QUNO is proud to announce that the latest version of our annual review is now available online! This is a great opportunity to read and learn more about the work of our New York and Geneva offices during this past year, and to learn about the work ahead.
QUNO-Annual-Review-2024.pdf 7.04 MB QUNO Geneva's Peace & Disarmament program works on highlighting the arms-related risks to human rights and tackling the challenges in addressing these risks by building effective arms controls at the international level. Read more about how we do that in this booklet.
Booklet Arms Control 2023.pdf 1.03 MB QUNO NY co-hosted an event alongside the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation to mark the fifth anniversary of the flagship report ‘Pathways for Peace: Inclusive Approaches to Preventing Violent Conflict’ by the United Nations and World Bank Group. The anniversary provided opportunities for Member States, the UN and civil society to take stock and reflect on recommendations made in the report and how to apply these in an evolved geopolitical landscape.
Pathways For Peace - More Effective International Architecture for Prevention -Summary Note.pdf 294.13 KB On June 7, QUNO NY held a discussion on Sustainable Development Goal 16 titled “Spotlight on SDG 16: Providing Access to Justice for All’. The event brought together UN diplomats, colleagues from the UN system and civil society to unpack the ‘justice’ element of SDG 16, delving further into both reproductive and environmental justice. The discussion centered around the intersectionality of equal access to justice, strategies for translating SDG targets into tangible national laws and action plans and methods to improve data collection on equal access to justice.
QUNO New York Representative, Kavita Desai, delivered a statement before the UN’s Economic and Social Council during the special meeting, ‘Unleashing the transformative power of SDG 16: Improving governance and reducing corruption.’ In her statement, Kavita highlighted the importance of civil society engagement in the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 16 (SDG 16) on peace, justice, and building inclusive institutions.
QUNO New York’s UN Representative, Megan Schmidt, delivered a statement during the virtual multi-stakeholder consultation convened on 16 March by the Permanent Missions of Namibia and Germany. The consultation provided an opportunity to share first impressions on the Secretary-General’s proposal for an Emergency Platform. In her statement Megan highlighted key issues that are missing from the proposal for an Emergency Platform, including an emphasis on contributions to peace and the inclusion of youth in decision making processes.
2023 is an opportunity for us to celebrate 75 years of Quaker peace and justice work at the UN. Read our newest QUNO Review to learn more about the work of our New York and Geneva offices during this past year, and to learn about the work ahead.
QUNO Review 2023.pdf 5.77 MB QUNO UN representative Kavita Desai delivered an intervention at the multistakeholder consultations for the Summit of the Future convened by the Summit’s co-facilitators, the permanent missions of Germany and Namibia to the UN. Drawing on insights from the recently submitted Civil-Society UN Prevention Platform paper on the New Agenda for Peace, Kavita called for peace to be a focus, highlighting the need for the concrete and actionable steps to build peace to come out of the Summit.
The Civil Society-UN Prevention Platform, co-facilitated by QUNO and GPPAC, focused its annual discussion series on developing a joint submission for the New Agenda for Peace (NA4P), due to be published in June 2023. This paper aims to contribute to the drafting process for the NA4P and underscores areas of concern and interest from the discussion series that Platform partners and participants would like to see highlighted in the NA4P. This paper outlines six key proposals and an additional three that the Platform believes will ensure a comprehensive and forward-looking policy through the NA4P.
In October 2022, QUNO joined representatives from the Friends World Committee for Consultation, Friends Committee on National Legislation, American Friends Service Committee, Canadian Friends Service Committee, the Quaker Council on European Affairs and Quaker Peace and Social Witness in releasing this statement on the Peace Testimony and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
In May 2022, QUNO launched a Youth Listening Exercise and activities that focus on strengthening youth inclusion and advocating for United Nations policies that reflect youth identified priorities. This work also seeks to engage with young people globally to discern the direction of QUNO’s work as it relates to the UN’s Youth, Peace and Security (YPS) agenda. The first listening exercise convened young people from across the United States via Zoom. This summary provides insights and reflections on key findings and emergent themes from that consultation.
Read QUNO New York's June 2022 newsletter, In and Around the UN, featuring articles on:
In and Around the UN.pdf 449.3 KB On 27 April diplomats and UN officials will gather for a High-Level meeting at the United Nations (UN) General Assembly to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing financing for peacebuilding. In her piece, UN Representative, Megan Schmidt, brings forward the learning and messages from her report, Building Peace in Times of Crisis, that relate to peacebuilding financing across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. This includes: ensuring sustainable and flexible UN capacities through funding across the “nexus;” incentivizing financing for programming that is inclusive and meets the needs of communities; and having funding mechanisms that allow staff the flexibility needed to be responsive in complex environments.
Funding the P in the Nexus.pdf 151.91 KB Following weeks of speculation and intelligence reports, the Russian government initiated new military operations in Ukraine beginning on 24 February. This military attack has had immediate far-reaching impacts, sparked a massive humanitarian crisis, and raised serious concern about potential ecological damage. On the global stage, a range of actions have been taken in response, including measures within the United Nations (UN). This document provides brief details on the response by specific UN bodies thus far and does not include information on all actions taken by UN entities or individual Member States. A letter by the Directors of QUNO’s Geneva and New York offices accompanied the release of this document and can be read here.
UN Overview_Ukraine.pdf 145.55 KB Our newest QUNO Review provides a brief introduction to QUNO and our ways of working, as well as an overview of our areas of work. Learn more about our past year of work, as well as our work ahead in the coming year.
Program Review 2022.pdf 1.2 MB Acknowledging that the world is moving towards increasingly complex crisis situations, which require ever more complex responses, the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) has increasingly focused on the role of sustainable and people-centered strategies for peace within crisis. As a first step in this work, staff initiated a research and learning process, consisting of desk research and the implementation of a listening exercise engaging with colleagues working in the UN environment and globally to better unpack how peace is understood within the UN system as it seeks to develop policy and practice in crisis situations. The publication, Building Peace in Times of Crisis, is the culmination of this work. It outlines the learning, challenges and opportunities that emerged from QUNO’s research and highlights six recurring shifts that illustrate efforts already underway or that are needed to enhance the linkages between peace approaches and crisis response strategies:
In addition to the full publication, QUNO has produced an Executive Summary of the report, which is available here.
Peacebuilding approaches and tools can contribute to connecting short-term crisis response and long-term peace and development needs and support the work of actors in these environments. Drawing from QUNO’s publication, Building Peace in Times of Crisis, QUNO developed this infographic as a supportive and complementary resource. This visual aid will assist readers to outline and map the key shifts needed to build and sustain peace in times of crisis, which are discussed at length throughout the publication.
Read QUNO New York’s November 2021 newsletter, In & Around the UN, featuring articles on:
And more from New York.
In_and_Around_November_2021.pdf 1.96 MB The International Day of Peace falls on 21 September each year and serves as a day devoted to strengthening commitments towards peace and non-violence. This is the sixth year that QUNO has facilitated the creation and distribution of a sign on statement supported by peacebuilding organizations across the world to engage Member States and the UN system. The 2021 Statement brought together over 200 organizations calling on the international community to refocus on peace, justice and inclusion in development, crisis response and efforts to address climate change and its impacts.
In addition, QUNO distributed a press release on the statement, which was shared widely with media contacts covering the United Nations.
2021 International Day of Peace Statement_Signatures.pdf 252.36 KB Press Release_2021 IDP.pdf 166.86 KB The Civil Society-UN Prevention Platform has launched a new report that summarizes the key findings from the recent discussion series on Advancing Prevention Across UN Sectors and Institutions: Collective Pathways for Effective Prevention that brought together Member States, UN agencies, and international and local civil society.
The report shares key good practices and challenges concerning multilateral leadership, transformative gender analysis, youth participation, the impacts of climate, mediation, and upstream prevention, and outlines opportunities for strengthening prevention across the UN system.
