Geneva Peace Week 2020

Geneva Peace Week is an annual event that connects and highlights the impact of people and organizations working towards peace. 

This year, Geneva Peace Week takes place online from 2-6 November 2020. As part of the week's activities, the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Gillian Triggs, hosted a conversation with partners from diverse backgrounds to discuss approaches to addressing the root causes of forced displacement. 

The Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) called on all States and relevant stakeholders to tackle the root causes of large refugee situations. One per cent of humanity now lives in exile. These numbers are sadly growing. Conflict and forced displacement are increasingly intertwined and linked to other drivers of instability. There is now more consensus than ever before about the benefits of investing in prevention, rather than responding to a crisis. The commitments made by Member States and other stakeholders during the first Global Refugee Forum in 2019 provide a valuable framework to better integrate forced displacement considerations into wider efforts made to sustaining peace.  

The conversation explored the role of States, international organizations and civil society in developing solutions to forced displacement by addressing root causes. Ambassador Ahmed Abdellatif, Director General of the Cairo International Center for Conflict Resolutions, Peacekeeping and Peacebuilding as well as the Executive Director of the Aswan Forum for Sustainable Peace and Development, Egypt, joined Ms Triggs for the event. Launched at the initiative of Egypt, the Forum provides a novel platform in Africa to address the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. 

Ms Triggs was also joined by Mr George Conway, the Deputy Director of the Crisis Bureau in UNDP and Ms Susan Sebit. Ms Sebit is a South Sudanese lawyer who founded the National Alliance for Women Lawyers. She is also a Peace-building Fellow at the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and a passionate advocate for the rights of women. She advocates and works for the inclusion of women in the peace-building process in South Sudan. 

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Continuing the conversation