The necessity of foresight and inter-generational leadership in peacebuilding and disarmament initiatives

In recent years, global peacefulness has experienced a significant and troubling decline, with numerous indicators pointing to increased conflict and instability. This trend is clearly reflected in the 2023 Global Peace Index (GPI) results, which show a 0.42 per cent deterioration in global peacefulness this year. Marking the thirteenth decline in the past fifteen years, the 2022 GPI report reveals that 79 countries experienced significant setbacks. The most notable declines were seen in external conflicts fought, deaths from internal conflicts, and political instability. Even before the onset of the Ukraine conflict, battle-related deaths had surged, with a 45 per cent increase from 2020 to 2021. Since the 1994 Rwandan genocide, 2022 was the deadliest year for armed conflict, making it the most violent year in GPI history. The result of the 2023 GPI report found that the average level of global peacefulness deteriorated by 0.42 per cent. This is the thirteenth deterioration in peacefulness in the last fifteen years.

While data points to a bleak future for global peacefulness, there are positive contributions to peacebuilding, particularly from youth, civil society and within international initiatives. Young people, especially young women, are increasingly engaged in peacebuilding activities, leveraging their unique perspectives, positions, relationships, resources and energies to foster various ways to advance peacebuilding, development and reconciliation. Their efforts have been more systematically recognised in various research and reports since the adoption of the Youth, Peace and Security agenda in 2015. But is this enough for restoring peace and prosperity?

At the global level, the United Nations' "Our Common Agenda" underscores the importance of inclusive multistakeholder peacebuilding, advocating for comprehensive strategies that encompass disarmament, development aid, and active youth participation to address and mitigate the multifaceted polycrises and threats to global peace and security. It is one of the first global agendas to focus beyond the present generations and shine light on the importance of our responsibilities towards the generations to come.

The agenda warns about “the gravitational pull of short-term thinking being strong and growing” (p.44). It also underscores the plan of the United Nations for conducting future impact assessments of major policies and programmes, convening foresight and planning experts across the United Nations system and its multilateral partners, regularly reporting on megatrends and catastrophic risks (chap. IV) and working with a wider community of governmental, academic, civil society, private sector, philanthropic and other actors to strengthen strategic foresight, preparedness for catastrophic risks, and anticipatory decision-making that values instead of discounts the future (p.45)

With this advancement in systemic thinking and a shift in thinking more towards long term solutions, it becomes crucial to increase foresight and futures thinking literacy and candid leadership. The Youth Leader Fund for a World Without Nuclear Weapons is an example of such initiatives. The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and the government of Japan together with the United Nations System and Staff College (UNSSC) have harnessed the most important and strategic skills that young leaders can benefit from in the development of their efforts for a world without nuclear weapons. Similar programmes with wide audiences and equitable access at various levels ranging from the local to the global can be instrumental to the development of the capacity of young leaders and policy change.  

Considering the long overdue shift in the systemic orientation of the United Nations and its various agencies, foresight literacy and intergenerational leadership are paramount to the development of global peace and security including disarmament efforts. Present and future generations need to collaborate and create systems that gear towards rethinking solutions for wicked problems, emerging issues, protracted conflicts, and issues such disarmament. Trust-building and meaningful cooperation across generations can be of immense value. Young people are entering an age with nuclear weapons but no nuclear memory as most of them are born long after the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the aftermaths of the World Wars. The importance of intergenerational listening exercises that transfer collective memory to the future towards the use of foresight is inevitably a non-negotiable step in advancing disarmament. Older generations are also urged to embrace power-sharing and visioning futures that are fit for purpose not only for themselves but for generations to come as a principle of intergenerational equity.