Futuring Peace in Northeast Asia Phase II builds on UN DPPA’s (Asia Pacific Division and Innovation Cell) engagement with the Youth, Peace, and Security (YPS) agenda. The Secretary-General’s Our Common Agenda (OCA, 2021), invites “institutions to establish better ways of listening to people […], especially groups that are frequently overlooked, such as women, young people, minority groups or persons with disabilities”. In line with this ambition, Phase II continues to deepen opportunities for Northeast Asian youth to share their unique observations and recommendations for regional peace and security with policymakers, stepping towards the broader representation of youth in high-level policy fora.
Phase II follows the small-scale pilot, which was aimed at developing young people’s capability to imagine long-term futures for Northeast Asia and tested the concept of participatory foresight for policy dialogues. Taking insights from preferred futures, envisioned by up to 50 youth from the RoK, China, Japan, and Mongolia through a series of virtual dialogues in 2021, and partnering with the swiss think tank foraus, known for its work in crowdsourcing foreign policy recommendations using technology and foresight, the present project selects one thematic pathway for future peace and stability in the region: regional narratives and commonalities through new technologies or education tools.
The second phase is centered on two objectives:
- Generate recommendations that are developed by youth.
- Encourage policymakers on the value of such diversity of inputs for informed policymaking.
Taking the model developed in Phase I, with further inputs from foraus, Phase II involves:
