identities.
As UN Women prepares the second phase of its Young Women Peacebuilders Initiative, the global community is being called upon to recognize these young women not as victims of conflict, but as the architects of its resolution. Their work proves that while peacebuilding is indeed a slow and stressful process, it is also a creative and courageous one. By investing in their leadership, the world can move closer to a peace that is not just a temporary pause in hostilities, but a lasting, sustainable reality that spans generations. These young women are not waiting for permission to lead; they are already showing the way, proving that the most essential ingredients for peace are often found in the courage of those who refuse to be silenced.
