Monthly Archives: September 2024

In an era of mounting geopolitical tensions, increased polarisation, conflicts and militarisation, climate crises, and deepening socio-economic inequalities, the need for a fundamental shift in how we approach global collaboration for peace has never been more urgent. This requires reflecting on the role of Denmark and Danish organisations in shaping future global collaboration.

This workshop provides an opportunity to explore a set of scenarios for 2035, co-developed by 25 representatives from civil society organisations and social movements predominantly from the Global South in the first half of 2024. The scenarios are stories about what global collaboration for sustainable peace might look like in the future. Here, “sustainable peace” is understood in the broadest sense, encompassing addressing systemic issues like climate crisis and socio-economic inequalities.

With pivotal policy processes taking place in 2024 and 2025 —such as the just finalised Summit of the Future, the UN Peacebuilding Architecture Review, Denmark’s strategy for development cooperation, and the Africa strategy — it is an important time to lift our gaze and explore how what we do today is leading us into the future.

Sign up for the event here

Details:
Date: Thursday 10 October
Time: 9.00 - 12.30
Venue: Union, Nørre Allé 7, 2200 Copenhagen  

During the workshop, the scenarios will act as conversation starters for in-depth discussions on the implications for Danish organisations and other relevant stakeholders.

The workshop is designed for people within the development and peacebuilding sector who are interested in exploring how future-oriented thinking can inform our current ways of working.

Draft Workshop Outline 

What could global collaboration for sustainable peace look like in the future? In a world grappling with geo-political turbulence, rising levels of violent conflict with both causes and consequences intensifying, the pathway to achieving sustainable peace appears illusive. Globally, there is growing recognition of the need to support lasting peace rooted in human rights, justice and security in ways relevant to current realities and future uncertainties. It is pertinent we invest in radically rethinking global collaboration for sustainable peace. Join us for a sneak-peek of the future, as we look into what civil society especially from Global South consider to be plausible scenarios for future global collaboration on sustainable peace. 

Date: Thursday 19 September
Time: 10.00 - 11.30 EST | 16.00 - 17.30 CET | 19.00 - 20.30 EAT
Platform: Zoom

In the first half of 2024, a group of 25 change agents from across the globe came together in the RESPACE initiative – a partnership between Conducive Space for Peace (CSP), Network for Empowered Aid Responses (NEAR) and Reos Partners – to reimagine future global collaboration towards sustainable peace. The RESPACE team developed a set of scenarios about possible futures until 2035. These scenarios are a springboard for conversations about transformed global spaces and infrastructures for sustainable peace where power is truly shifted towards civic actors. It seeks to promote collaborative action, where change agents across global networks and spheres of influence create new pathways for change to emerge.

The event is organised by CSP and NEAR, in collaboration with Denmark’s Network for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (represented by a group of Danish civil society organisations) and is co-sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Denmark to the UN in New York and United Nations Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO). The event serves as input to both Summit of the Future and particularly the focus area on International Peace and Security, and the review of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture. It also feeds into the collective agenda of civil society and UN member states in pursuing equitable global governance mechanisms and ensuring the role of civil society in global collaboration.

Programme: 

There is something about returning to the hive. In our day-to-day lives, we are busy bees in our different locations, moving around, collecting food for thought to nourish our work at Conducive Space for Peace (CSP). But coming together and sharing our ideas is what moves us forward and allows us to reimagine our work, restrategise our approaches, and recommit to our values. You may have stumbled upon our conceptual thinking around the beehive (if not, check it out here) – just like we apply it to think about systems change, we use it as a practice within our organisation. For five days, Emmaus Conference Centre in Haslev, Denmark, was our little beehive.

Emmaus is, among other things, an art-gallery, and we were lucky enough to convene in one of its exhibition-rooms. Talk about a conducive space for inspiration and learning! We replaced the walls of the art gallery with our own kind of “art”: post-its and posters for our radical change aspirations peppered with thoughts, ideas and visions produced when seven minds come together to reimagine what sustainable peace could look like – and how we get there. The discussions left us with many new ideas and open-ended questions: