An opportunity for the next Secretary-General
The coming leadership transition creates a particularly important opportunity. The Office of the next Secretary-General could help advance the transformation of the UN by strengthening the connection between civil society, local peacebuilders and system-wide decision-making.
The accumulated recommendations of the UN–Civil Society Dialogue on Peacebuilding could form part of the transition to the next Secretary-General, providing a direct window into perspectives and priorities emerging from civil society and communities closest to conflict. The role of the next Secretary-General should not be to centralise implementation. Rather, the Office could provide political leadership to connect institutions operating through separate mandates, encourage system-wide follow-through and help ensure that knowledge originating from communities reaches the places where strategic decisions are made.
From visibility to influence
Our experience during Peacebuilding Week reinforced an important distinction: visibility is not the same as influence. A local peacebuilder speaking at a UN event matters. But meaningful participation can go further.
Did the intervention change the conversation? Did local knowledge reach decision-makers? Did institutions reconsider how they define success, allocate resources or design policy?
Kaltumi’s engagement illustrated this possibility. Her presence mattered not simply because a local peacebuilder was visible at the United Nations, but because her intervention helped deepen the discussion and bring community-level experience directly into a global policy space.
These reflections point toward another distinction: the difference between change and transformation. Change can mean creating new meetings or adjusting procedures. Transformation means changing relationships and power: who defines the agenda, who controls resources, whose knowledge is considered legitimate, who decides what success looks like and who is accountable for implementation.
The first Peacebuilding Week created important space for these conversations and demonstrated a willingness across the peacebuilding community to experiment with new forms of engagement, bring together actors who do not always share the same spaces, and place local leadership, impact and participation more firmly at the centre of the discussion. That deserves significant recognition. The inaugural Peacebuilding Week should be seen not only as a successful gathering but also as the beginning of a platform that can become increasingly connected, inclusive and consequential.
Future editions can bring even more local peacebuilders and communities directly into the room, strengthen the Core Group of the UN–Civil Society Dialogue, connect recommendations more clearly to decisions and resources, and build stronger mechanisms for follow-up across the UN system.
Let us imagine together a future in which no local peacebuilder has to say, “I hear how you are talking about us”, because they are already in the room—heard, respected and helping shape the decisions that affect their communities and the future of peacebuilding.
If the first UN Peacebuilding Week marked the beginning of that journey, it is a beginning worth celebrating, protecting and carrying forward with ambition and hope.
