Expert Preparatory Roundtable: Peace and Security

One of the global public goods identified in Our Common Agenda is peace. Here, the Secretary-General points out that “our collective peace and security is increasingly under threat as a result of emerging risks and dangerous trends for which traditional forms of prevention, management, and resolution are ill-suited.”

Indeed, in today’s geopolitical climate, referring to peace as a global public good may seem overly aspirational, given the deepening polarization amongst major powers and absence of collective approaches to many of the world’s most pressing security concerns. But it is precisely because the global peace and security architecture is not working that such a discussion is most needed. We can all agree on the enormous collective benefits of preventing violent conflict, ending the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and curbing terrorism, but many of the structures designed to deliver these collective benefits are not performing their intended functions.

As part of its secretariat functions in support of the HLAB, UN University Centre for PolicyResearch co-hosted an expert preparatory roundtable with UN Foundation, Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, and global challenges Foundation, on the issue of peace and security. The overriding question of this roundtable is “What structural changes are needed in the global peace and security architecture to more equitably, inclusively, and effectively prevent large-scale violent conflict?”Addressing this question will require far more than a single roundtable, but this first event was an opportunity to surface many of the key concepts and proposals that should be considered by the HLAB over the coming months.

The event was chaired by Dr Adam Day (UNU-CPR).