2016 Annual Report

Dress for Our Time by Helen StoreyLondon Peace Talks

Mimoun BerrissounRadicalization Prevention Expert, ExtremelyTogether ProjectSpeaker at the Geneva Peace Talks

Geneva Peace Talks 2016

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Claudia MeierGraphic RecorderOttawa Peace Talks

“The Peace Talks is not just about talking, but it’s about people doing something. We want you in your own life to think about what you can do.

We all have a role to play in building peace.”

Sarah Noble, Head of Peace Talks

Michele BrandtConstitution ExpertSpeaker at the Ottawa Peace Talks

Mireille Widmer and Nicolas WitschardGeneva Community Security ExpertsSpeakers at the Geneva Peace Talks

We live in times where uncertainty has become the new norm. Conflict and war dominate news headlines. As the nature of violent conflict is changing and growing increasingly complex, dis-cussions around solutions have become more technical and confined to the realm of politics and security. As a result, many individuals do not perceive the opportunity to practically con-tribute to building peace and resolving conflict.

The Peace Talks is an initiative that seeks to expand the space for dialogue about building peace and resolving conflict. It does this by highlighting the inspirational stories of people who are making positive contributions to peace. The Peace Talks emphasize that each and every person has a role to play in building peace and resolving conflict, whether in far-away conflict affected zones or more peaceful areas.

The Peace Talks are organized in city-specific events and also using an online platform peac-etalks.net and social media. Through short 8 minute talks, known as a “Peace Talk”, indi-viduals from diverse backgrounds share their personal contribution to peace. Storytelling is a potent means of sharing ideas and practical solutions for resolving conflict.

ABOUT THE PEACE TALKS

Three key aspects of the Peace Talks are the diversity of speakers, the authenticity of each Peace Talk and the high quality of each event. The Peace Talks is not a political platform; rath-er, the emphasis of the event is on practical les-sons and personal observations. Speakers come from diverse backgrounds and have included mediators, business leaders from multination-al corporations, a former gang member from Central America, journalists, an Academy Award winning actor, young people, particle physicist, civil society, military, members of Parliament, artists, as well as the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The Peace Talks were co-founded by the United Nations Office at Geneva, Interpeace and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, with the sup-port of the Swiss Government. The Peace Talks started in 2013 in Switzerland through the Ge-neva Peace Talks. Since then, the Geneva Peace Talks have become the global flagship event for the Peace Talks and an annual event to mark the International Day of Peace.

There have been 8 Peace Talks to date, 4 of which have taken place in Geneva, Switzerland.

Emmanuel JalFormer child soldier turned actor and musician Ottawa Peace Talks

OBJECTIVES

The vision of the Peace Talks is to expand the space for dialogue about building peace and resolving conflict.

• RAISE AWARENESS that each and every per-son has a role to play in building peace

• INSPIRE ACTION in everyday life and on a global scale

INSPIRE ACTIONin everyday life andon a global scale

SHOWCASEinspirational storiesand what is working

to build peace

RAISINGAWARENESS

Of the role thatindividual play inpromoting peace

OBJECTIVES• DEMONSTRATE that peaceful solutions to

conflict exist

• SHOWCASE inspiring stories and what is working to build peace

The Peace Talks started in 2013 in Switzerland through the Geneva Peace Talks. Since then, the Geneva Peace Talks have become the global flagship event for the Peace Talks and an annual event to mark the International Day of Peace.

8 EDITIONS OF PEACE TALKS IN 6 COUNTRIES

• 4 Geneva Peace Talks held to celebrate Inter-national Day of Peace at the United Nations Office at Geneva 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016

• 4 international Peace Talks in select cities: Over a period of 16 months, Interpeace, one of the co- founders, led the roll-out of the Peace Talks in selected cities, in collabora-tion with local event partners and with local Swiss embassies:

• Stockholm Peace Talks in the Swedish Parliament

• Nairobi Peace Talks with the Kenyan Na-tional Cohesion and Integration Commis-sion

PEACE TALKS IN NUMBERS

• London Peace Talks at the City Hall

• Ottawa Peace Talks together with the Global Centre for Pluralism

• A mini event was organized in Hiroshima, Japan within an event of the Global Shap-ers Community of the World Economic Fo-rum.

88 SPEAKERS

OVER 3,750 ATTENDEES ranging from elementary students to Government Ministers and Chief Justices.

TRENDING SOCIAL MEDIA CONVER-SATIONS: The Peace Talks are made acces-sible to a wider audience through live online broadcasts, an online platform peacetalks.net and through social media channels. The past 4 editions of Peace Talks have generated more than 88,000,000 VIEWS of the event hash-tags on Twitter and Facebook.

Online viewers include: 13,000 live stream view-ers, over 200 weekly online views.

3 PEACE TALKS EVENTS:

Ottawa Peace Talks: Let’s build Peace through Diversity The first-ever Peace Talks in North America was held on 19 April. The event generated an enormous interest and more than 400 tickets sold-out in less than a day.

Geneva Peace Talks: Peace Happens! The flagship event of the Peace Talks was held was held on 21 September at the United Nations Of-fice in Geneva to celebrate the International Day of Peace and included many new Geneva based partners.

London Peace Talks: Building Bridges The London Peace Talks was held at the iconic Lon-don City Hall on 3 November. The event inspired reflection and discussion how we can all work together to promote peaceful and inclusive so-cieties, both in the UK and abroad and the event hashtag generated more than 45 million social media views.

• OVER 1,100 ATTENDEES from high school students to Government Ministers.

• 30 SPEAKERS INCLUDING: Adrienne Clarkson, 26th Governor General of Canada 1999-2005; Emmanuel Jal, Former child sol-dier turned recording artist, actor and activist; Alaa Murabit, UN advocate for the Sustaina-ble Development Goals; Roméo Dallaire, Lieu-tenant-General Ret'd; Lliana Bird, radio DJ & broadcaster, co-founded Help Refugees; Karim Wasfi, Chief conductor & Director-Iraqi Nation-al Symphony Orchestra; Raed al Saleh, Head of the Syrian Civil Defence aka White Helmets; Helen Storey, award winning British artist and designer.

• TRENDING SOCIAL MEDIA CONVERSA-TIONS: The Peace Talks are made accessible to

a wider audience through live online broadcasts, an online platform peacetalks.net and new in 2016, dedicated Peace Talks social media chan-nels Twitter and Facebook. The 3 event hash-tags in 2016 have had more than 74,000,000 VIEWS on Twitter and Facebook.

For the 2016 of the Geneva Peace Talks, the hashtag #GVAPeaceTalks was viewed more than 22 MILLION times on Facebook and Twitter and trended globally during the 2 hour event.

The London Peace Talks hashtag #LondonPeac-eTalks was viewed more than 45 MILLION times on Facebook and Twitter

• A new website has been created www.peac-etalks.net made possible through a pro bono contribution of Darwin Digital and Twitter and Facebook channels for Peace Talks were creat-ed.

• AN EXCHANGE OF LETTERS has been signed between the 3 co-founders of the Peace Talks, the United Nations Office at Geneva, In-terpeace and the Geneva Peacebuilding Plat-form, with the support of the Swiss Govern-ment, to formalize cooperation and to create a small support structure housed inside Inter-peace.

• 4 NEW PARTNERSHIPS including: Global Centre for Pluralism, the Kofi Annan Founda-tion, the Geneva International Centre for Hu-manitarian Demining, and the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces

• NEW DONORS to Peace Talks including the Republic and Canton of Geneva International Solidarity Service, Embassy of Switzerland in Canada, Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom, the Swiss Confederation, Ben and Jerry’s, and Mirabaud.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS 2016

Roberta JamiesonLawyer, First Nations activist, President and CEO of Indspire

Alaa MurabitMedical Doctor and Founder of The Voice of Libyan WomenSpeaker at the Ottawa Peace Talks

Hamoon EkhtiariDirector of Strategy and Innovation at TelusSpeaker at the Ottawa Peace Talks

Roméo DallaireRetired Lieutenant-General, former Canadian Senator and humanitarianSpeaker at the Ottawa Peace Talks

In April, the Peace Talks travelled to North Amer-ica for the first time and landed in Ottawa, Can-ada on 19 April.

The theme of the Ottawa Peace Talks was ‘Let’s build peace through diversity.’ At a time when political discussion internationally is dominat-ed by the negative aspects of diversity, the Ot-tawa Peace Talks brought together people from different backgrounds – including a Syrian refu-gee, a minister from the Canadian Government and a former South Sudanese child soldier– to share their timely stories on why building peace must come through diversity in our societies. When diversity is met with inclusion, it can cre-ate powerful opportunities to overcome barriers and create more peaceful societies.

Speakers at the Ottawa Peace Talks included:

• Adrienne Clarkson, 26th Governor General of Canada

• Maryam Monsef, Canadian Minister for Dem-ocratic Institutions

• Roméo Dallaire, retired Lieutenant-General, former Canadian Senator and humanitarian

• Alaa Murabit, founder of The Voice of Libyan Women

• Emmanuel Jal, former child soldier turned recording artist and activist

• Roberta Jamieson, Lawyer, First Nations ac-tivist, President and CEO of Indspire

• Michele Brandt, Director of Interpeace's Con-stitution-making for Peace Programme

• Hamoon Ekhtiari, Director of Strategy and Innovation at Telus

• Giovanna Mingarelli, technology entrepre-neur

• Erum Hasan and Nisreen Ismail, Syrian refu-gee sponsor and former refugee

• Désirée McGraw, Director of Pearson College – United World Colleges

• Althia Raj, Huffington Post Canada’s Ottawa bureau chief was the Master of Ceremonies

The event attracted a diverse audience of more than 400 people. The Ottawa Peace Talks was co-organized by Interpeace and the Global Cen-tre for Pluralism. The event was made possible with the support of Mirabaud, the Embassy of Switzerland to Canada, the Ottawa Hub of the Global Shapers and One World Dialogue.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

A post-event survey was sent to all registered participants. The overall feedback from the participants was very positive. Among the most appreciated elements was the diversity of the speakers.

“I was really inspired by the positive mes-saging throughout and by seeing so many people in one place joining together for the common goal of peace.”

Participant at the Ottawa Peace Talks

Geneva Peace Talks 2016

Karim WasfiConductor Iraq National Symphony OrchestraSpeaker at the Geneva Peace Talks

Ahmed LabnoujPeacebuilding practitioner working in Libya for Interpeace Speaker at the Geneva Peace Talks

Dr. Daraba KabaSecretary- General Mano River UnionSpeaker at the Geneva Peace Talks

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The flagship event of the Peace Talks, the Gene-va Peace Talks was held on the International Day of Peace at the United Nations Office at Geneva. The fourth edition of the Geneva Peace Talks was held under the theme Peace Happens!

Speakers at the Geneva Peace Talks included:

• Karim Wasfi, Conductor of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra

• Dr Saran Daraba Kaba, Secretary General of the Mano River Union

• Lionel Aeschlimann, Managing Partner Mira-baud Bank

• Mimoun Berrissoun, youth leader from Kofi Annan Foundation’s Extremely Together In-itiative

• Helen Calle Lin, Geneva based restauranteur and entrepreneur

• Ahmed Labnouj, peacebuilding practitioner working in Libya for Interpeace

• Marc Bonnet, Head of the Risk Management Division at the Geneva International Centre on Humanitarian Demining

• Mirelle Widmer and Pierre Chappuis - local safety initiative in Paquis

• Musical performance by Pososhok

• Achim Wennmann, Executive Coordinator of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform and Sarah Noble, Head of Peace Talks served as moderators.

The Geneva Peace Talks shed light on three ways in which Peace Happens: through leadership at every level; through human connections and strong relationships and through trust building and tackling obstacle to peace. Eight speakers each gave an 8 minute Peace Talk. They came both from abroad and from Geneva as this year we also wanted to highlight the important work being done by Geneva- based organizations abroad and what people are doing closer to home.

The event opened with music played by Karim Wasfi, the Chief Conductor and Director of the Iraqi National Symphony Orchestra. Karim lives in Baghdad, where he founded ‘Peace through Art’ as a way to resist terror through refine-ment and creativity. On the International Day of Peace, Karim’s story is a powerful reminder that peace happens even in the most challenging en-vironments.

The United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon pre-recorded a video for the International Day of Peace that was screened.

Mimoun Berrissoun from the Extremely Togeth-er programme of the Kofi Annan Foundation highlighted that visionary and courageous lead-ership is needed to face most of today’s chal-lenges. Leadership for togetherness can foster understanding between different communities and cohesion within wider societies.

IN FOCUS: PEACE HAPPENS!

The link between leadership and responsibility was highlighted by Lionel Aeschlimann, Man-aging Partner of Mirabaud. When guided by re-sponsible leadership, finance can serve peace by boosting sustainable development and help-ing societies to grow in an inclusive way, making sure than no one is left behind.

Inclusion and participation are also vital ele-ments of political processes. Dr. Daraba Kaba, Secretary-General of the Mano River Union em-phasized the leadership role played by women in settling civil wars in Sierra Leone and Liberia. In these contexts, women gathered together across the society to mediate between parties, while helping to translate the peace deals into the codes of reference used by different commu-nities and finally bringing peace to their coun-tries.

When youth leadership meets women’s entre-preneurship, it becomes easy to make a dif-ference in communities where we live. Helen Calle Lin, an eclectic and creative entrepreneur, brought on stage her vision of contributing to peace through human connections. For the last 20 years, Helen has led different socio-cultural projects to revitalise public spaces in Geneva and turning them into friendly areas where a di-versified public can meet.

Trust is an essential ingredient of peace. Marc Bonnet, a demining expert from the Geneva In-

ternational Centre for Humanitarian Demining showed how demining can contribute to en-hance trust between different groups. By work-ing closely with communities, mine action work helped boosting the idea of dialogue at the lo-cal level and therefore was instrumental in the peace process in Colombia.

Ahmed Labnouj shed light on positive stories of reconciliation and dialogue between communi-ties in Libya. A major takeaway from the peace mapping exercise that Ahmed conducted for In-terpeace in Libya is the importance of focusing on elements that bring people together, rather than on what divides communities.

Building trust at the community level is some-thing possible also at our doorstep. Mireille Wid-mer and Nicolas Witschard work together on a neighbourhood contract in Geneva. As habitants of the Pâquis, they engaged in a process aiming at building bridges of understanding among old residents and newcomers to address security problems through dialogue.

The final inspiring Peace Talk was delivered through the music of Pososhok. Their energizing performance made the 500 participants get up from their seats, reinforcing the message that music is a glue to make human connections hold and relationships grow stronger. An unplanned grand closing of this 2016 edition featured a jam session with Pososhok and Karim Wasfi playing music for peace.

The Geneva Peace Talks was organized by In-terpeace, the United Nations Office at Geneva, and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform and in-volved 3 new Geneva-based institutions the Kofi Annan Foundation, the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces DCAF, and the Geneva International Centre for Humanitari-an Demining GICHD. The event was made possi-ble with the generous support of the Swiss Con-federation, the Republic and State of Geneva, the City of Geneva, and Mirabaud and the Global Shapers, Geneva Hub.

Held in the newly renovated Room XVII at the Palais de Nations, the event welcomed 500 at-tendees full room despite some challenges linked to the registration procedure as a new security registration system had recently been put in place. A targeted engagement strategy was successfully pursued through the produc-tion of short videos to invite the Geneva and international public to attend in person and on-line, a coordinated social media campaign with the partners of the Geneva Peace Talks which

PARTICIPANTS AND OUTREACH

expanded the reach and ultimately led to more than 22 million views of the event hashtag #GVA-PeaceTalks on Facebook and Twitter which rep-resents the total amount of views from the past 3 Peace Talks events in 2015, and advertisement on the TPG buses.

The event was also live webcast and nearly 2,000 people around the world joined the celebration for the International Day of Peace by watching the Geneva Peace Talks live.

A post-event survey was sent to all registered participants. The overall feedback from the par-ticipants of the Geneva Peace Talks was very positive. 62% rated the Geneva Peace Talks as excellent, 30% as good and 8% as not so good.

Among the most appreciated elements were a the diversity of speakers and the good balance international and local angle, b the musical ele-ment c the uplifting atmosphere and character of the event

More than the 30% of the attendees already participated in a previous edition of the Geneva Peace Talks, confirming the interest of partici-pants in the event.

AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

“I have been to all Peace Talks editions in Geneva, this is my favourite event in town”.

Participant at the Geneva Peace Talks

Ruth IbegbunaAshoka UK Fellow and Founder of RECLAIMSpeaker at the London Peace Talks

London City HallLondon Peace Talks

Lliana BirdRadio DJ and Co-Founder Help RefugeesHost and Speaker at the London Peace Talks

Peter Adams and Rehana FaisalCommunity activists, LutonSpeakers at the London Peace Talks

The Peace Talks travelled to London on 3 No-vember in the iconic London City Hall. The theme was around “Building Bridges” and the importance of working together to achieve more inclusive and peaceful societies. Speakers from a wide range of professional and personal back-grounds shared their timely stories and practi-cal solutions for resolving conflict.

The speakers delivered inspiring 8-minute talks on how they are working to promote more inclu-sive societies, both in the UK and abroad:

• Raed al Saleh:  Head of the Syrian Civil De-fence also known as The White Helmets, whose volunteer rescue workers have saved over 62,000 lives and earned them the 2016 Right Livelihood Award and the nomina-tion for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize.

• Ruth Ibegbuna:  Ashoka UK Fellow and Founder of RECLAIM, a Manchester-based award-winning social action and youth lead-ership programme.

• Fatima Zaman: Young leader at the Kofi An-nan Foundation’s program Extremely To-gether and expert on countering violent ex-tremism.

• Noa Gafni Slaney:  Digital strategist, Fellow of Social Innovation at the University of Cambridge and CEO of Impact Squared.

• Peter Adams: Director of the St Mary’s Centre for Peace and Reconciliation in Luton.

• Rehana Faisal: Community activist and chair of Luton An Nisa Trust, LANTern, a grass-roots movement which seeks to empower Muslim women through engagement in so-cial issues.

• Maran Turner: Executive Director of Freedom Now, and award-winning human rights law-yer for her representation of Václav Havel and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu.

• The event featured Helen’s Storey’s Dres-s4our Time

Radio DJ and broadcaster  Lliana Bird, who co-founded Help Refugees, the biggest provider of aid to Calais and Dunkirk, hosted the event.

One of the most profound talks came from Rehana Faisal and Peter Adams community activists based in Luton, UK. They explained their work to overcome divisions between Christian and Muslim groups in the community.

Rehana read a poem written about life in Luton as a young Muslim:

Walking through a crowded place, Judgmental stares Apparent on every face, For actions taken in my name, You think that I am a disgrace,

You refuse my hand You ignore my embrace What did I do to deserve this hate?

I wear a headscarf, My dad has a beard, You mock me and say I’m weird,

I fast, I pray, I volunteer, Yet still I am unwelcome here, Practising my faith in constant fear.

Terrorists deface Islam  As they ravage and ruin the common man,  This is not my faith and not Islam,  Don’t assume it is,  We’re about salaam.

Please, don’t hold me accountable for the insane,  As all around,  you’ll see the same.

The poem was written by her teenage daughter. Rehana and Peter have been working together in Luton to build understanding and cooperation between the Muslim and Christian communities. From supporting each other through tough times, to working together to stand up to hatred, their talk brought to light the need for better dialogue between communities.

The London Peace Talks were organised by Interpeace in partnership with Ben & Jerry’s, Mirabaud and the Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom.

Audience Geneva Peace Talks

PososhokMusical PerformanceGeneva Peace Talks

GOING FORWARDS

An exchange of letters has been signed between Interpeace, the United Nations Office at Geneva and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform which includes: the recognition of the co-ownership of the brand, the commitment to the organization of the Geneva Peace Talks, and the establish-ment, funding permitting of a small Peace Talks Office to support the collaborative initiative.

The organizers of each event review the feed-back from the audience survey as well as pro-vide their own feedback with the view of con-tinually improving the event format. Next year, the organizers will also consider ways to engage the audience more during the event, to enhance

speaker preparation while at same time ensur-ing authenticity, and how to expand the Peace Talks community and views of individual videos on the peacetalks.net website.

The fifth edition of the Geneva Peace Talks will be held on 21 September 2017 and will strength-en two main elements of the 2016 edition. First, it will deepen the partnership with Gene-va-based organisations to spot light on Geneva internationally as a city of peace. Second, efforts to bridge the international and local Geneva will continue.

Building on the positive experiences and feed-back of Peace Talks organised outside Geneva, it is planned to hold Peace Talks in at least two more cities, including one from a conflict-affect-ed zone to test the potential of the initiative to serve as a peacebuilding tool.

CO-FOUNDERS

Interpeace

Geneva Peacebuilding Platform

United Nations Office at Geneva

PARTNERS

Ben and Jerry’s

City of Geneva

Darwin Digital

Embassy of Switzerland to Canada

Embassy of Switzerland to the United Kingdom

Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of the Armed Forces

Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining

Global Centre for Pluralism

Global Shapers, Geneva Hub

Global Shapers, Ottawa Hub

Kofi Annan Foundation- Extremely Together

Mirabaud

One World Dialogue

Republic and Canton of Geneva

Swiss Confederation

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