Höfði’s Conference on Sustainable Peace Today

A conference on peace takes place in Reykjavík today.

The Höfði Reykjavík Peace Centre’s annual conference, in cooperation with the Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Institute for Sustainability Studies and GRÓ GEST will be held today from noon till 4:30 pm at Veröld - House of Vigdís, at the University of Iceland.

This year, the focus will be on the importance of building trust for sustainable peace.

“The UN has declared the year 2021 as the International Year of Trust and Peace, emphasizing the importance of reaffirming the UN’s role to settle disputes peacefully,” a statement from the conference reads. “The effectiveness of international organizations depends upon state leaders and the public trusting them. However, in recent years, international cooperation has been under threat as the effectiveness of multilateral institutions has been questioned.”

Speakers at the conference will include Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and the head of the United Nations Development Programme 2009-2017, Fawzia Koofi, Afghan politician and women’s rights activist; Gulalai Ismail, human rights activist and founder of Aware Girls; Juan Pablo Villalobos, from Mexico, author of the novel Down the Rabbit Hole; Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini, Director of the Centre for Women, Peace, and Security at LSE and Founder and Executive Director of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN); and Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, president of the Indigenous Women and Peoples’ Association of Chad.

You can check out the conference program here. 

The event is open to the public.

A live stream of the conference will be available here.