Related commentary: Governance and society

Exclusion manifests itself in peaceful, tolerant societies with important implications for our collective security.

Desipte a common belief that Uzbeks are more prosperous than Kyrgyz people in Kyrgyzstan, a recent analyasis shows the Kyrgyz have slightly higher per capita expenditure than Uzbeks in urban areas.

For a peacebuilding and reconstruction policy to succeed, it must consider how people are affected by war and violence.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is the first international policy to explicitly recognize peace, justice and inclusive institutions as the foundation for sustainable development.

In 2015 over $131 billion was spent in official development assistance, an increase of nearly 7% compared to 2014, but there is litte evidence to suggest this money goes towards interventions that work.

Inclusivity in peacebuilding should also apply to peaceful countries such as Sweden, not only countries experiencing conflict. Ahead of the 2017 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development, DHF's Sigrid Gruener and Matilda Hald look at inclusive peacebuilding initiatives in Sweden.

May 21 is the UN World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. Given today’s conflicts, political uncertainties and support for nationalism, it is important to be reminded of the benefits that diversity brings to development.

This backgrounder looks at lessons and illustrative cases of 'what works' in preventing conflict and sustaining peace from sessions at the 2017 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Mine Ban Treaty. After two decades, however, there are continuing struggles against mines/ERWs and their effects on human security and development.

In advance of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, this blog makes recommendations for analysts and policymakers across the field of development and peace.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) and the Financial Tracking Service (FTS), the number of people in need of humanitarian aid in 2017 rose to 141.1 million and they were located in 37 countries. The Global Humanitarian Appeal stood at nearly $13 billion as of November 2017, which represented 58 per cent of the total fund target set for humanitarian assistance.

Just like UNSC resolution 1325 and follow-up resolutions on Women, Peace and Security, feminist organisations – this time together with researchers – have driven awareness of the gender, climate change and security nexus. There is a long way to go, but there is strong interest from a wide range of stakeholders in supporting research on this nexus, to inform their work.

Today is International Men’s Day – a day that was first initiated by labour movements to protest against men’s working conditions. Later, in 1910, the event was recast as a day to support men’s universal right to vote and since then it has been used to celebrate men’s rights, protest wars, demonstrate against increased food prices, and more generally to promote men’s empowerment and equal rights around the world.

This backgrounder provides an overview of ongoing and potential work on measuring states’ achievement of goal 16.4. It begins by outlining the SDG process and how it has sought to overcome the challenges associated with measuring illicit arms flows. It then summarizes the data collection efforts to date and outlines some possible options for filling the gaps that exist. 

This week and next, the UN member states meet in the General Assembly for its 73rd session. As in previous years, we expect to hear more statements highlighting the role of women in peacebuilding and the need for more inclusive and gender-sensitive peace processes. Nearly two decades after the landmark resolution, why is implementation still sorely lagging?

In early February 2019, landmark peace talks took place in Moscow between the US government and the Taliban that have advanced the possibility of a negotiated peace further than any previous attempt in the 17-year-long conflict.

As the Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) launched an operation to target the Islamic State in the Hamrin mountain range in Iraq on the 11 April 2019, it is pertinent to examine the importance of the Iraqi state’s involvement in governance and sustainable security in such isolated spaces.

Article 7(4) of the Arms Trade Treaty requires that states parties—when deciding whether to approve an arms export—shall take into account the risk that the items may be used to commit or facilitate serious acts of gender-based violence (GBV) or violence against women and children.

SIPRI’s latest Policy Paper ‘Building everyday peace in Kirkuk, Iraq: The potential of locally focused interventions’ provides an understanding of how, when and by whom acts of peace and conflict are carried out at the everyday level, and gives policy recommendations for interventions that would address the local side of peacebuilding. This essay highlights some core areas where there is an opportunity for peacebuilding interventions to affect real change in the everyday lives of Kirkukis.

Policing played a central role in the long sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. A key objective of the peace process was a fundamental transformation of the relationship of the police to society, with the aim of achieving ‘a police service capable of attracting and sustaining support from the community as a whole’.

As Resolution 1325 approaches its 20th anniversary, it is a good time to take stock of how it has changed the way in which the UN acts by focusing on the training of police peacekeepers. 

In order to examine Japan and South Korea’s approaches to the WPS agenda, this blog sheds light on how they have shaped their development and humanitarian aid policy.

The concept ‘triple nexus’ is used to capture the interlinkages between the humanitarian, development and peace sectors. Specifically, it refers to attempts in these fields to work together more coherently in order to more effectively meet peoples’ needs, mitigate vulnerabilities and move towards sustainable peace.

Since the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution1325 on women, peace and security in 2000, there have been several attempts to increase women’s participation in peacekeeping operations.

Amid the rapidly increasing tensions between the US and Iran, there is a real danger that the demands of the Iraqi protest movement could be side-lined. The current protests, which sprung up in October 2019, risk having their demands ignored as the Iraqi government shifts it’s focus to dealing with the current crisis.

Despite some hurdles, the last two years have seen hope return to the inter-Korean peace process. With the historic summit on 27 April 2018 following the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s (DPRK, North Korea) participation in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, inter-Korean relations became significantly warmer and perhaps closer than ever.

The pandemic caused by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a massive systemic shock entailing both a public health catastrophe and a profound economic crisis. This blog briefly examines the dual crisis especially as it affects countries of the Global South. The dual crisis lays bare cleavages and structural weaknesses both in individual countries and in the highly interconnected global system. It poses a critical challenge to governments and multilateral institutions to formulate and implement an effective and coherent response.

While grassroots participation in peace processes is increasingly recognized as a way of achieving more inclusive and sustainable peace, moving beyond the realm of traditional diplomacy among high-level actors remains a challenge. Community and grassroots organizations often remain at the periphery of peace processes. This can be due to contending priorities among civil society groups, geographical distance from the negotiation table, the language used during negotiations and implicit issues of hierarchy and privilege.

Human rights activists have used social media technology to organize peaceful protests and defend democracy for more than a decade. More recently, peacebuilders have discovered it can be a tool to understand conflict dynamics and counter extremism better. Yet the potential of social media as a megaphone for promoting human rights, democracy and peace is overshadowed by its dismal record of being used to drive radicalization and violence through disinformation campaigns.

Organized environmental crime has become one of the fastest-growing types of organized crime. In many conflict-affected contexts, it is the primary source of financing for non-state armed groups. In the light of this, how can peace operations and other multilateral actors respond to conflicts which are driven or sustained by activities that involve illegal exploitation and trade in natural resources?

There is an urgent need for the world to come together to address the intertwined environment and security crises, and to deal with the risks they create. This essay draws on research under SIPRI's Environment of Peace initiative and on the authors' own experience of international diplomacy to explore where international cooperation is most needed, and how it could be strengthened.

Transnational organized crime poses an array of profound challenges to sustainable development, as well as global public goods such as peace and security. It deserves a prominent place in efforts to reinvigorate multilateral cooperation.

As world leaders gather in New York for the opening of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly, far too many security key indicators are heading in a dangerous direction. We can, and must, turn them around.