Overcoming Barriers to Resourcing Young Peacebuilders

Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation

Despite a global recognition of the important role that young peacebuilders play in peacebuilding and sustaining peace, funding for youth-led peacebuilding remains a challenge. Funding is difficult to access and ad-hoc; restricts young people’s abilities to define their own priorities and methods; and overburdens them with regulatory and reporting requirements. While these challenges are well documented, strategies to overcome them are sporadic and limited at best. Systematising access to quality funding requires cross-sectoral learning and coordination amongst funders around ongoing efforts to develop funding that is inclusive of young peacebuilders. This paper explores funds which are available to young peacebuilders. It maps their strategies to overcome the barriers faced by young people in accessing quality funding, and based upon this mapping, it presents recommendations and areas for collaboration and learning for funders. The analysis is informed by external funder reports, interviews conducted with funders who resource young peacebuilders, and validation interviews with young peacebuilders. Interviews were conducted with 60 individuals representing 35 funders as well as 18 young peacebuilders. This includes some funds that do not present themselves as peacebuilding funds in order to facilitate learning across silos and reflect the wide range of funding sources young peacebuilders access.