Part One: SGI’s history of youth engagement 

Youth engagement has a long history in SGI, evolving under the leadership of the three Soka Gakkai founding presidents, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi (1871–1944), Josei Toda (1900–1958) and Daisaku Ikeda (1928–2023) (1). Second President Toda referred to young people as “emissaries of the future.” In his landmark declaration calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons made on 8 September 1957, at a time when he knew his life was nearing its end, he explicitly called on the youth members of the Soka Gakkai to take up the challenge of ridding the world of nuclear weapons. His appeal is seen as the starting point for the organization’s global peace activities.

Appointed by Toda to senior leadership roles from the age of 26, Ikeda consistently prioritized young people’s development and initiated activities that enabled youth to hone their skills and capabilities, while developing an awareness of their personal mission for peace. One example is the youth sports and cultural festivals aimed at promoting peace, which have become a tradition within SGI. SGI organizations across the world have adapted the festivals in ways unique to their countries and cultural contexts, and youth members are continuing to take the lead in organizing the events.

Ikeda also appointed youth as leaders based on the conviction that giving youth responsibility enables them to grow. He wrote, “If talented, sharp youth can be fostered, the future will be bright. The next generation must be entrusted to youth. That’s why it is vital to cultivate the abilities of young people.”(2) Ikeda also believed that youth’s contributions can inspire people of all generations and should not be confined to youth activities alone. 

In 1972, he urged the youth members of the Soka Gakkai in Japan to create a grassroots movement for peace. They initiated a project of interviewing survivors of World War II, first in Okinawa and then in other parts of Japan. This raised awareness among the young participants of the barbarity of war and resulted in many volumes of testimonies being published. This became a cornerstone of the Soka Gakkai’s peace activities and grew to include many testimonies of hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The tradition of youth members interacting with and interviewing hibakusha continues today.

Part Two: SGI’s youth engagement at the UN

SGI engages on the topic of youth at the UN, bringing a focus on youth engagement to all our key areas of work. Our work promoting youth issues and strengthening young people’s meaningful engagement across the UN’s activities is inspired by 40 years of SGI peace proposals authored by Ikeda between 1983 and 2022. The proposals explore the interrelation between core Buddhist concepts and the challenges facing global society. 

Ikeda consistently drew attention to the ways in which young people’s lives are impacted by global issues, while emphasizing their important roles in solving the most pressing issues of our time, including nuclear disarmament and the climate crisis. He  consistently highlighted the importance of youth engagement in meeting UN goals by stressing, “Young people not only possess the strong desire to transform the world, they inherently possess the capacity to do so on a broad and expanding scale. The degree to which the UN is successful in drawing upon the enormous potential of youth will have a determinative impact on humanity's future.” (3)

In his 2006 SGI proposal titled Fulfilling the Mission: Empowering the UN to Live Up to the World’s Expectations, Ikeda focused on young people’s unique contributions to peace-building, stressing, “It is important to focus on the next generation, who are less bound up in the past, and to find ways to enable youth to explore new ideas, avenues and approaches to establishing peace and shared prosperity.” Ikeda urged the UN to put youth engagement at the center of institutional reforms at the start of its sixty-first year. To make this a concrete reality, Ikeda offered various proposals including creating opportunities for youth to engage in the UN General Assembly and making UN internships accessible to a wider demographic of youth so that the UN can learn from more diverse youth voices.  

In 2012, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) opened a path of concrete action for sustainable development at the UN. On the occasion, Ikeda authored an environmental proposal titled For a Sustainable Global Society: Learning for Empowerment and Leadership. In it, he called for the establishment of a "committee of the future generations”(4) to help advise the UN on policy goals for a sustainable future. 

The last SGI peace proposal that Ikeda authored was Transforming Human Dignity: The Light of Peace and Dignity in 2022. In the proposal, he proposed the establishment of a UN youth council whose role would be to communicate to the UN leadership ideas and proposals developed from the perspective of young people. Written against a backdrop of several unfolding global crises, including the Covid-19 crisis and the climate crisis, the proposal illuminated Ikeda’s resolute belief in young people as humanity’s greatest hope: “When youth stand up in solidarity, confident that they can determine the future, this fresh awareness and momentum will surely become the driving force toward a brighter future.”(5) In the same spirit, SGI has been engaging with global issues at the UN, championing youth engagement as a key part of solutions for a more just and sustainable world. 

Disarmament

In 1975, Ikeda visited the UN Headquarters in New York and presented a disarmament petition signed by 10 million Soka Gakkai youth calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons. SGI’s contribution to UN disarmament since this time has continued to amplify the voices of young people for a world free from nuclear weapons. We have encouraged young people to engage in key UN disarmament processes, such as The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW MSPs), and we have supported youth statements at the disarmament fora, including the UNGA First Committee and TPNW MSPs.

In 2015, SGI worked with several other NGOs to organize a 3-day youth summit in Hiroshima, gathering 30 youth leaders from around the world. The steering committee worked for many months to plan the details of the summit, including a public forum on the last day that aimed to strengthen grassroots support for bringing the era of nuclear weapons to an end. From the summit, a youth network called "Amplify" emerged, which served as a vehicle for bringing youth voices to the UN disarmament fora, including the 2017 TPNW negotiations. Since then, other youth networks have emerged, and SGI has actively participated in the Youth for TPNW network, which was established in 2021, serving on the leadership team and encouraging participation in the Youth MSP. 

Environment and Sustainability

Across key UN environmental processes, SGI promotes rights-based approaches and intergenerational solidarity to build a sustainable world for future generations. In 2021, SGI’s first delegation to COP26, the UN Climate Change Conference, included youth members who took the lead in advocating for young people’s meaningful engagement in climate policy processes, including during an SGI press conference. During COP27, SGI youth delegates worked together with youth from various faith traditions to organize the first COP interfaith youth side event. The event highlighted youth faith climate activism and amplified the messages of young people of faith to world leaders at COP.  

At COP28, SGI co-organized an event for the COP Faith Pavilion to promote youth leadership for climate action. The event brought together youth faith leaders and youth climate negotiators of faith to discuss their leadership in climate advocacy and facilitated an intergenerational dialogue with audience participants. We are continuing to strengthen our environment and sustainability strategy with focuses on building youth solidarity and compassion as a basis for action. 

Human Rights Education

SGI’s work in human rights education (HRE) is rooted in the educational philosophy of the first Soka Gakkai president Tsunesaburo Makiguchi who promoted a child-centered approach to education. SGI has continued to promote the rights of young people by promoting young people’s engagement in HRE. We have engaged in the UN’s flagship HRE initiative, the World Programme for Human Rights Education (WPHRE), advocating for young people to be a central focus. In support of the WPHRE’s fourth phase (2020–2024), which focused on youth empowerment, SGI partnered with Amnesty International and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on a project celebrating the positive contribution of young human rights educators who are realizing human rights in their communities. The project is called “Changemakers: Stories of Young Human Rights Educators,” and SGI promoted it at the ECOSOC Youth Forum in 2024. Two of the youth changemakers spoke at the event. 

SGI has also been advocating at the UN Human Rights Council for UN Member States to prioritize youth rights, specifically the rights of marginalized youth such as girls and youth with disabilities. To mark the International Day of Persons with Disabilities in 2024, SGI co-organized a two-day workshop with the OHCHR and an organization based in Tunisia that works with the deaf community. Titled “Promoting the rights of persons with disabilities through Human Rights Education,” the event promoted the work of a young deaf human rights educator who is advocating for the rights of people with disabilities and facilitated a discussion on the importance of HRE for people with disabilities. 

Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment

SGI has been helping to promote women’s contributions to sustaining peace and the sustainability of our planet. Women, including young women, tend to be overlooked in terms of their leadership ability and the varied ways that they contribute to society. In 2018, SGI launched a project titled “Young Women’s Stories—Fostering Leadership,”which collected young women’s stories to capture the unique ways that women lead in different sectors of society. The findings were compiled in a report that has been used as a key part of SGI’s advocacy on gender equality and women’s empowerment, particularly during the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). At CSW65, SGI organized a parallel event on “The Power of Young Women to Lead” and disseminated the findings of the report among the 175 participants.

At CSW69 in March 2025, SGI organized a parallel event on “Activating an Intergenerational Movement for the Culture of Peace.” CSW69 marked the 30th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (BPfA), the most progressive blueprint for gender equality globally. SGI will continue to develop strategic partnerships for gender equality under the framework of the culture of peace with the belief that, “With women leading the way, when each and every person is aware and committed, we will be able to prevent society from relapsing into the culture of war, and foster and nurture energy toward the creation of a century of peace.”(6)

Part Three: Progress on youth within the UN system

Progress is well underway to lay the foundations for a UN that delivers with and for the world’s young people. In 2018, the UN launched its first system-wide strategy on youth titled Youth2030 to coincide with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDGs. Youth2030 is a guide for the whole UN system to enhance young people’s agency as partners in their own rights and to promote the rights of young people everywhere, including their rights to participate in the decisions that impact their lives and futures.  

In 2022, a historic resolution was passed at the UN to establish a UN Youth Office to lead engagement and advocacy of youth issues and promote meaningful, inclusive and effective youth engagement across the UN’s three key pillars of work—international peace and security, human rights and sustainable development. In October 2023, the first-ever UN Assistant Secretary-General for Youth Affairs was announced as Felipe Paullier of Uruguay. At the age of 32, Paullier is the youngest senior appointee in the history of the UN. 

With Youth2030 and the UN Youth Office, the UN is well placed to accelerate progress toward the realization of its goal: “a world in which the human rights of every young person are realized; that ensures every young person is empowered to achieve their full potential; and that recognizes young people’s agency, resilience and their positive contributions as agents of change.”(7) SGI is committed to supporting the UN to achieve its goals on youth by focusing on meaningful youth engagement and amplifying youth issues as a key part of our advocacy at the UN.