NEW YORK (MindaNews / 28 June 2026) — This week, civil society peacebuilders  from around the world gathered in New York to participate in the inaugural of the UN Peacebuilding Week. 

The event celebrates 20 years since the establishment of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), the body created by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) “to raise awareness, foster inclusive dialogue, and promote good practices in peacebuilding and sustaining peace.” It functions also as an advisory body of the UN Security Council (UNSC) on issues related to peace.

It is ironic that this week’s celebration comes at a very perilous time for peace. Not since World War II, do we live in an era where a global conflagration can happen anytime. If it is not already.

The war unleashed by US President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran and Lebanon, the recent devastation and genocide in Palestine perpetrated by the Netanyahu regime, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the continuing brutal strife in Myanmar unleashed by the military junta against its own people, the persistent violence in Sudan, and the lingering conflicts around the world, just shows how fragile and ineffective multilateral mechanisms built to prevent violent conflict are.

Yet a glimmer of hope flickered brightly here this week. 

Perhaps for the first time among many of us in civil society, we felt that a genuine dialogue with the UN, or at least a part of it, was in the offing. If not, it’s already happening. Albeit, slowly.

The usual cynical, if not sometimes belligerent attitude civil society has for the UN system and its bureaucracy and more so for leaders and governments of some of its Member States, has been somehow tempered here by a fresh perspective of mutual respect, listening and understanding.

The buzzword of collaboration, even if sometimes critical, is steadily taking root.

Efforts to “institutionalize” the CSO-UN Dialogue on Peacebuilding process that started in 2023 at the instance of the UN Peacebuilding and Peace Support Office (PBPSO), have not gone unnoticed. Or unappreciated. And civil society members of the Core Group that oversees this dialogue have been appreciative of the consistent and sustained partnership from the PBPSO and support of champions among Member States such as Switzerland, Finland, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, South Korea and the current Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), Morocco.

Undersecretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo affirmed  that “The partnership between civil society and the UN is critical. As demands increase and resources diminish, we must work together,” she emphasized at the session on “From Geneva to New York: Taking Stock of the CSO-UN Dialogue on Peacebuilding”.

Being a member of the Core Group, our organization, the Davao City-based  Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) have so far actualized one main recommendation from Geneva when together with the PBPSO, we organized the Regional CSO-UN dialogue for Southeast Asia, last 8-9 June in Bangkok. 

This regional dialogue was participated in by civil society partners from the region: Aceh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Patani, Philippines, Timor Leste and Thailand along with 6 UN Resident Coordinators and officers, the Regional Resident Coordinator himself, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and other UN agencies like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).  

Civil society allies, partners and some donors like the Open Society Foundation (OSF) and The Asia Foundation (TAF) also attended. Even the Asian Development Bank (ADB) joined online. 

This to us, was also an opportunity to engage the rest of the UN system on peacebuilding and hopefully not only popularize, but embed the discourse into their respective specific remits.

But even before Geneva, together with InterPeace, IID organized the Southeast Asia Peacebuilding Architecture Review (PBAR) in Manila earlier last year. This continued the process initiated by the innovative CSO-UN Dialogue on Peacebuilding that commenced in 2023. 

Organizing these regional dialogues epitomizes what partnership is all about. We were not just implementing a UN-sponsored or supported activity as NGOs usually do, but we co-designed, co- created, co-invested and implemented the Dialogue together as equal partners. 

For us in civil society in the region, this is somehow something new, fresh, definitely welcome, inspiring and hopeful that the world will become a better and more peaceful place. More so, if this partnership persists. And deepens.

But much has yet to be done. And efforts outside of engagement in the policy circles are necessary, if not imperative. Direct, mass actions, campaigns, lobbying, pressure politics, local and grassroots participation at all levels are the other ingredients to complement this budding partnership.

Especially amidst these very troubling and terrible times.

But it will only succeed when we will be able to implement the outputs of the Bangkok dialogue, — including those that will emerge from this inaugural Peacebuilding Week. Only when it cascades and burrows deeper into local milieus, will this engagement really matter. 

It goes without saying that it is essential that the robust involvement of local communities and the grassroots must be ensured. The commitment of the Resident Coordinators in Bangkok to partner with us in our respective locales augurs well for this process. 

Regularizing, if not institutionalizing further this exercise with hopefully also the active engagement and partnership of the governments of Member States would cement this undertaking.

This may be a drop in the bucket of building peace in the face of unprecedented military adventures launched by the tyrants and narcissists of this world, but it will hopefully be a ripple that will radiate into a tsunami of peoples’ movements that will drown the demagogues and their cabals for good.  

For indeed, not one actor can resolve or prevent conflicts, not the UN, not governments, and not civil society. This kind of partnership is crucial to make this world a more peaceful, just and healthy planet.  

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Gus Miclat is Executive Director of the Davao City-based Initiatives for International Dialogue).