Every year, the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) holds an annual session that brings together UN and Member State colleagues to focus on timely and key peacebuilding challenges and opportunities. This year's meeting, held on 4 December, focused on peacebuilding in Africa, particularly in the Sahel, Lake Chad Basin and Mano River Union regions. Key issues in focus included the transborder threats of armed extremism, underdevelopment, climate change and gender-based violence.

Read QUNO New York's newsletter, In & Around the UN, featuring articles on:

• Opening of the High-Level Political Forum
• The Quaker Peace & Social Witness visit to New York
• QUNO's participation in New York Yearly Meeting summer sessions

and more from New York.

Civil society actors and organizations are an integral part of peacebuilding efforts carried out throughout the world. They often possess localized expertise and institutional knowledge from long-term engagement at a community or country level, which is all too often missing from policy discussions and decision making and carry out a breadth of work that is essential to building peaceful, just and inclusive societies.  

QUNO New York’s Director, Andrew Tomlinson, was pleased to have an interview with fellow Quaker organization, the Friends Committee on National Legislation. Speaking with Chris Kearns-McCoy, a Program Assistant with FCNL’s Communications team, Andrew reflected on Quaker work at the United Nations.

The Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) is the UN Secretary-General’s peacebuilding financing tool and investor of first resort. The Fund supports countries through immediate and direct funding initiatives, addresses crucial gaps that may exist in building peace, and provides resources in a rapid manner when sufficient support may not yet be available. In 2016, the PBF included direct funding opportunities for civil society organizations for the first time through its Gender and Youth (GYPI) Initiative. 

Transitional periods are very sensitive and dynamic times for countries emerging from conflict, bringing hopes and concerns to places with a history of political instability and violent conflict. In the past decade, a number of UN peacekeeping missions have closed down leading countries to the next step in their transformation processes, and shifting how the UN and international community supports peacebuilding and development.