The UNESCO Regional Offices for Eastern and Southern Africa will host the African Regional Dialogue on “Positive Peace in Africa – The Environment We Need” on 22 October 2021, in contribution to this year’s Nanjing Peace Forum that is jointly hosted by the UNESCO Beijing Office, the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO, the Information Office of Jiangsu Provincial Government, and the Nanjing Municipal Government.
The African Regional Dialogue will interrogate the notion of “Eco-civilisation” for peace that is at the core of the 2021 Nanjing Peace Forum, whose theme is “Living in Harmony with Nature for Peace”. The African Regional Dialogue will strive to bring insights on two central questions:
- What are the environmental preconditions for Africa to build and consolidate a Positive Peace?
- What new approaches or paradigms can be tested to translate the Eco-civilisation into practice?
Prominent scholars and experts from the region, involved in key Organizations such as the Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC), the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), or the Institute for Peace and Security Studies (IPSS), will help unpack the multidimensional concept of Positive Peace in relation with the Environment and Climate Change.
The outcome of the Dialogue will feed into the Nanjing Peace Forum final Statement that seeks to promote ideas on how to reshape the world towards one marked by intercultural understanding, tolerance, solidarity, social justice, and inclusion
The annual Nanjing Peace Forum was first launched last year as part of a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between UNESCO and the Nanjing Municipal Government to reiterate the significance of peace, and to formalize a partnership to promote peace and understanding among people. The Forum is designed to seek ideas on how to reshape the world towards one marked by intercultural understanding, tolerance, solidarity, social justice, and inclusion. It is a periodic coming together, underpinning a permanent process of strengthening dialogue and capacities for all relevant stakeholders towards building and sustaining peace.
Register here.