Description
GRÓ GEST joined Höfði Reykjavík Peace Centre in hosting its annual conference on peace, in cooperation with the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs and The Institute for Sustainability Studies. The conference took place in October at Veröld - The House of Vigdís at the University of Iceland and was also streamed.
The conference addressed the challenges of reaffirming the UN's role to settle disputes peacefully as international cooperation as the effectiveness of multilateral institutions has been questioned. The threats of climate change, pandemics, and the increasing role of non-state actors in conflict in a rapidly changing environment contribute to these challenges and the conference’s focus was to discuss sustainable solutions to these issues. The event was divided up in four seminars: Broken Promises? The International Community and Afghanistan; Global Citizenship Education for Peace; Addressing the Impact of Climate Change on Peace; and Global Citizenship Education for Peace.
Among the speakers were Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme from 2009- 2017; Fawzia Koofi, Afghan politician and women’s rights activist; Gulalai Ismail, human rights activist and founder of Aware Girls; Juan Pablo Villalobos, Mexican author and writer of the novel Down the
Rabbit Hole; Sanam Nagaragi-Anerlini a BritishIranian author, and Director of the Centre for Women, Peace, and Security at London School of Economics.
Two former GEST fellows, Ofoq Roshan and Zeba Sultani, who moved to Iceland following the Taliban takeover in August, participated in the first panel of the conference, sharing their insights about the situation of Afghanistan.
Organizers
