Enduring peace is more than a cessation of violent conflict. 

The desire for an enduring peace is among the most noble aspirations towards which humanity strives. At the core of that aspiration has to be a conviction that peace is actually achievable. Yet too many multilateral processes assume the exact opposite: that human beings are inherently violent. This conception undermines constructive efforts toward enduring peace. Unpacking this [mis]conception, including how it both informs and undermines approaches to peace and security, can lead to better-coordinated action and approaches.

In the context of the 2024 High Level Political Forum, the review of SDG16 provided an opportunity to rethink approaches to the pursuit of enduring peace and reevaluate why long-standing approaches are struggling to address the rising complexity of conflict.  

The underlying suspicion with which political leaders continue to regard each other limits their capacity to constructively engage whether it be in internal or external affairs. It also limits the toolbox for conflict response. As long as actors continue to resort to violence to resolve conflict, so will the well-being of current and future generations be put at risk. The refusal to use peaceful means of conflict resolution has led to the persistence of violence, whether all-out war, or the structural social violence that can later lead to direct conflicts. It distracts from and exacerbates many of long the term, deep rooted injustices that Member States need to resolve through multilateral institutions ie. sovereign debt, international taxation, technological transfer, the triple planetary crisis, and more. 

The growing inability of institutions to adequately respond to current challenges fuels lack of trust. It has also led in many cases to highly securitized responses to complex threats of violence. Last year world military spending reached $2.4 trillion. The financing and investment gap for the SDGs is $2.5 trillion. 

The Promise of World Peace

In a statement titled “The Promise of World Peace,” published in 1985, the world governing body of the Baha’i Faith offered the Baha’i community as one example among many others working to realize the noble aspiration of enduring peace through the conviction that peace is inevitable. It further suggested that such peace will be achieved in only one of two ways: through the active will of the world's leaders or through the experience of unimaginable horrors.  

In a world that often seems to choose the horrors, Baha’is are learning how to increase trust between individuals, communities and institutions through a variety of community-building activities. The heart of these initiatives is the conviction that all individuals have the capacity to make unique constructive contributions to the wellbeing of the community—provided they live in an environment that nurtures this capacity. Recognizing the extremely difficult situations in which millions live, Baha’i communities around the world do this so as to learn how to overcome the paralysis of will anyone in society, and its institutions, will feel when they continue to witness the disintegration of their own institutions and political processes.  

In many places Baha’is and their neighbors are also learning what it means to become a practitioner of peace by cultivating these environments; communities in which children are raised untainted by any form of racial, national, or religious prejudice. Other capacities being developed are to champion the equality of women with men in the affairs of the community and to build institutions that govern in service to unity in their communities by resolving conflicts through peaceful means. 

These efforts have contributed to learning about justice not just as an outcome to be delivered by institutions but as a value that is taught, fostered and manifested by each member of the community. In turn, with such a conception of justice, societal actors overcome suspicion of one another. Communities can learn to collectively address shared challenges. The efforts of these Baha’i communities are neither perfect nor complete— but they are made in the spirit of centering a different set of convictions in a community’s life. 

All of these are challenging ideas to consider. But as we consider them, let us not forget that humanity has made incredible advancements in spite of rampant violence, uneven enjoyment of human rights, and unequal and unjust distribution of resources. As SDG16 is reviewed—an SDG that has been described as the scaffolding that holds up the entire 2030 Agenda—how can actors in peace and security unpack the misconceptions that underlie the discourse and build a collective security apparatus defined by trust? What will enable previous disputing parties to build trust, goodwill, reciprocity, and true solidarity?

Actors in the multilateral space have a responsibility to seize the opportunities created through international moments, like the High-Level Political Forum, to plant seeds of hope that can grow into an enduring peace. This aspiration can be fed by constant reflection on the understanding that, in striving for peace, we are laying the foundations to unlock unbounded human potential for collaborative action; the sharing of knowledge and expertise, the focus to safeguard the planet and its resources for future generations, and the possibility to build true global security that banishes suspicion and solidifies trust.  

Liliane Nkunzimana is a Representative of the Bahá’í International Community to the United Nations