Every year on September 21, the world celebrates the International Day of Peace. This date was established by a resolution of the UN General Assembly as the day of a ceasefire and non-violence.

For most people, the world is an everyday reality and therefore the invaluable gift of Peace is sometimes simply not noticed. Our streets are safe, and our children go to school. However, this scene is different in some parts of the world. Every year wars are killing hundreds of lives, including women and children. With each military conflict, humanity takes a significant step backwards, as many things have to be recovered instead of going forward. That is why the celebration of the International Day of Peace, which is aimed at conveying the danger of war, is very important.

Every year, the International Day of Peace is held under a specific theme, and the theme for 2021is “Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world”. The theme was chosen purposefully to highlight the importance of collective efforts to help everyone to recover from COVID-19 and focus on creating a more equitable, peaceful, inclusive and sustainable world.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres has called on all warring parties to lay down their arms and focus on fighting this unprecedented global pandemic. While the message is aimed at the armed forces, international global solidarity and cooperation are essential in efforts against the worst health crisis of our time.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development states that “there can be no sustainable development without peace and peace without sustainable development”. This message is also aligned with the 2016 Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on “Sustaining peace”

“The key idea of celebrating this day is to strengthen the ideals of peace among all countries and peoples of the planet. It reminds us of the value of peace and how fragile it may become because of the war. A culture of peace is first of all a culture of dialogue and prevention. And in this context, the role of leaders of states has never been so important” Erkina Urazbayeva, Program Advisor to the UNDP Resident Representative.

UNDP Kyrgyzstan pays special attention to peacebuilding projects, with special attention to the border regions of the country. These projects are mainly aimed at developing good-neighborly and friendly relations between the youth of neighboring states and strengthening social cohesion on the ground. Under this framework, UNDP in Kyrgyzstan also implements projects to prevent violent extremism contributing to terrorism in Central Asia, as well as a project to recover from the COVID-19 crisis.

“All projects in the field of peacebuilding in Kyrgyzstan are based on UNDP’s experience determined that most of the conflicts are associated with the governance, border and inter-group relations. Peace and development projects work to address root causes of conflicts and focuse on strengthening social and political structures at all levels, as well as strengthening national capacity to facilitate sustainable human development."- Mukash Kaldarov , Senior Adviser on Social Cohesion of UNDP Accountable Institutions, Justice and Peace Programme Area

Most often, the main participants in such projects are young people between the ages of 14 and 28, who receive leadership skills, peacebuilding, legal knowledge and mini-grants to implement the most popular social entrepreneurship projects in communities. In addition, such projects include providing assistance to the state bodies of Kyrgyzstan in the implementation of the outlined plans for interdepartmental and interregional cooperation with colleagues from neighboring countries. UNDP in the Kyrgyz Republic is in solidarity with the call of the United Nations to end hostilities in all countries and calls for the celebration of the International Day of Peace in the form of education and public awareness of issues related to peace.