QUNO

On 3 October, QUNO Geneva engaged with the work of the Human Rights Council on systemic racism.

Speaking in the first dialogue with the Expert Mechanism on Law Enforcement and Racism, Director Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge drew on her own experience of police violence in apartheid South Africa. Welcoming the work of the Expert Mechanism and the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nozizwe went on to say:

On 30 August, UN Member States and civil society representatives came together to discuss and identify ways to strengthen youth engagement in the General Assembly (GA). Kavita Desai, one of QUNO’s Quaker UN Representatives, spoke on behalf of the Civil Society-UN Prevention Platform, which is co-facilitated by QUNO’s New York office and the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). The Platform works to support the UN’s prevention agenda through strengthening coordination and information sharing between civil society organizations and the UN.

Meaningful political inclusion and participation of young people is key for building lasting peace and sustainable development.  Under its “Youth, Peace and Security” or YPS policy agenda the UN has also increasingly created opportunities for young peacebuilders. However fundamental challenges, like protection, remain and truly inclusive and partner-based policies and practices are not yet the norm. QUNO aims to build on the UN’s momentum by engaging with young people in different regions through consultative dialogues to discern the direction of our work on YPS in an inclusive way.

QUNO, in partnership with the UN Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), co-hosted the roundtable, Peacebuilding contributions to crisis and climate change response: Learning from practice, at this year's Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development. The Forum is an annual gathering held by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) to promote opportunities for cross-cutting dialogue and learning between humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding actors internationally.

The Human Impacts of Climate Change programme jointly made a submission to the UNFCCC’s Katowice Committee of Experts on the Impacts of the Implementation of Response Measures (KCI), working alongside colleagues from the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA).