Within this broader celebration, the International Forum of NGOs in Official Partnership with UNESCO opened a dedicated space for civil society under the theme “Advancing a Culture of Peace in Africa: From Roots to Resilience.” Convened by the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee in cooperation with UNESCO’s Division for Priority Africa, the Forum brought together NGOs, Member States, youth advocates, hydrologists, educators, cultural actors and peacebuilders to reflect on how peace could be rooted in daily practice and shared resources.
Opening the Forum, the Deputy Director-General, Ms Åsa Regnér, stressed that peace cannot be built by governments and institutions alone, but had to be built within societies themselves, through the engagement of people and communities. Speaking during a High-Level panel, the Director for Priority Africa, Mr Mohamed Elfarnawany, recalled that the culture of peace was born on African soil, at the 1989 UNESCO International Congress in Yamoussoukro, and later carried forward through the United Nations Declaration on a Culture of Peace and the Luanda Plan of Action. He described the Biennale of Luanda as a pan-African platform where politicians, civil society, artists, scientists, youth and the diaspora could translate peace from words into commitments.
Water ran through the discussions as both a challenge and a bridge. In Elfarnawany’s words, water would be “the next great test” of a culture of peace: shared, it becomes cooperation; disputed, it becomes conflict. The following sessions deepened this message through panels on water cooperation, education systems as engines of peace, youth as co-architects of stability and communities as builders of peace.
Across the three days, the Forum showed how civil society actors can help turn dialogue into trust, shared challenges into common action, and the idea of a culture of peace into lived reality across the African continent.
read more: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/roots-resilience-ngo-forum-brought-civil-society-africa-week-2026s-culture-peace-agenda?hub=701
