The condition of mutually enforcing bottom-up social development movements and enabling top-down laws, policies and treaties, assist ever more people and groups in coming-together to achieve the change they seek.

It should be clear that if peace is to exist among humanity it is reflected in local circumstances and local conditions. After all, we as people directly experience the degrees of peace in society, and we affect its presence by our individual and group behavior.

1111_2919_UN International Day of Peace.pdf

Stakeholder Forum has produced a 'Summary of targets from proposals in the SDGs e-Inventory under the OWG’s 19 Focus Areas'. A section is devoted to targets and indicators related to peaceful and non-violent societies, rule of law and capable institutions.

Summary of targets from proposals in the SDGs e-Inventory under the OWG’s 19 Focus Areas
Putting stakeholders at the core of post-Rio+20 processes

Peace and sustainable development are mutually reinforcing concepts. While peace is one of the main necessary conditions for sustainable development, it is essential to have a sustainable development to ensure durable peace. Journalists and Writers Foundation (Gazeteciler ve Yazarlar Vakfi) and Peace Islands Institute recommends certain policies to ensure both durable peace and sustainable development.

1111_1288_For OWG DSD Peace and Sustainable Development.pdf

Violence, conflict and fragility are key obstacles to achieving sustainable development which were left out of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Violence and conflict has been fueled by unequal distribution of wealth and the interference of wealthy countries in the politics and economics of developing countries. Recently, increasing scarcity of natural resources has fuelled rich countries aggressively pursuing resource security through conflict, as well as tensions between ethnic groups highlighting the need for sustainable development.

Thus, peace and security are not simply the absence of war and conflict – they are the presence of justice and decency, both within and between countries. A human rights and developmental approach to security requires that sources of persistent threats such as hunger, disease, poverty, inequality and repression are addressed. Peace and security must be based on justice and must include the participation of all peoples especially normally underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minorities, and indigenous peoples.

For a genuine and sustainable development based on peace and security, countries need to address the root causes of violence towards building resilient institutions and peaceful societies.

THE CHALLENGE

The post-2015 framework should include separate goals related to peace and security and a clear, concise and measurable target on violence, to strengthen people’s security and address injustices and increase people’s access to justice.

THE CAMPAIGN FOR PEOPLE’S GOALS MAKES THE FOLLOWING RECOMMENDATIONS TO GUIDE A NEW DEVELOPMENT AGENDA TO:

Promote inclusive and equitable development processes that:

Respect the rights of all socio-cultural groups, minorities, indigenous people, and religions
Recognize and realize the right of said groups over their cultural heritage and natural resources and uphold their right to development and self-determination
Ensure that all development and peace and security processes respect indigenous people’s rights to free prior and informed consent
Recognize and take appropriate action to address violence against women, especially rape, as a weapon of war in conflict and post-conflict countries
Adopt policy of eliminating nuclear arms and other weapons of mass destruction and arms trading.

Negotiate a treaty banning the use, production, stockpiling, testing and transfer of nuclear weapons;
Rechannel military expenditure to development assistance and social expenditure;
Develop national level strategies to implement UN special resolution 1352. Incorporate gender sensitivity and include women in approaches on security and peace-building.

Land grabbing—land acquisitions by transnational corporations, business enterprises, private investors, and foreign governments through sale or lease contracts—poses a threat to humans of the Earth, particularly indigenous populations. Through the destruction of local communities, loss of culture identity, and systematic human rights violations, land grabbing paves the way for conflict in the countries where we are working to promote peace and social justice. In the spirit of “sustainable development”, preventing and counteracting land grabbing must be recognized as urgent priorities on the global sustainable development agenda beyond 2015.

1111_1347_Land Grabbing Contradicts Sustainable Development__EN.pdf

Presentation to co-chairs discussion on conflict prevention.Violence is a fundamental component of human suffering. We cannot eradicate poverty without addressing violence and instability. Peace and stability are the road to resilience. The statistical note demonstrates that peace can be measured. There should be a standalone goal for peace & stability, in additional to related targets mainstreamed throughout.

1111_4043_2014.02.06 OWG8 QUNO Intervention.pdf

While the level of global military expenditure is today higher than ever, at an estimated $1738 billions per annum, many states fail to increase their foreign development aid to the UN target of 0.7% of GDP, and to tackle effectively their economic and social development challenges. To counter these imbalances, the International Peace Bureau advocates general reductions in excessive military spending and a shift of resources to projects addressing human needs, both domestic and international. This paper outlines the basic data in this field and makes the case for such a shift.

1111_5190_Opportunity Costs.pdf

The Millenium Development Goals will expire in 2015, to be replaced by the Post-2015 Development Agenda (or Sustainable Development Goals). Participating in these discussions provides a wonderful opportunity for the International Peace Bureau to help shape development policy for the next 15 years and to advance our work on military spending.IPB believes that an important key to solving the funding problems lies in redirecting exorbitant military funding towards achieving the SDGs and other development initiatives. This would decrease the potential for conflict and provide a much-needed boost to development finances. However, the international community has thus far failed to recognize this opportunity.

1111_5190_Targeting Military Spending Brochure.pdf

In order to inform the deliberations of the Eighth Session of the UN General Assembly Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Stakeholder Forum has conducted an analysis of the proposals currently housed within the SDGs e-Inventory which relate to the thematic areas of the meeting, including conflict prevention, post-conflict peacebuilding and the promotion of durable peace.

Getting to zero extreme poverty requires stopping impoverishment, tackling chronic poverty and supporting sustained escapes from poverty. Conflict is one of the main causes of impoverishment worldwide, and not one which shows sufficient signs of improvement. By 2015, more than 50 per cent of the world’s poor are likely to live in conflict-affected and fragile states and this percentage is projected to increase to 82 per cent by 2025.i In order to get to zero poverty, more systematic and effective efforts are needed to prevent conflicts and increase the resilience of fragile states to social, political and economic crises which undermine institutions, as well as to lead already resilient states towards trajectories of pro-poor economic development and shared prosperity. The third Chronic Poverty Report recommends three sets of actions.

1111_3029_The Third International Chronic Poverty Report - Observations on Preventing Conflict and the Impoverishment it Causes.pdf

Societies with lower discrimination and where citizens accept the rights of other ethnic groups tend to be more peaceful. Nations with better informed and active citizens tend to be more peaceful. High levels of trust within society are closely associated with Peace. Societies that guarantee gender equality tend to be more peaceful. That is, countries with lower levels of acceptance of the rights of others have tended to experience greater levels of deterioration in peacefulness relative to more accepting communities. Evidence appears to support this contention with research spanning 15 countries and over 19 thousand respondents finding that the chance of criminal victimisation was higher in less cohesive communities. That is, violent crime tends to occur more frequently in a community, which is less accepting of the rights of others. It is important to note, whilst this analysis does not conclusively prove the direction of causality it suggests that past measures of ‘interpersonal safety and trust’ and the ‘cohesion of minorities’ have some capacity to predict future changes in a nation’s level of peacefulness.

1111_4118_Supporting paper IEP & CdM_January2014.pdf

Peace and Inclusive Shared Societies are two clear universal themes relevant to all countries and contexts, in order for this development agenda to meet the expectations of the five transformational shifts called for in the High Level Panel Report: leave no one behind; put sustainable development at the core; transform economies for jobs and inclusive growth, build peace and effective, open and accountable institutions for all; forge a new global partnership. These two themes are core to any framework and implicitly identified in the current draft goals in the High-Level Panel Report.

1111_4118_Post-2015 joint paper IEP CdM_January 2014.pdf

In a study of the views of children on the issues of violence and exploitation, ChildFund Alliance conducted over 50 focus groups in 41 countries so that their voices can be heard as part of the post-2015 agenda.

1111_1994_FGDs Report. Final Final.pdf