Geneva Peace Week (GPW) is where bridges are built and silos are busted, and where the various levels of actors working on peace from all sectors can interact.  It is a space of meaningful exchange and co-created learning linking practitioners, policymakers, researchers, students and individuals from all sectors.  We seek to be as inclusive and high-quality as possible while always adapting from year to year.  It is a platform built by many and it is in many ways an exercise in, and part of, the collaborative process of building peace around the world. 

Every year since its inception, Geneva Peace Week has grown (and changed). After many years of exponential growth in quantity we believe that that growth must now continue in quality, innovation, learning and interaction.  Therefore, as our many reviews and participant feedback have suggested, we will be organizing a more focused event with about half as many events as last year. This year it will take place online (with a possibility of a hybrid session for the opening and closing sessions), with several new features that have been introduced to innovate upon the attendee experience, interaction, and thematic focus of GPW21. 

Please read through the full GPW21 call for applications document (the French version is available here), which includes detailed guidelines on the GPW21 application process and the selection criteria.

Thematic Direction

GPW21 will be held under the theme “From seeds to systems of peace: Weathering today’s challenges.” Challenges to peace today have been compounded by the COVID19 pandemic. Geneva Peace Week 2021 nurtures seeds of peace in the new approaches and tools necessary to “weather” the contemporary challenges, while seeking to engage and affect change at the systemic level.

The organizing consortium proposes the following thematic tracks to guide content and conversation at GPW21:

1. Creating a climate for collaboration: Ways forward for environment, climate change, and peace
2. Moving beyond securitization: What risks (and new horizons) for peacebuilding
3. Harnessing the digital sphere for peace
4. Confronting inequalities and advancing inclusion, peace, and SDG16

To find out more about the thematic tracks for GPW21, please click below.

This year, GPW will feature 30 online interactive sessions, which will predominantly take place in a workshop format. Online Interactive Sesisons will be practitioner-led and facilitated with a high degree of interactivity, aimed at offering participants the opportunity to exchange and share knowledge, good practice and peacebuilding skills to apply in their daily work. Selections will prioritise the most innovative and interactive workshop approaches. In 2021, panel discussions are encouraged to be applied for within the Digital Series framework, as pre-recorded content.

The Digital Series will feature contributions in which organizers develop their peacebuilding expertise, research, stories, and panel discussions into digital formats (videos, podcasts, and other media) that can be continuously engaged with beyond Geneva Peace Week. The Digital Series will be broadcasted on the GPW website and major streaming platforms (including YouTube and Spotify etc.) The Digital Series offers an opportunity for contributions to the frontline work of peace to continue beyond Geneva Peace Week, across geographical, cultural and temporal borders.

If you would like to watch and listen our podcasts and videos produced for the GPW20, please click on the button '2020 Digital Series". To submit you application for the GPW21, click 'Apply'.