Anna-Katharina Deininger was appointed as the OSCE’s first ever Special Representative of the Chairmanship-in-Office on Youth and Security by Serbia in 2015, and has been reappointed consecutively by Germany in 2016, by Austria in 2017, as well as by Italy in 2018. Together with her colleagues she represents a youth voice within the OSCE and advises the Chairperson-in-Office on youth policy issues. She advocates for the needs and rights of youth toward various stakeholders, for meaningful youth participation, for youth mainstreaming and for the implementation of UNSC Resolution 2250 (2015) on Youth, Peace and Security.
As Focal Point on Youth and Security in the Office of the OSCE Secretary General, Ms Deininger implements a project on Strengthening OSCE Efforts on Youth and Security, which intends to lay the foundation and propose a youth mainstreaming strategy for the OSCE Secretariat, as well as a unified and coherent approach in working for youth with youth.
In the field of youth participation, she gained extensive experience through engagement at multiple levels, e.g. as OSCE Youth Ambassador under the Swiss Chairmanship programme "Youth for Security and Cooperation in Europe", and as board member of the United Nations Youth Associations Network.
Previously, she worked as stagiaire in the European External Action Service’s Electoral Observation and Democracy Division, as adviser at the Permanent Mission of Austria to the United Nations in New York, and as consultant to the Austrian Federal Ministry for Science, Research and Economy. Ms Deininger holds a Master’s degree in Law from the University of Graz, Austria, and has studied in Asunción, Paraguay, and in Barcelona, Spain.