About the Forum

The Yemen Peace Forum (YPF) initiative is a Track II youth and civil society platform facilitated by the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies. This interactive initiative seeks to both invest in building and empowering the next generation of Yemeni youth and civil society actors and to engage them in critical national issues. Building on the Sana’a Center’s core goal of producing knowledge through local voices, this platform seeks to develop and invest in young policy analysts and writers across Yemen.

Over the course of this four-year initiative, the Center will build the capacity of dozens of youth and civil society representatives from across Yemen, focusing on critical topics and regions. Capitalizing on its strong network, the Sana’a Center will also create various platforms and hubs for national and marginalized local voices inside and outside Yemen to influence policies and shape narratives at all levels. The Center will also link these groups and their peacebuilding efforts to influence policy and decision-making with the UN-led peace process, as well as with political processes, local, regional, and international stakeholders, and the media.

Project Objective and Activities:

• Empower youth and civil society to participate in collective international advocacy in the peacemaking process and critical national issues.
• Establish a platform for youth activists to collaboratively advocate for youth-related issues in peacemaking and post-conflict political processes.
• Bring together different civil society groups to collaboratively tackle pressing local and national issues.
• Encourage youth activists to hold local consultations with their peers.
• Improve interventions and policies by international and regional stakeholders in Yemen by promoting their engagement with youth and shedding light on civil society perspectives on the peacemaking process and other national concerns.
• Hold regular meetings with the office of the UN Special Envoy to Yemen (OSESGY), diplomats, journalists, and policymakers to share the perspectives and insights of youth and civil society on the peace process, ongoing developments, and their visions for peace.
• Develop policy briefs to share insights from participating groups.
• Conduct policy trips enabling forum members to engage in international advocacy and to brief policymakers, diplomats, and journalists.

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