Geneva Consultations 2025: Imagining the Future of the Peacebuilding Architecture

On 14 February 2025, the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, together with Interpeace and with the instrumental support of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, convened a new edition of its now well-known Geneva Consultations — strategic gatherings of experts on timely and policy-relevant matters of Peacebuilding — with the aim of contributing to the quinquennial UN Peacebuilding Architecture Review (PBAR), the formal phase of which opened in early 2025.

Bringing together representatives from international organizations, civil society, the private sector, and academia, the Consultations aimed to build on the vast amount of discussions that had taken place during the PBAR's informal phase, with the objective to generate more specific and actionable recommendations to be considered by member states in the leadup to the adoption of the PBAR twin resolutions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council later this year.

In addition to discussing the context in the broader field of Peacebuilding given today's complex, changing, and sometimes unpredictable, global environment, the Consultations focused specifically on two key areas on which Geneva-based actors possessed a unique set of expertise:

• How to better engage with and involve private sector actors for peacebuilding and peacebuilding financing?

• How to better leverage human rights, its tools, institutions, and its community, to help advance just and lasting peace?

Closing the Gap with New York

Because the bodies and staff that make up the UN Peacebuilding Architecture are almost all located in New York, and because the outcome of the Review process is ultimately decided by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council, there is always a risk in seeing the PBAR being overly New York-centric, and insufficiently benefitting from the key insights and perspective of actors outside of New York. One of the goals of the Consultations was therefore to ensure that Geneva's voice would be heard.

For this purpose, the Consultations benefited tremendously from the exceptional participation of the two co-facilitators designated by the General Assembly and the Security Council to lead the formal phase of the PBAR, who travelled from New York: Amb. Osama Mahmoud Abdelkhalek Mahmoud, of Egypt, and Amb. Samuel Žbogar of Slovenia.

Geneva's Vital Role in Peacebuilding

Even though the obstacles are piling up, and despite the growing impression of being under attack, multilateralism is the only way forward to face most of today's peacebuilding-related challenges.

As highlighted by GPP Executive Director Annyssa Bellal, GPP Board Director Amb. Thomas Greminger, as well as Amb. Julien Thöni, Switzerland's deputy ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Geneva has a unique role to play in peacebuilding, in today's turbulent world more than ever.

Not only does Geneva have a unique history, but more importantly it has a unique ecosystem of organizations--governmental, intergovernmental, and nongovernmental-at the interface of diplomacy and practical and operational expertise in humanitarian action, human rights advocacy, trade, development, as well as business, research, and innovation. Geneva also offers a unique space for difficult conversations that would be impossible in other forums--offering such spaces was and continues to be the core objective of the GPP, with the support of its partners.

Financing for Peacebuilding: Involving the Private Sector

Over the course of the roundtable discussion--facilitated by interpeace, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)--participants highlighted how the 2025 PBAR offers an opportunity to foster initiatives that strengthen financing for peacebuilding generally, but also to push for the development of avenues for enhanced cooperation with the private sector and seek greater coherence, and impact.

Human Rights, a Critical Tool of Peacebuilding

The second thematic discussion--convened by the GPP, in collaboration with the Geneva Academy and the UN University Centre for Policy Research--explored the articulation of human rights with peacebuilding. Participants challenged common misconceptions against human rights and its ecosystem that are sometimes pervasive in decision-making spaces. Participants highlighted that the 2025 PBAR, rather than imagining new solutions, is opportunity to give a new impetus to previously agreed commitments, and to continue efforts to harness human rights for peacebuilding, by prioritizing practical initiatives that yield concrete results.

What Next?

The outcome of the Consultations was summarized in a four-pager that was circulated with the PBAR co-facilitators and presented on the occasion of a roundtable discussion convened by the Permanent Mission of Switzerland to the UN in New York on 26 March 2025.

In light of its very positive reception by the PBAR Co-Facilitators and other stakeholders and member states, it is hoped that the document's recommendations will help inform the ongoing negotiations in New York.

The GPP is also delighted to now make available publicly the final report of the Consultations, which can be downloaded here ( an annexed list of resources that informed the human rights thematic discussion is also available in the report).

Finally, a follow-up discussion is scheduled to take place during the 12th Geneva Peace Week which will take place from 13 to 17 October 2025.

Acknowledgements

The GPP would like to thank all the partner organizations and individuals who helped make these Consultations possible, as well as all the attendees and contributors.

The GPP would like to recognize in particular the contribution of Interpeace, as co-organizer, as well as the critical support of Switzerland, and of the staff of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs in Geneva, Bern, and New York. The GPP also thanks the Permanent Missions of Egypt and Slovenia in Geneva and New York who allowed for the participation of the Co-Facilitators.

The organization of the Consultations was coordinated by the GPP's Policy and Research Fellow, Cyprien Fluzin, with the support of Claire Inderkummen, Project Associate. Photos by Olivier Chamard (photos may not be used, reproduced, or distributed without prior written permission).