In August QUNO New York hosted an informal civil society strategy session at Quaker House to discuss the next steps for peace issues within the soon-to be adopted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Primarily focusing on Goal 16 - Promoting Peaceful and Inclusive Societies - civil society representatives, as well as selected member state representatives and UN officials, discussed an array of next steps concerning the implementation, measurement, and communication of the agenda. 

Take a look at what's going on in our New York office: QUNO's quarterly Newsletter highlights our work on the new Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda; the first Arria-Formula meeting focusing on the issue of Palestine since 1997; a workshop in Beijing entitled "Emerging Views on Global Peace Practice;" our Review of the UN Peacebuilding architecture; and new staff in New York.

QUNO, as one of the four partners of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform (together with Interpeace, the Centre for Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding of the Graduate Institute, and the Geneva Centre on Security Policy), supported Geneva Peace Week 2015, which in its second year, served as the umbrella for 41 events organized by 50 institutions. The Main Programme was developed collaboratively between the UN Office in Geneva, the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform (GPP), organizations based in the Maison de la Paix, and the University of Geneva.

QUNO, together with the Centre for Peacebuilding (swisspeace) and the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable (ICAR), held a side event at the 4th UN Forum on Business and Human rights, on 16 November 2015. This event focused on the “Human Rights Implications of Large-Scale Land Investments and Constructive Responses”. Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, spoke on preliminary findings and initial reflections of a draft report produced for ICAR, Global Witness and Oxfam on Land, corruption and human rights.

QUNO New York Director, Andrew Tomlinson, was invited to speak as a panelist in the public consultation on Social Inclusion hosted by the Independent Commission on Multilateralism at the International Peace Institute, together with Dr. Ilze Brands Kehris, and Omar El Okdah. His comments focused on the core nature of the issues of social inclusion, political participation and effective governance and their role in conflict prevention, the nature of inclusive national ownership in practice, and the need for the multilateral system to model inclusion in its own practices.

QUNO New York Director, Andrew Tomlinson, was invited to speak at a meeting of the Washington-based Conflict Prevention and Resolution Forum on 'The Future of Goal 16: Peace and Inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals', along with Lynn Wagner of IISD and Cynthia Clapp-Wincek, a consultant and policy expert with the US government, in a session chaired by Liz Hume of the Alliance for Peacebuilding. Andrew's remarks focused on the universal application of the peaceful, just and inclusive societies agenda within the SDGs.

QUNO New York director, Andrew Tomlinson, spoke at the Second Annual Symposium on the Role of Religion and Faith-Based Organisations in International Affairs, which had a thematic focus on the links between religion, violence and extremism. He was invited to speak as a panelist on the intersections of religion and violence, alongside Professor Dr. John L. Esposito from Georgetown University.