The Geneva Hub is pleased to announce its new project to support the promotion of peace, through a partnership with the Geneva Peace Talks held on 19 September to celebrate the International Day of Peace

21 September 2014 marks the International Day of Peace, and falls as world leaders gather at the United Nations headquarters in New York for the 68th General Assembly. To commemorate this day, and shed light on some of the challenges and barriers to achieving global peace and security the Geneva Peace Talks will be held on 19 September at the Palais des Nations. The talks are open to the public (registration required) to improve understanding and accessibility, thereby reinforcing the notion that each and every person has a role to play in peace-building. Individual talks are also live streamed.

The Geneva Hub has partnered with the organizers of the event, Interpeace, the United Nations Office of Geneva (UNOG) and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform.

This year’s theme, Let’s Talk Peace, seeks to highlight the role of communication tools, techniques and channels in overcoming conflict, by nurturing dialogue and tolerance. During the talks, speakers from different sectors and industries will share their personal stories, ideas and practical solutions to resolving conflict. This year’s agenda features renowned political cartoonist Jean "Plantu" Plantereux, who created Cartooning for Peace in 2006, as well as Monica McWilliams, professor of Woman's Studies at the University of Ulster. Monica played a crucial role in the peace talks that lead to the Good Friday Agreement, facilitating the Northern Ireland peace process in the late 1990s.

With communication and information/experience sharing such vital tools in peace-building initiatives, another on-going goal of the talks is to create a world-wide community of citizens who are informed and empowered by the language of peace, and can employ it in local or grassroots settings. Future peace talks could see a distributed presence of nodes around the world, each hosting their own individual sessions, thereby contributing to a shared, global culture of peace and tolerance. 2014 is just the second instalment in the Peace Talks series, with events hosted in Geneva and Abidjan, and it is hoped that future instalments can spread to even more locations.

Are you in Geneva? 

Register to attend the Geneva Peace Talks at the Palais des Nations.See #Genevapeacetalks on Twitter or http://peacetalks.net/ for more info.