During this year’s Geneva Peace Week the Foundation participated in several different events in Geneva. Sigrid Gruener, Deputy Executive and Programme Director, together with Programme Director Peter Linnér and Bavo Christiaens, Fund Portfolio Manager at the Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office presented ‘Financing the UN system: A critical perspective’ based on the findings from the 10th ‘Financing the UNDS 2024: Resourcing the Future’ report. The presentation took place at the 149th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), on the 15 October, Geneva, Switzerland.
Peter Linnér presenting during the 149th IPU Assembly. Photo: IPU
The team delivered their presentation on UN Financing, followed by an active discussion, with 70 parliamentarians from 25 countries. The presentation explaining, amongst several, the concept of core, hard earmarking-soft earmarking and pooled funding to the group.
‘Questions and comments from the floor came from Malawi, Bahrain, South Africa, Chile, India, Sweden, Ukraine and Iran. The chair, and several delegates thanked us for presenting a difficult and complex topic in a very understandable manner’, said Peter Linnér after their session.
Sigrid Gruener participated in plenary and working sessions at the 11th Geneva Peace Week, one of the leading annual fora in the international peacebuilding calendar. During this week Geneva based organisations, and their international partners meet to share knowledge and practice on a diverse range of topics related to peace across contexts and disciplines.
The Foundation used this opportunity to connect its work on Sustaining Peace and the UN Peacebuilding Architecture with other actors in reflections and discussions on how to strengthen the ecosystem of diverse actors active in this effort at a time of deepening polarisation and forces undermining multilateral cooperation.
Sigrid Gruener at the assembly. Photo: IPU
‘The Geneva-New York peace dialogue gave me some useful new ideas’, said Sigrid Gruener.
‘For example, I had not considered the importance of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) for peacebuilding and prevention, especially with regard to their work on weather forecasting and prediction of climate events such as heavy rains that cause flooding, long periods of no rain which contribute to drought or oncoming storms, for example. Given the connection between climate crises and conflict, this work is highly relevant for prevention and peacebuilding. It will be interesting to consider how the UN’s Peacebuilding Commission can strengthen its engagement with the WMO and other such entities in Geneva in exercising their bridging and convening roles.