Same words, shared power: The Youth, Peace and Security Lexicon

For years, peacebuilding policy has tended to treat young people as a risk to manage — a demographic to monitor, a group to consult when convenient. The Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda set out to change that, recognizing young people instead as political agents and partners in building peace. But turning that shift from principle into practice meant agreeing on what the words actually mean. One year ago, 35 experts from around the world — spanning youth-led organizations, NGOs, the UN, academia and governments — set out to do exactly that, resulting in the YPS Lexicon, a resource platform that synthesizes definitions and best practices from global policy, research and programmatic guidance that are widely used in the YPS field. 

In June, as co-chair of the Knowledge Management Task Force of the Global Coalition on YPS, I opened the session and handed over to three of the 35 experts behind the Lexicon, each bringing a different vantage point: Yahya Qanie of Search for Common Ground, Mridul Upadhyay of the YPS Monitor, and Andrea Carstensen of the Major Group for Children and Youth.

The problem: Why it matters 

Yahya went first, laying out exactly what happens when a field this size doesn't share a vocabulary. 

The YPS agenda turned ten last December. A decade in, the agenda has grown fast — but the language used to describe it hasn't always kept pace for every stakeholder. As Yahya explained: when the same words are used by very different groups or people, they can mean very different things.

That gap isn't only a linguistic matter. It decides who gets a seat at the table, whose knowledge counts, how policies get written and how budgets get allocated. Left unaddressed, it lets institutions make big commitments that sound good on paper but are too vague to ever be implemented — or held accountable to. The YPS Lexicon was also built to contribute to shifting a narrative: for years, young people have too often been framed as a problem to manage rather than partners with agency. A shared vocabulary helps make sure policy and practice actually reflect that shift, instead of just gesturing it. 

The tool: How it works

Walking participants through the platform, Mridul — founding researcher of the YPS Monitor and one of the Lexicon's editors — showed just how deliberately simple the design is. The site opens with the YPS agenda itself, explains why the Lexicon was created, lays out a handful of foundational terms, and then offers roughly 60 terms in total, organized alphabetically for quick access.

What makes each entry distinctive is that it doesn't stop at a standard definition. Every term is contextualized specifically for the YPS field, and entries link to related terms and external resources, so users can trace a concept like accountability or co-creation across the wider literature. Crucially, the Lexicon is a living document — anyone can suggest a new term, propose a refinement, or flag a case study, and the editorial team will work it in. It's currently available in English, French, Spanish and Arabic, with an open invitation for youth groups to help refine existing translations or contribute new ones. 

The process: How it was built 

The process started from an open call across the Global Coalition: anyone working on YPS could join the task force. From there, more than 30 contributors — spanning different countries, time zones, career stages and life experiences — met regularly to first expand a working list of commonly used terms, then argue, refine and re-argue their definitions. 

Andrea described the process as truly collaborative — bringing together different cultures, lived experiences and even languages, with someone speaking in English and someone else responding in French within the same meeting. Having such a diverse group in the room forced the Task Force to confront regional, linguistic and cultural differences head-on, rather than assuming a shared baseline. Terms like ageism, youth engagement versus youth participation, and language shaped by colonial legacies sparked similarly rich debate — debate the Lexicon doesn't erase, but documents.

In practice: What it's for 

Speakers were clear that the Lexicon isn't meant to sit on a shelf. It's designed to bridge gap by being used as: 

Technical filter — when a conversation stalls on what “protection” or “participation” actually means, contributors can point to a shared, third-party definition rather than relitigating the point from scratch. 

Neutral baseline for advocacy — useful in consultations where one party might otherwise be seen as pushing their own interpretation. 

Accountability tool — because it names things like tokenism and the difference between consultation and co-leadership explicitly, giving practitioners language to question claims of being “youth-led.” 

Teaching and indicator-development resource — a foundation for curricula, a prep-reading for YPS consultations/inter-ministerial meetings and a prerequisite for measuring things like meaningful engagement. 

Julia Penelope, the linguist and feminist philosopher, put it simply: "Language is power, in ways more literal than most people think. When we speak, we exercise the power of language to transform reality." The reality the YPS Lexicon is trying to transform is one where young people are still treated as a future promise rather than present partners. 

The Lexicon doesn't end that conversation — it's a starting point, one that will keep growing and changing with the community behind it. It's a bet that if the field can agree on its words, it can move faster, and more honestly, toward a reality where partnering with young people isn't an exception to justify, but a given: the only way a peaceful society gets built at all.