Geneva Peace Week 2022

About the Geneva Peace Week

Geneva Peace Week  is the flagship event of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform. The annual forum provides a dedicated space in which organizations in Geneva and their international partners come together to share knowledge, expertise and practice on a diverse range of topics relating to the promotion of peace across contexts and disciplines.

Geneva Peace Week 2022 (GPW22) will take place both in-person and also online from 31 October to 4 November 2022 under the theme of “Peace is Possible”. It will continue to build upon the thematic discussions that emerged in 2021, while creating spaces for contextualizing and discussing recent local and geopolitical developments, and how they impact the work of those working towards a more peaceful and just society globally. The activities of the week are organized into four thematic tracks, which have been developed and adjusted to build upon discussions from 2021

1. Rights, inequalities and peace: Navigating tensions, finding opportunities
2. Moving beyond securitization: Risk management and new horizons for peacebuilding
3. Digital peace: The power and limits of innovation in peacebuilding
4. Cultivating cooperation: Environmental challenges and opportunities for peace in a new age of insecurity

The event will include various in-person and online workshops on these thematic tracks, as well as a digital series featuring peacebuilding expertise, research, and stories into short and educational content.

Environment @ GPW22

As part of the thematic track on “Cultivating the cooperation: environmental challenges and opportunities in a new age of insecurity“, GPW22 will discuss the deep links between peacebuilding and the environment, specifically addressing the following questions:

• Effects on the environment: How has the reemergence of large-scale warfare and the growing weaponization of the environment affected the climate, ecosystems, and natural resources? What does it mean for food and energy security? What specific threats does state confrontation pose to the environment (WMD, infrastructure targeting in particular)? How can the environment be safely and fairly restored during, and after conflict, and reinforce the prospects of durable peace?
• The evolving nature of peace: How can peacebuilders harness environmental issues in the search for peace? What best practices can be integrated across the field? Where do we fall short? What have we learned about meaningful participation at the intersection of environment, climate, conflict, and peace?
• Cross-sectoral approaches to environment and peace: As the growing fields of climate security and environmental peacebuilding have continued to mature, how might we better engage business actors? Policymakers? Funders, both public and private? Which examples of inclusion of Indigenous peoples, youth, women, and/or marginalized communities can we learn from? Who must take responsibility for action, and how?

Workshops

The programme includes both in-person and online events addressing these key questions on Tuesday 1 November, with a high-level panel on the relative track at 13.30 CET.

• Climate change and migration: Opportunities for urban peacebuilding | 1 November, 9.00 – 10.15 CET | In-person | United States Institute of Peace, Duke University, The Graduate Institute’s Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding
• Faith-based action to foster peaceful societies affect by climate change | 1 November, 10.30 – 11.45 CET | In-person | KAICIID Dialogue Centre, World Vision International, the Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers, the International Partnership on Religion and Sustainable Development, World Council of Churches
• Weathering Risk : Regional conflict prevention for climate insecurity in the Pacific | 1 November, 10.30 – 11.45 CET | Online | adelphi, United Nations University, Geneva Peacebuilding Platform 
• An environment of peace is possible: Ensuring peaceful ecosystem restoration in a new era of risk | 1 November, 12.00 – 13.15 CET | In-person | SIPRI, Université de Genève
• Nature-based solutions for peace and security: Examples, approaches and tools | 1 November, 12.00 – 13.15 CET | Online | PAX for peace, UNEP, Search for Common Ground, DHI
• High Level Panel on the track “Cultivating the cooperation: Environmental challenges and opportunities in a new age of insecurity” | 1 November, 13.30 – 14.45 CET | Geneva Peacebuilding Platform
  
• Moving beyond greening the economy: Linking conflict-sensitivity, climate change and human rights in the shift toward sustainable and just economic systems | 1 November, 15.00 – 16.15 CET | Online | FriEnt – Working Group on Peace and Development, SiLNoRF – Sierra Leone Network on the Right to Food, Quaker United Nations Office, Swedwatch 
• Advancing peace through climate resilience: An action planning workshop to accelerate change within one year | 1 November, 15.00 – 16.15 CET | In-person | The Institute for Climate and Peace, NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
• Countering climate-change-driven recruitment into armed groups to build a peaceful, climate resilient future | 1 November, 16.30 – 17.45 CET | In-person | UNIDIR – UN Institute for Disarmament Research, UNU-CPR, Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)
• Strengthening conflict analysis for conservation that supports local peace: Examining the case of the WAP park complex in West Africa | 1 November, 16.30 – 17.45 CET | Online | Conservation International, Cetus Global 
• Crafting effective monitoring & evaluation frameworks: Lessons learned from environmental peacebuilding | 1 November, 16.30 – 17.45 CET | Online | Universalia, The World Bank, Environmental Law Institute