Événement Virtuel
Geneva Peace Week 2021 | GPW2021
The Geneva Peace Week is a flagship initiative of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform aiming to foster exchange between the actors working on peace from all sectors. This platform is the opportunity to build bridges and bust silos in order to enable creative responses to violence, exclusion and insecurity. Find here some information on the environmental-related activities.
About the Geneva Peace Week
Geneva Peace Week (GPW) is where bridges are built and silos are busted, and where the various levels of actors working on peace from all sectors can interact. It is a space of meaningful exchange and co-created learning linking practitioners, policymakers, researchers, students and individuals from all sectors. GPW seeks to be as inclusive and high-quality as possible while always adapting from year to year. It is a platform built by many and it is in many ways an exercise in, and part of, the collaborative process of building peace around the world.
Geneva Peace Week emphasizes that each and every person, actor and institution has a role to play in building peace and resolving conflict. It recognizes that peacebuilding occurs in many different contexts and cuts across disciplines and sectors. In this sense, Geneva Peace Week breaks down professional silos in order to enable creative responses to violence, exclusion and insecurity. By synchronizing meetings and events on different topics related to the promotion of peace during one week, Geneva Peace Week maximizes synergies between organizations in Geneva and their international partners, focusing on the cross-cutting nature of peace.
Geneva Peace Week is a flagship initiative of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform in collaboration with the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID), the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), and the Platform’s five partners – the Graduate Institute’s Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP); the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance (DCAF); the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP); Interpeace; and the Quaker United Nations Office, Geneva (QUNO). Geneva Peace Week is also supported by Switzerland.
The 2021 Edition
This year GPW will take place online, with a possibility of a hybrid session for the opening and closing sessions. In the run-up to the 2nd International Conference on Environmental Peacebuilding, to take place in Geneva in February 2022, environment is also on the agenda of this edition.
Geneva Peace Week 2021 features a dynamic lineup of Online Workshops for all attendees to join, from 1-5 November. The Online Workshops will be practitioner-led, including inputs from speakers who are working on the relevant topics. The Workshops have also been designed to be interactive, with the aim of offering attendees the opportunity to exchange and share knowledge, good practice, and peacebuilding skills to apply in their daily work. This year, our Workshops will take place on Zoom.
Thematic
GPW21 will be held under the theme “From seeds to systems of peace: Weathering today’s challenges.” Challenges to peace today have been compounded by the COVID19 pandemic. Geneva Peace Week 2021 nurtures seeds of peace in the new approaches and tools necessary to “weather” the contemporary challenges, while seeking to engage and affect change at the systemic level.
The organizing consortium proposes the following thematic tracks to guide content and conversation at GPW21:
- Creating a climate for collaboration: Ways forward for environment, climate change, and peace
- Moving beyond securitization: What risks (and new horizons) for peacebuilding
- Harnessing the digital sphere for peace
- Confronting inequalities and advancing inclusion, peace, and SDG16
Recommended Sessions
Find here a selection of sessions, particularly focusing on environmental-related topics.
Monday, 1 November 2021
16:00 – 17:30
Geneva Peace Week 2021 Opening Ceremony (Hybrid Session)
Geneva Peacebuilding Platform
The Geneva Peace Week Opening Ceremony will formally open Geneva Peace Week 2021, and this public event will take place in-person (Auditorium Ivan Pictet, Maison de la Paix), followed by a Reception. The Ceremony will also be streamed online, on the GPW homepage: www.genevapeaceweek.ch
The Geneva Peace Week Opening Ceremony will focus on this year’s theme: From seeds to systems of peace: Weathering today’s challenges. GPW21 aims to galvanize leadership, build trust and contribute to transforming international cooperation.
Wednesday, 3 November 2021
09:00 – 10:30
Building the Ecosystem: Consultation on the White Paper project for environmental peacebuilding
Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, PeaceNexus Foundation
Together with the PeaceNexus Foundation, the Environmental Peacebuilding Association, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and about 150 authors across more than 80 different organizations, the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform has been advancing a collective White Paper project on the future of environmental peacebuilding.
13:30 – 15:00
Creating a climate for collaboration: Ways forward for environment, climate change, and peace
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
This workshop will explore how we best can package recommendations for environmental governance and resource management help to lay the foundations for a socially, economically and politically resilient peace. We will focus on the recommendations and practical ways forward, that can be used by policy-makers both internationally and locally.
15:30 –17:00
Effective Learning and Assessment Tools for Environmental Peacebuilding
adelphi, Search for Common Ground, UNEP
This session is an opportunity for peace and conservation practitioners to learn about new integrated tools that support programme design, monitoring and evaluation in environmental peacebuilding, and discuss their strengths, practical limitations, and opportunities for complementarity. The interactive session will also give room to discuss how peacebuilders can better account for climate and environmental risks and how conservationists can make their interventions more conflict-sensitive.
Thursday, 4 November 2021
11:00 – 12:30
Climate Change and Security in Somalia: A practitioner’s perspective
The Berghof Foundation, UNEP, International Organization for Migration
This interactive workshop aims to present practical experiences and lessons for addressing climate-related security from Somalia, a country where climate and environmental crises are compounding longstanding threats to peace. Recognizing the interdisciplinary nature of such compound crises, the event will explore solutions as seen through the lens of analysts, practitioners, and civil society, bringing practical examples alive through interactive small group discussions. In small group discussions, participants will be familiarized with the objectives of an integrated climate-security risk assessment and – through conversations with practitioners – demonstrate how such an assessment can inform peacebuilding programming in the Somali context. A second session will further brief participants on the collaborative efforts that will be required to sustainably address the impacts of environmental degradation and climate change, thereby simultaneously increasing resilience to climate change, as well as, reducing competition over natural resources as a driver of conflict.
13:30 – 15:00
Accelerating Climate Finance for Sustaining Peace in Africa: Towards Integrated, Sustainable and Innovative Financing
Cairo International Center for Conflict Resolution, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding (CCCPA), The African Development Bank (AfDB)
The webinar aims to (1) discuss the main challenges and opportunities for accelerating and diversifying climate finance in fragile and conflict-affected settings across the African continent (2) take stock of good practices and lessons learned in devising innovative and integrated climate finance that promotes peacebuilding goals as well as integrating climate-security into peacebuilding financing mechanisms (3) infer concrete recommendations on how to advance integrated, sustainable and predictable climate finance to advance peacebuilding and sustainable development in Africa.
13:30 – 15:30
Construire la paix grâce à une meilleure gouvernance de la terre en Afrique de l’Ouest
Initiatives of Change Switzerland, Peace and Human Rights Division of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)
La dégradation environnementale constitue une menace majeure pour la paix et la sécurité en Afrique subsaharienne semi-aride. Alors que la disponibilité de terres fertiles, d’eau et de pâturages est menacée par la démographie et le changement climatique et que la compétition implique désormais aussi les groupes armés, la gouvernance de la terre est devenue à la fois un défi majeur et une opportunité. Il est donc urgent de comprendre comment la consolidation de la paix environnementale et une gouvernance de la terre sensible aux conflits peuvent être deux outils essentiels pour créer des cycles vertueux menant à la résilience environnementale et sociopolitique. Au cours de cette session, trois distingués panélistes d’Afrique de l’Ouest vont se pencher sur ces questions. Ils s’attacheront à mettre en exergue des pratiques innovantes ainsi que des options politiques de nature à contribuer à construire un avenir plus durable et plus sûr pour les communautés rurales et les États eux-mêmes.
15:30 –17:00
Navigating the Waters of Environmental Peace Negotiation
IHEID Environmental Committee, Geneva Water Hub
The session will build an immersive experience and give the opportunity to participants to become actors of an imaginary narrative, based on real-life events. NO PRIOR WORK IS REQUIRED. Participants will have to find a consensus with their team to adopt a solution in order to maximise their interests, while taking into account the impacts of their choices on nature and natural resources. By challenging participants to immerse themselves in an environmental peacebuilding simulation and collaborate with others, our session will provide a safe space to apply, or interrogate the peacebuilding concepts they have gained in other GPW21 sessions.
Friday, 5 November 2021
13:30 – 15:30
Geneva Peace Week 2021 Closing Ceremony (Hybrid Session)
Geneva Peacebuilding Platform
The Geneva Peace Week Closing Ceremony will conclude the week, focusing on this year’s theme: From seeds to systems of peace: Weathering today’s challenges. GPW21 aims to galvanize leadership, build trust and contribute to transforming international cooperation.