In his address to Members of the UN Security Council on 10 January 2017, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said, "Prevention is not merely a priority, but the priority. If we live up to our responsibilities, we will save lives, reduce suffering and give hope to millions." In keeping with this prioritization, the fourth edition of Geneva Peace Week will focus on the theme of Prevention Across Sectors and Institutions.

Geneva Peace Week will take place from 6-10 November 2017 and consist of 50 events organized by 99 organizations, featuring more than 150 expert speakers on a variety of cross cutting topics on peace and security.

The focus on prevention offers an opportunity to connect and highlight the work of Geneva-based institutions and their international partners and to understand the links between prevention, peace, human rights, education, development, the management of natural resources and many other topics.

"Geneva Peace Week maximizes synergies between sectors and organizations in Geneva and beyond, focused on the cross-cutting nature of prevention. It underlines that each and every person, actor and institution has a role to play in building peace, resolving conflict and strengthening prevention" - Michael Møller, Director-General of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

"Geneva plays an important role in this respect because such dialogue and negotiation – or peace diplomacy – happens here on a daily basis. Often, it is discrete and only insiders know about it. Geneva Peace Week has the objective to change this and highlight how so many different actors contribute to sustaining peace in so many ways and so many places." - Achim Wennmann, Executive Coordinator, Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, and Senior Researcher at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding).
The full programme of events is available here.

Highlights will include the Annual Meeting of the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, The World Café Reception (Monday 6 November at Maison de la Paix), and event clusters on The future of prevention policy (Wednesday 8 November, Palais des Nations) and Cyber, big data and new technologies (Thursday 9 November, Palais des Nations).

To attend Geneva Peace Week please visit www.genevapeaceweek.ch and follow us on @GenevaPeaceWeek #GVAPeaceWeek.
Geneva Peace Week is a collective initiative facilitated by the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform with the support of the Swiss Confederation and the Canton of Genève.

Text provided by the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform.

During the Geneva Peace week, discover at UNOG in the Passerelle the exhibition "What does peace look like?", from the 2016 International Contest Alfred Fried Prize, supported by UNESCO, which annually recognizes the best photography on the theme of peace.

With the photography entitled "Peace, what is it ?" , the Austrian Jan Gott share his vision of the peace: "This is something that Buddhists try to achieve in a lifelong process which maybe takes back to the very point when children begin to lose it as a natural gift. So to me peace is clearly a state of mind that offers it’s simplicity to us although it can have many faces".