With violent conflict now impacting the world at the highest levels since World War II, the theme of this year’s GPW is as urgent as ever: what is peace? This special session of Geneva Peace Week will explore the multifaceted dimensions of peace, probing its meaning and value, and the most critical elements required for sustaining it. Since peace is not merely the absence of war, the panel will explore what peace is—and should be—and how our collective efforts can not only prevent violent conflict, but move us away from ‘cold peace,’ towards a ‘warm,’ nationally-owned and sustained peace. 

At the heart, this special session will focus on the need to build national capacities for conflict prevention and peacebuilding and will examine how peace infrastructures, initiatives and institutions are working together to prevent conflict and sustain peace. It will also explore the multiple levels and tracks at which efforts towards peace occur—from Track I mediation to local peacebuilding—as well as the various dimensions—economic and social including through women’s empowerment and gender equality, governance, environmental—and why our efforts towards sustaining peace must be joined up, first and foremost with local actors and national institutions. The Republic of Kenya will provide reflections on its own experiences of sustaining peace through its nationally-led review of peace infrastructure. The panel will further focus on experiences from Nigeria and regional peace initiatives in the Horn of Africa.