Time: 08:00–09:30 ET / 14:00–15:30 CET / 16:00–17:30 EAT / 18:30–20:00 IST
Participants: Open to those attending the December CSO-UN Dialogue in Geneva as well as others interested in its themes.
Location: Online (via Zoom)
Register: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/BQRtaIMuSMyZIPj8dSYqgQ

Civic space continues to narrow worldwide, even as UN human rights and peacebuilding architectures struggle to offer adequate protection and support. At the same time, global cooperation is fragmenting, demanding new forms of collaboration with civil society to uphold legitimacy and deliver on core mandates. The 2025 CSO-UN Dialogue takes place at a pivotal moment, with UN reform efforts advancing amid growing volatility and new pressures on multilateralism. Civil society remains a vital force for peace and inclusion, yet faces unprecedented challenges in resourcing, trust, and access.

Conducive Space for Peace (CSP) invites participants in the 2025 Dialogue, organisations supporting CSO participation and those interested in its themes to an informal, virtual Chatham House–style exchange ahead of Geneva. The session offers a reflective, forward-looking space to explore how civil-society roles and UN collaboration can evolve in response to emerging global realities. Rather than a consultation or formal input process linked to the Dialogue, it will be an informal, creative discussion aimed at expanding shared understanding and alignment among civil-society, UN, and member-states aimed at strengthening the collaboration between CSOs and UN peacebuilding and human rights architecture mechanisms.

The exchange will move through three connected areas of reflection. It will begin by scanning emerging trends shaping the future of civic space and multilateral cooperation, considering how shifts in power, technology, and legitimacy may redefine the operating environment for peacebuilding and human rights (RESPACE Initiative). From there, participants will reflect on how civil society leadership and alliances can evolve to sustain inclusion, accountability, and collective agency in a changing global landscape (Civil Society as Collective Freedom, Sep 2025). Finally, the discussion will look ahead to how the UN’s peacebuilding and human-rights architectures could better enable and accompany these roles, including by strengthening protection pathways, ensuring meaningful access to decision spaces, expanding responsive funding, and deepening trust between states and citizens (Charting Tomorrow, Mar 2025). Together, these threads will inform a shared conversation on how to shape a more grounded, future-ready UN-civil-society collaboration.