9a. Peace and Security

Track chair:

Eduardo Wills Herrera. Universidad de Los Andes, Bogota, Colombia. ewills@uniandes.edu.co

Goals and objectives of the track:

The discourse on the relationship between sustainability and peace has been revived in wake of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which represent a global movement towards sustainability. Goal 16 of the SDGs is dedicated to the promotion of peaceful and inclusive societies, the provision of access to justice to all and building effective, accountable institutions at all levels. These are all prerequisites to achieve sustainable development.

We now live in a highly unstable world where complex conflicts are interconnected with social, political, environmental and climate risks. Peoples everywhere need to feel free from all forms of violence and reduce uncertainties about their security. Security can be seen from many perspectives: personal, political, communitarian, economic, food insecurity and so on.

To integrate sustainable peace towards sustainable development is a collective effort that includes governments, civil society organizations and the private sector. It is necessary to work together and collaboratively to implement sustainable solutions to reduce violence, deliver justice, combat corruption and ensure inclusive participation of citizens whatever their ethnicity, gender, regional origin and so on. In this track we discuss current research that focuses on the interrelationship between security, peace and sustainable development from a theoretical or more applied focus.

Among the discussion themes are: Integrative strategies for sustainable peace, including climate mitigation and adaptation; cultivation of diversity, flexibility and justice; social networks to facilitate the exchange of knowledge, income and other resources, migration and insecurity, sustainable development in post-conflict societies; the relationship between climate change and insecurity; deforestation, ecosystem damage and natural resources depletion in conflicted societies; inclusive institutions for a sustainable peace; international cooperation, peace and sustainable development, alternative institutions for conflict solving; the relationship between corruption and insecurity; development of indicators to monitor the achievement of SDG goal 16.

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