Peace

When former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali presented his Agenda for Peace in 1992 he set a key milestone. In lieu of giving a definition of peace, he stated that work for peace strives for “social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”, according to its Charter a raison d’être of the UN. Peace goes beyond the absence of armed conflict.

While Boutros-Ghali distinguished between preventive diplomacy (preventing a war), peace-making (ending a war), peace-keeping (maintaining the ceasefire) and peace-building (consolidating peace, implementing peace agreements), the UN today speaks of peacebuilding at large integrating main efforts in one term: “Peacebuilding is a complex process aimed at creating conditions necessary for positive and sustainable peace by addressing deep rooted structural causes of violent conflict in a comprehensive manner. Peacebuilding measures address core issues that effect the functioning of society and the state. It is a holistic process involving broad-based inter-agency cooperation across multi-disciplinary fields” (the UN peacemaker website).