Connecting peacebuilding and human rights in today’s multilateral moment

At the top of the Dialogue agenda was also the role of youth and women in peacebuilding as well as the prospects for pursuing a whole-of-system approach to peacebuilding. While we continue to discuss the ‘nexus’ between development, humanitarian efforts, human rights, and peacebuilding as a need for horizontal integration between ‘pillars’, we in CSP argue that the challenge is about the ‘vertical’ disconnect between institutional incentives and constraints versus locally led priorities and realities. If international actors were better able to listen and accommodate the needs of local peacebuilders in their efforts to pursue equity, rights, and peace at local, national, and international levels, then we would have a chance of turning the tide. That requires predictable and shared mechanisms for listening, feedback, and follow-through. It also requires recognising that civil society engagement is not only about capturing local perspectives but about enabling civil society actors to shape priorities and approaches across different levels of decision-making. Without that, commitments risk remaining well-articulated but unevenly realised.

Stronger civil society platforms

The big question is of course whether an annual meeting like the CSO-UN Dialogue is able to create space for meaningful exchange, learning, and listening to the critically important input and recommendations from civil society across the globe. The Dialogue matters, convening an incredibly diverse set of leaders, experts and practitioners from around the world, but its value depends on what happens after the room clears. Civil society is asking for equal partnerships with the UN, for meaningful participation in policy processes, for co-creation and co-design of peacebuilding and human rights efforts, and they are not satisfied with being invited in on an ad hoc basis with little means of holding Member States and parts of the UN system accountable to their commitments. At the same time, much of civil society engagement continues to be framed through a country-specific lens, where CSO representatives are primarily invited to provide local perspectives on national situations. While this input is essential, it also narrows how civil society’s role is understood. Many civil society actors and movements operate trans-locally, connecting experiences across contexts and contributing to global debates on norms, priorities, and policy directions. When engagement remains largely consultative and country-bound, this broader political agency risks being under-recognised.

Throughout 2024 and 2025, there were extensive consultations and input (such as here, here, here) alongside aspirations that the UN Peacebuilding Architecture Review would provide some of these much-needed changes, but the twin resolutions that were passed in November, fell short of what many civil society actors were calling for. While the resolutions do strengthen prevention language and explicitly encourage the Peacebuilding Commission to consult relevant civil society actors, the critical challenge now is ensuring that these commitments translate into consistent practice. This will require clearer modalities for engagement, stronger follow-through, and adequate resourcing, without which civil society participation risks remaining uneven and largely discretionary. and explicitly encourage the Peacebuilding Commission to consult relevant civil society actors, the critical challenge now is ensuring that these commitments translate into consistent practice. This will require clearer modalities for engagement, stronger follow-through, and adequate resourcing, without which civil society participation risks remaining uneven and largely discretionary.

What we take forward

The immediate opportunity now is to strengthen the connective tissue between Dialogue inputs and decision-making moments, including within the Peacebuilding Commission, UN missions, and relevant UN entities, so that civil society engagement translates more consistently into agenda-setting, policy influence, and follow-through.

This also requires investing in trans-local civic platforms that can aggregate local experience, sustain collective action beyond single events, and translate civil society proposals into more coherent and trackable asks across different policy spaces. As social movements and trans-local civil society platforms continue to grow stronger, they can play an important role in sustaining pressure and advancing proposals for a more equitable and effective global collaboration on peace.

CSP will continue to work with partners to translate Dialogue recommendations and other civil society inputs into specific, actionable, and trackable priorities in upcoming decision-making moments.
For this year’s CSO-UN Dialogue on Peacebuilding, we supported Michael Bro, a representative of Avalak, an Inuit/Greenlandic civil society organisation in Denmark, to attend the Dialogue and engage in meetings with the Danish and Norwegian missions in Geneva. This created a direct channel for lived experience, rights-based perspectives, and in-depth knowledge on indigenous people’s rights to inform discussions with both missions, including in relation to the review of Denmark during the 52nd session of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR). This kind of engagement reflects CSP’s broader approach to connecting lived experience and rights-based perspectives with regional and global accountability mechanisms.