QUNO and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) hosted a consultation with invited experts to look at how peacebuilding and human rights work by the UN can be strengthened by increasing understanding of the processes and relevance of each agency and community’s work and by providing space for dialogue between them. The ideas generated are being fed into the preparations for the high-level thematic debate of the UN General Assembly focused on peace and security on 10-11 May. 

Over the last year, the need for greater efforts in the prevention of violent conflict has been cited in a wide range of contexts, from development (the 2030 Agenda) to humanitarian action (as in the SG’s report on the World Humanitarian Summit), from the Prevention of Violent Extremism to the reviews of Peace Operations and the Peacebuilding Architecture, and from the review of 1325 implementation to the new resolution on Youth, Peace & Security.

QUNO organised a side event at the UN Human Rights Council on 4 March on “Procedural Rights and the Environment: The Principle 10 Negotiations in Latin America and the Caribbean”. The UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment, John Knox, the Ambassadors of Chile and Costa Rica and Marcos Orellana of the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL), provided an update on what all agreed is the most significant development around the right to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters at the moment.

In this video, excerpted from a longer film shown at the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) World Plenary Meeting held in Peru in January 2016, Human Rights & Refugees discusses the work of our Human Rights & Refugees programme.

In this video, excerpted from a longer film shown at the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) World Plenary Meeting held in Peru in January 2016, Diane Hendrick explains the work of our Peace & Disarmament programme. 

The Peace and Disarmament programme grows out of a long Quaker history of working for peace, understanding that this means more than the absence of overt violence and has fundamentally to do with social and economic justice and political participation. Where these are denied, the roots of violence can be found. 

With the dust settling on December's climate negotiations in Paris, QUNO's Lindsey Fielder Cook and Katherine Knox from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation were invited by journalism platform the IPF to share their reflections on the conference.

In the interview, they discuss the climate change work that QUNO and JRF have been undertaking and some of the implications of the outcome document, as well as sharing their experiences of the tense, dramatic and ultimately successful two weeks.