PeaceCon 2024:
STATUS QUO NO MORE:
bUILDING pEACE IN THE TIME OF RISING VIOLENT CONFLICT
On September 10th - 12th, join the Alliance for Peacebuilding—in partnership with the U.S. Institute of Peace—for our 12th annual conference, PeaceCon 2024: Status Quo No More: Building Peace in the Time of Rising Violent Conflict, in hybrid format.
Prioritizing and centering peacebuilding and conflict prevention are critical to addressing the most pressing issues of our time. Since 2018, the world has continued to experience rising record-breaking levels of fragility and violent conflict. But are we addressing the most pressing drivers of conflict, including that more than half of all global conflicts are driven by self-determination claims based on identity or calls for self-government? At the same time, social cohesion and trust—crucial correctives to drivers of conflict—are at an all-time low and declining rapidly. All of this is occurring against the backdrop of a new and uncertain multipolar world in which traditional peacebuilders must grapple with a dizzying array of new actors—state and non-state alike—exerting influence and resources in fragile settings worldwide.
The peacebuilding community must address the correct problems with scalable, evidence-based, and locally-led solutions that prevent and reduce key conflict drivers and build sustainable peace and resiliency. To do so, we need to reframe the narrative of peacebuilding as an actionable and practical approach to more effectively and urgently build champions among the public, policymakers, private, bilateral, and multilateral donors, the private sector, and beyond. At PeaceCon 2024, join us to explore these issues and ways to ensure conflict prevention and peacebuilding are routinely and robustly integrated into all development sectors and funding streams and hold leaders accountable for their “prevention promises.”
The Request for Proposals for PeaceCon 2024 is now LIVE! The deadline to submit a session proposal is Friday, May 31st at 11:59pm ET.
PeaceCon 2024 Themes:
Anticipating Shocks and Disruptions and Leveraging Innovations and Evidence-Based Solutions:
Many large-scale shocks and disruptions are fundamentally changing how societies function and increasing threats of violent conflict and extremism—from artificial intelligence to climate change, shifting demographics and migrant patterns, and more. Sessions should address how the peacebuilding field can advance evidence-based norms, policies, and programs that ensure these disruptors and shocks can be anticipated and managed and how innovations and evidence-based solutions can build sustainable peace.
Integrating and Aligning Peacebuilding and Conflict Prevention
For too long, peacebuilding and conflict prevention have remained deprioritized and siloed in policies, programming, and funding mechanisms, leading to missed opportunities to address drivers of conflict and crisis and build sustainable peace. The peacebuilding sector must champion and develop coordinated policy responses and programming that advance integrated approaches. Sessions will explore the impacts of integrated and multisectoral policy and programmatic approaches, learning, best practices, and standards that can be scaled to ensure we address the correct drivers of conflict. They will also explore solutions to overcoming siloed approaches to development assistance, diplomacy, security cooperation, and other sectors, including health, technology, brain science, and beyond.
Rebuilding Social Cohesion and Trust
Peacebuilders refer to social cohesion as “the glue that holds societies together.” Societies with high levels of social cohesion (trust in institutions and promoting strong social relations and capital show greater resilience to shocks and conflict, while lower social cohesion can lead to violent conflict and instability. Today, social cohesion and trust are rapidly declining globally. Sessions will focus on what is and is not working systemically to promote social cohesion at the vertical level (between citizens and governments) and at the horizontal level (between communities) and why it is vital to building peace.
Reframing Peacebuilding Narratives
The peacebuilding field needs to be more effective in its collective messaging because it continues to struggle to communicate what peacebuilding is, why it matters, and how it can advance the field. Sessions will address how we can effectively reframe how peacebuilders and the media communicate to build robust champions with policymakers, lawmakers, and the public. Proposals under this theme should explore reframing narratives and storytelling in peacebuilding and how to best disseminate them.
Peacebuilding in a Multipolar World
In a multipolar world, the peacebuilding community now must grapple with a growing and increasingly diverse set of peacebuilders. A diffusion of power has empowered non-traditional actors, including emerging “Middle Powers”, regional organizations, and non-state groups, to enter the peacebuilding space. New alignments are reshaping the landscape of conflict mediation beyond the traditional parties at the negotiating table and must be taken into account. Facing new actors and disruptors, the peacebuilding community must refit and update the traditional peacebuilding toolkit to effectively address conflict around the world.