Youth of Central Asia, Challenges for Peacebuilding: A Comprehensive Research Review

The estimations are that by 2030, the world will be home to 1.3 billion young people. This speaks about the importance of the youth for development in various parts of the globe, particularly in developing countries which constitute 90% of the global youth population. From comprehensive holistic perspective peace, peacebuilding and dialogue embrace all aspects and dimensions of life – inter-generational, social, economic, political, ethnic, religious, civic, ideological, cultural, and natural. The youth related issues are directly linked with the SDGs agenda. Central Asian states are also on the list of developing countries, with an increasing demographic share of the youth in the general population, meaning that the countries of the region are “young.” As of 2020, the total population of the four countries of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) was 68.46 million, of which youth comprised 16.55 million or 24,1%. What Challenges for Peacebuilding the Youth of Central Asia Face?

This highlights the urgency required for elaborating and implementing special policies on youth development. For Central Asia, the peace and peacebuilding agenda is the development agenda, and vice versa, as neither is possible without the other, and these in turn are intrinsically linked with youth-related issues. This report provides a detailed overview of the existing challenges to the youth of the 4 countries of the region – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan, Uzbekistan – structured around three main themes of peacebuilding: (1) an education and learning environment; (2) economic and social participation; and (3) civic engagement. Governments, international organizations, professionals and policymakers in the youth, peacebuilding and development sectors, academia and NGOs are invited to join forces to accelerate the achievement of youth development for a more just, sustainable and peaceful future.