QUNO hosted a meeting for the Group of Friends of Sustaining Peace, chaired by the Permanent Mission of Mexico.

The sustaining peace agenda is the outcome of a landmark UN agreement (resolution 2282, below), which takes a wider view of the roles peacebuilding and prevention of violent conflict activities will play moving forward. 

In May the UN held a High-Level Thematic Debate on Peace and Security. QUNO representative Camilla Campisi participated as a panel speaker in a side event to the debate organised by the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) and International IDEA.

QUNO New York Director Andrew Tomlinson shared perspectives from civil society as a panel presenter at a meeting of the UN Peacebuilding Commission's Working Group on Lessons Learned, chaired by the Japanese Mission to the UN. The meeting focused on the development of political institutions in conflict affected states. Andrew spoke about the fundamental importance of civil society inclusion to effective political institutions.

QUNO hosted a series of discussions at Quaker House in New York to launch a new report by QUNO and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) entitled Filling the Gap: How civil society engagement can help the UN’s Peacebuilding Architecture meet its purpose. The report is a contribution to the 2015 review of the UN's Peacebuilding Architecture and includes concrete recommendations for how the UN can improve the way in which it collaborates with civil society on peacebuilding, both in New York and in country.

The New York Peacebuilding Group, a gathering of organisations (the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict, the International Peace Institute, Interpeace, PAX, Peace Direct, the Quaker United Nations Office, and World Vision) engaged on various peace-related issues at the UN and in country hosted local civil society representatives from Burundi, the Central African Republic, Guatemala, Liberia, Mali, South Africa, and Timor Leste in New York.

QUNO New York and the International Peace Institute co-organized a workshop for new and incoming members of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) in February 2013. The half-day workshop for expert level diplomats focused on a range of topics relating to the PBC including political accompaniment, reconciliation & peacebuilding, and defining the role of PBC membership.