Directorate for Youth Peace and Security (DYPS)
Fostering youth resilience and sustainable peace through innovative, values-driven, and technology-enabled approaches to peacebuilding.
Enhancing youth resilience and building peace
Violent extremism threatens the security and fundamental rights of citizens in Africa and undermines the attempts of many countries to achieve sustainable peace and development.
The Directorate will harness civic-tech to empower African youth as proactive peacebuilders, fostering inclusive governance and resilient communities addressing conflict drivers like inequality, exclusion, and extremism through capacity building, policy advocacy, inclusive engagement and accountability mechanisms to monitor conflicts, promote peace, and enhance youth participation in governance.
Our Strategic Objective
Scale Youth-Led Civic-Tech Peace Solutions: Develop and deploy innovative, accessible digital tools to enable youth to monitor conflicts, promote peace, and engage in governance, supporting 100,000 youth peacebuilders by 2030.
Enhance Inclusive Youth Participation: Build capacity among diverse youth, particularly women and marginalized groups, to use civic-tech for peace advocacy and community resilience, ensuring 50% female participation in all programs.
Advocate for YPS Policy Integration: Champion AU and national policies to embed youth, peace, and security principles, achieving 10 YPS national action plans by 2030.
DYP Programs
Wajibika - Digital Peace Ambassadors Academy
Description: A training program to equip 10,000 youth annually with digital peacebuilding skills, including data analysis, cybersecurity, and civic-tech advocacy, using low-tech platforms like SMS and WhatsApp.
Outcomes: 50,000 youth trained, 1,000 community peace initiatives launched, and 20% increase in youth electoral participation by 2030.
Rationale: Enhances youth agency in peace processes, addressing structural barriers to participation noted in UNSCR 2250 reports.
This program is aimed at empowering youth community leaders with a framework for action on resilience and peacebuilding. It is structured in three areas: Youth empowerment and inclusion, Advocacy and awareness-raising, and Capacity development.
PeaceTech Innovation Hub
Description: A pan-African hub to fund and mentor 50 youth-led civic-tech startups annually, focusing on peacebuilding tools like conflict mapping apps and early-warning systems.
Outcomes: 25 scalable peace-tech solutions deployed, 5,000 youth trained in civic-tech, and 5 AU policy recommendations adopted by 2030.
Rationale: Addresses Africa’s 16 ongoing conflicts by empowering youth to develop localized tech solutions, aligning with CELEG’s one-million-youth goal.
Intercultural/Interfaith Digital Dialogue Campaign
Description: A campaign to foster interfaith and intercultural dialogue among youth via digital platforms, countering extremism and polarization.
Outcomes: 100,000 youth engaged, 10 national policies reformed to promote tolerance, and 5 AU resolutions influenced by 2030.
Rationale: Addresses ethnic and religious violence (e.g., Boko Haram) by empowering youth to use civic-tech for social cohesion.
CrowdPeace Monitoring Network
Description: A crowdsourcing platform, inspired by Ushahidi, to enable youth to report conflict incidents and peacebuilding efforts via mobile apps and SMS. It will partner with CSOs and media to amplify findings and inform policy.
Outcomes: 500,000 citizen reports mapped, 50 governance interventions influenced, and 10,000 youth engaged in monitoring by 2030.
Rationale: Leverages Africa’s 45% mobile penetration to promote transparency and youth-led conflict prevention.
Join CELEGs Peace Ambassadors
The Peace Pledge
♥ I promise to put personal peace as my primary goal each day, and to interact with other Loyal Kenyans and those around me in a way that best serves my peacefulness.
♥ I commit to choose my words and actions and where need be say nothing, rather than break my Pledge.
♥ I will be gentle with myself if I break the Pledge – practice makes perfect!
♥ I will not use the Peace Pledge as an excuse to “give up”, be “walked all over” or “surrender” when my values are challenged. My pledge for peace is not a vow of silence – I will continue to take a stand for things that matter to me, but in a new way.
You are about to join a new community of peace-minded Kenyans. (How exciting!)
