Following the launch of the joint World Bank and United Nations Report Pathways to Peace in March, the High-Level Event on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace in April and the launch of the Global Study of Youth Peace and Security, inclusion has been put back to the forefront. On 14 May, the Civil Society-UN Prevention Platform (the Platform) found it timely to host one of its core-group partners, Conciliation Resources, in New York to launch their ACCORD publication Navigating Inclusion in Peace Transitions.

"A Negotiator's Tookit" was created to support climate negotiators in their work to engage busy Ministries with reasons for urgent, rights-based climate action. Ministers and other decision makers face competing demands and priorities, but they may also be more receptive to one argument over another. One person may better respond to economic concerns, for example, another to scientific findings.

Representatives of 24 Latin American and Caribbean countries who were gathered in San Jose, Costa Rica adopted the first binding regional agreement to protect the rights of access to information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters (Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development), an unprecedented legal instrument for the region.

Writing for the newsletter of New York Yearly Meeting of Quakers, Susan H. Bragdon explains how small-scale farmers are essential to food and nutrition security, climate resilience, rural livelihoods, critical ecosystem services, and the health of the global population. Innovation by small-scale farmers needs to be actively included in conversations about the future of agricultural production. Read the full article at the link below.

In January, Susan Bragdon, QUNO's Representative for Food & Sustainability, was one of 46 experts invited to Advancing the 2030 Agenda: Interlinkages and Common Themes at the HLPF 2018, an expert group meeting (EGM) organized by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) in New York. The EGM was asked to look at the interconnections between the Sustainable Development Goals under review at the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) in 2018 and the rest of Agenda 2030, and discuss concrete implications for policies, programmes and partnerships.