Multi-actor partnerships are essential to reaching sustainable peace. Sara Sekkenes, UNDP, explains what kind of stakeholders need to be involved and why.

The UN peacebuilding frameworks are capable of making this world a better and safer place through defining the goal of “sustainable peace” as a companion and prerequisite to the 2030 Agenda. Sara Sekkenes, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), believes that it further provides us with an opportunity to closely work together on reaching international development goals.

The relevance of multi-actor partnerships

All of the partners involved in a peace process must be on an equal basis. That does not only involve national authorities and the UN, but also civil society, the private sector, partner countries, and, most importantly, the affected populations themselves. Each and every one of them is necessary to maximize the potential resources and develop adequate responses to the challenges on the ground. Ensuring the diversity of actors in these partnerships is thus of high importance and the FriEnt Peacebuilding Forum contributes to that by providing a platform to increase shared understandings of contemporary barriers to sustainable peace.