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Youth in the Digital Age: Mainstreaming Cyber Peacebuilding into the Youth Peace and Security Agenda

ByLuca Tancredi

Globally, youth are the most digitally connected demographic, relying on online platforms not only for communication and entertainment, but increasingly for education, employment, and civic participation. Despite this centrality, young people remain disproportionately vulnerable to digital threats. These include disinformation, hate speech, surveillance, online harassment, and fraud. Compounding this exposure is their systematic exclusion from digital governance processes and cybersecurity policymaking (Zimmermann & Pirker, 2025).

The emerging concept of cyber peacebuilding offers a timely and transformative framework to address this gap. Grounded in the principles of equity, human-centred security, and structural resilience, it reframes digital peace and security away from militarised paradigms towards a more inclusive and participatory governance, bridging the gap between offline and online spaces. This approach aligns closely with the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda, which centres on participation, protection, prevention, partnerships, and disengagement & reintegration (UN Security Council, 2015). Yet, given the novelty of the Cyberpeacebuilding concept, these two frameworks remain largely disconnected in policy and practice.

The exclusion of youth from digital peacebuilding initiatives is more than a missed opportunity; it is a structural vulnerability. Online harms are not merely technical disruptions; they exacerbate offline inequalities and compromise civic trust. Research shows that young people’s engagement with digital technologies is strongly influenced by pre-existing socioeconomic disparities, which shape not only access to digital tools but also levels of digital literacy and patterns of civic participation. These disparities heighten vulnerability to manipulation and exclusion from decision-making spaces (Salza & Samuel, 2025).

Online harassment has undermined the credibility of youth voices and normalised hostility in public discourse. For example, during the Romanian 2024 elections, civil society organisations faced a legitimacy crisis due to coordinated disinformation campaigns that depict NGOs as corrupt agents of foreign influence. These narratives, widely circulated on platforms like Telegram and X, portray civic actors as threats to national sovereignty, eroding public trust, especially among rural and nationalist communities, and severely undermining the credibility of CSOs’ initiatives (McNamara, 2025). These dynamics fracture the very foundations of democratic engagement and peacebuilding that the YPS agenda seeks to uphold. 

Why It Matters Now: The Urgency of Integrating Cyber Peace

As the YPS agenda approaches the tenth anniversary of UNSCR 2250, momentum is building globally. An increasing number of National Action Plans (NAPs) are being drafted or revised. However, few substantively engage with youth’s digital realities. This is a critical gap. The digital environment is evolving rapidly, with both opportunities and threats accelerating. Youth are navigating an algorithm-driven information ecosystem where hate speech, disinformation, and polarising narratives thrive. Without intentional frameworks for protection and participation, their civic spaces online are shrinking. In this context, cyber peacebuilding provides timely solutions that resonate with YPS objectives.

In the meantime, the concept of “cyber peace” is gaining definition in the policy and academic landscape. Its principles emphasise equitable human agency, fairness, and long-term sustainability (Schirch, 2020). It does not merely seek to contain harm but to transform the structures that produce it, thereby enhancing user protection through a more participatory decision-making process. Hence, cyberpeacebuilding’s principles go hand in hand with the YPS core pillars. Failure to integrate them into the YPS framework risks cementing a generation of digitally engaged but politically disempowered youth. As cyber threats increasingly intersect with peace and security, failing to include youth in their resolution risks entrenching new forms of exclusion and disempowerment.

From Threat to Transformation: Youth at the Centre of Cyber Peace

Responses to digital threats remain fragmented. On one hand, civil society organisations (CSOs) often resort to short-term digital literacy trainings, aiming to equip youth with basic knowledge of online safety and media consumption. On the other hand, state institutions tend to focus on reactive policies, such as content takedowns and regulatory reforms, that respond to individual incidents without addressing the systemic drivers of vulnerability (Roff, 2016). While these responses can mitigate immediate harms, they lack a comprehensive framework that accounts for the structural conditions underpinning cyber insecurity. 

The emerging framework of cyber peacebuilding offers a compelling response to this gap.  By recognising digital harms as symptoms of deeper social fractures, it calls for integrated, preventive strategies that empower communities (Schirch, 2020), especially youth, to participate in shaping safer digital ecosystems. Given their central role in digital culture and innovation, young people are uniquely positioned to lead this transformation if given the means to do so. This is why a structured nexus between cyber peacebuilding and the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda is not just desirable, it is essential. The YPS agenda already provides a political and normative mandate to empower youth as partners in peace. Embedding digital resilience and governance within this framework would not only enhance the agenda’s relevance in today’s digital world but also provide the institutional coherence necessary for sustainable, long-term impact. 

What Should Be Done: Coordinated Action for Cyber Peace

To embed cyber peacebuilding into the YPS agenda, both youth-led CSOs and international institutions must act across four key domains: education, partnership, cyber governance, and capacity building.

  1. Education

CSOs should lead peer-based digital literacy and civic education campaigns tailored to local contexts. These should address algorithmic bias, mis/mal/disinformation, online safety, and ethical tech use. The European DARE network emphasises digital youth work as a pathway to democratic citizenship. Integrating civic values with digital skills ensures young people not only navigate risks but also become stewards of democratic digital culture  (Zimmermann & Pirker, 2025).

  1. Partnerships

Youth organisations should build coalitions with educators, journalists, technologists, and local leaders. Multi-stakeholder alliances can support early-warning systems against disinformation surges and platform manipulation. BBC’s Media Crew in the U.S. and ARD’s Youth Media Day in Germany exemplify how mainstream institutions like TV channels can co-design participatory platforms with young people to co-produce content, monitor risks, and foster public engagement (BBC R&D, 2025).

  1. Governance

Youth should be given a seat at the table in digital policymaking. Regulatory frameworks such as the EU Digital Services Act offer entry points for youth involvement in shaping content moderation and transparency mechanisms (European Union, 2022). National and multilateral forums should mandate youth participation in the development of cybersecurity strategies and digital inclusion policies.

  1. Capacity and Funding

International institutions should invest in long-term, sustainable digital infrastructure for youth peacebuilding. This includes:

  • Funding youth-developed cyber peace research, tools, and innovations.
  • Mainstreaming the concept of cyber peace into the education system, especially during peace studies classes.
  • Supporting youth participation in global tech governance forums.

Conclusion and Next Steps

This brief has argued that the digital space is not peripheral to youth peacebuilding but central to it. As digital harms proliferate, so too do opportunities for youth leadership and innovation. When inclusively designed and governed, the digital sphere offers transformative potential, fostering participation, collaboration, and innovation. To realise this potential, youth-led civil society organisations must take the lead in delivering peer-based digital literacy and civic education, empowering young people to critically engage with the online environment. Meanwhile, international institutions have a responsibility to move beyond short-term interventions and invest in long-term, structural initiatives that embed cyber peacebuilding within youth programmes. Above all, both local and global actors must recognise that cyber peace is central to safeguarding youth, ensuring their meaningful participation, and enabling their leadership in building resilient and inclusive societies.

Cyber peacebuilding reframes security in human terms, while the YPS agenda, with its global recognition and political momentum, offers the perfect platform for scaling this approach. To sustain peace in a digital era, youth must be empowered as active agents, not passive users. They must be safeguarded, but also supported in shaping the digital environments where civic life increasingly unfolds. 

Forthcoming papers will examine how each YPS pillar, participation, prevention, protection, partnerships, and reintegration, intersects with specific digital threats and opportunities. By providing granular, evidence-based policy recommendations, these future analyses will build a comprehensive roadmap for mainstreaming youth-centred digital peace.

Reference List 

Image by Urban Origami from Pixabay

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