The UN System-Wide Community Engagement Guidelines on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace: A Practical Resource for Local Peacebuilders

The UN has a long-standing commitment to engaging with civil society, including local peacebuilders. 

To operationalize this commitment, the UN Peacebuilding Support Office formed the UN-Civil Society Joint Working Group. This working group led the development of the guidance for the UN field presences on how to engage with civil society and local communities. In this inclusive process, numerous consultations with local peacebuilders, including the February 2019 online survey, video-teleconference consultations and the August 2019 online consultation were held. GPPAC, together with Quaker UN Office and International Peace Institute, was honoured to be part of the process. 

This process resulted in a  document called the UN System-Wide Community Engagement Guidelines on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace. It has become a critical resource to support UN field presences in developing context-specific community engagement strategies on peacebuilding and sustaining peace. If further provides operational guidance to UN field presences on how to effectively engage with local peacebuilders at the local, national and regional levels.

But two questions remain: What opportunities do the Community Engagement Guidelines offer to civil society? How can local peacebuilders utilise the Guidelines to advance their own peacebuilding goals? 

In partnership with the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders (GNWP) and PeaceDirect, GPPAC worked with local peacebuilders to develop a practical resource that provides an overview of some of the opportunities for building stronger partnerships offered by the UN Community Engagement Guidelines on peacebuilding and sustaining peace. This practical resource for local peacebuilders shares ideas, tips and examples for joint civil society-UN action on peacebuilding and sustaining peace.

You can find the practical resource in English and watch a short overview video below.

Reach out to un.liaison@gppac.net, if you want to know more about this practical resource and how you can use it to advance peace in your community.