Security

Security and Peace

Living in an environment of peace and security is fundamental to human dignity and development. As acknowledged in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, peace, development and environmental protection are interdependent and indivisible. Both Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) aim to achieve and preserve a peaceful and sustainable living-together as ultimate goal.

Education is vital to the task of acquiring the capacity to live together peacefully. It can help to prevent insecurity and conflicts from thwarting progress towards sustainable development.

Education can also be called upon to rebuild a more sustainable society after violent conflict. By ‘learning to live together’, learners acquire knowledge, values, skills and attitudes for dialogue, cooperation and peace. ESD and GCED help develop the capacity to respect differences and diversities as well as to build social tolerance and respect.


Through the ASPnet Transatlantic Slave Trade Project, UNESCO and ASPnet attempt to empower young people to build a more sustainable future by learning and understanding the past. The project breaks the silence around this chapter of history by explaining in full the account of the Transatlantic Slave Trade to young people.

It seeks to increase awareness of the causes and consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade - including modern forms of slavery and racism - through educational exchanges, sharing best practice and developing and diffusing educational material.

In particular, the teaching highlights its social, cultural and economic impacts, and above all the suffering it caused. It targets secondary school students in over 100 schools in 3 regions (Africa, the Americas/Caribbean and Europe). Through this project, learners develop their capacity of critical thinking and problem-solving to create a world free of injustice, discrimination and prejudice.



Message from Ms Irina Bokova, Director-General of UNESCO, on the occasion of the International Day of Peace, 21 September 2014:

< The International Day of Peace reflects the innermost aspiration of all peoples to live together, free and equal in dignity and rights. The theme of 2014 is the “right of peoples to peace”, selected to mark the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Right of Peoples to Peace by the United Nations.

The right to peace is of the utmost importance in view of the violence that is tearing the world apart. To build peace, we must understand the new realities of war today, and the way in which both human lives and identities are under attack in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, in violence that aims to strike at the cultural and religious values of peoples. To build peace, we must open our eyes also to the reality of the hidden crisis facing education in conflicts, with schools being targeted and education becoming a means of indoctrination and to sow the seeds of hatred.

“Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”

This statement, penned by the founding Member States of UNESCO 70 years ago amid the ruins of the Second World War, holds true to this day. Aware of the ravages wrought by modern warfare, we must be as bold as they were and invest more in levers to build lasting peace, namely, respect for human rights, human dignity and democratic values. To counter discourses of hatred that seek to set cultures against each other, we must guarantee universal access to quality education to enable one to withstand calls to violence. To counter the destruction of cultural diversity and the persecution of minorities, we must protect heritage as a force for mutual understanding. To counter ignorance and censorship, we must guarantee freedom of expression and protect journalists. We must relentlessly combat racism, discrimination, extremism and the manipulation of cultural and religious identities. The International Decade for the Rapprochement of Cultures (2013-2022), led by UNESCO, is an opportunity for all of us to join efforts to build a genuine “culture of peace”, mindful of the Yamoussoukro Declaration on Peace in the Minds of Men, adopted 25 years ago. Today, I call on all Member States of UNESCO to rally round in order to silence weapons and end all violence. >



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Copyright illustration "peace": German National Commission for UNESCO