OSCE Chairpersonship Youth Forum – from Helsinki to the next 50 years

The OSCE Chairpersonship Youth Forum will be convened in Helsinki on 29 and 30 July 2025, on the 10th anniversary year of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2250.

The event is organized with and for youth, taking stock of the added value that the OSCE offers in implementing the Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda. The Forum will feed into an OSCE-wide Roadmap that Finland will launch during its Chairpersonship.

The Youth Forum will:

• Assess current engagement: Review the OSCE’s current involvement in YPS initiatives to identify strengths, gaps, and additional needs;
• Define OSCE’s unique role: Help clarify what makes the OSCE uniquely positioned compared to other international and regional organizations in advancing the YPS agenda;
• Enhance youth participation: Suggest ways to improve meaningful engagement with and for youth, ensuring that their voices and perspectives are included in decision-making processes;
• Provide actionable recommendations: Create specific recommendations and options for future action within the OSCE, with the aim of contributing to the OSCE-wide YPS Roadmap.

The OSCE Chairpersonship Youth Forum consists of interactive plenary sessions, thematic panel discussions and parallel working groups aiming at gathering recommendations for the Chairpersonship’s YPS Roadmap, to be launched later in the year.

Participation

The Finnish Chairpersonship invited all delegations of OSCE participating States and Partners for Co-operation to nominate young individuals, aged 18 to 29, to participate in the event. From this pool of nominees, the Chairpersonship has selected one participant from each State. The Chairpersonship has informed the respective Delegations about the selections.

The Forum will bring together a diverse group of young stakeholders. In addition to state-nominated participants, this will include civil society representatives, Finnish experts, OSCE Youth Focal/Contact Points from various Secretariat units and teams, the three autonomous institutions, the Parliamentary Assembly and field operations. Additionally, experts from relevant international organisations have been invited to contribute as appropriate.

To ensure accessibility, some sessions of the event (excluding working groups) will be live-streamed. The link to the live stream will be added on this webpage closer to the event.