Nearly 20 years ago, at the 2005 World Summit, UN Member States created the Peacebuilding Commission, an intergovernmental body tasked with establishing mechanisms to help countries sustainably recover and rebuild from conflicts. To support this process, the United Nations established the Peacebuilding Support Office and the Peacebuilding Fund, resourced with funding from Member States.
At that time, the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the development “a turning point in our efforts to help States and societies manage the difficult transition from war to peace” and address the gaps in the organization’s fractured peacebuilding efforts.
Since then, the Peacebuilding Fund has financed projects in over 70 countries, in partnership with national institutions, the UN System, civil society and others. The projects focus on a range of critical peacebuilding and nation-building initiatives, including conflict resolution, community reconciliation, justice, human rights, socioeconomic empowerment and gender equality.
“In a post-conflict situation, it's often about healing divisions. It's about ensuring that human rights, justice and equality apply to everybody,” says the head of the UN’s Peacebuilding Support Office, Elizabeth Spehar.
Peacebuilding is also about prevention. Addressing poverty, inequality, discrimination, and injustice — all potential drivers of violence and conflict — is a long-term investment in preventing conflicts.
“Building peace means addressing what causes conflict,” adds Spehar. “We need to be able to provide people who are affected by violence with real opportunities - economic, social and political opportunities. And we need to reduce the human and economic cost that's represented by war.”
Reducing the cost of war
At the end of 2023, the United Nations estimated that more than 360 million people globally needed humanitarian assistance - an increase of over 30 per cent from 2022. Ongoing wars have since exacerbated human suffering and increased humanitarian need.
“If you look around the world right now, there is a record number of conflicts. It is at a decades-long high. We have a record number of fatalities because of conflict. All of this has caused unimaginable suffering for so many people around the world,” says Spehar.
The human cost of conflict is devastating, and the economic toll is staggering. According to the independent Global Peace Index, wars cost the world nearly US$20 trillion in 2023. That’s over 13 per cent of global GDP, or an estimated $2,380 per person. To put this in perspective, the cost of violence per person exceeds the average annual income per capita in Africa.
“These are unacceptable numbers. And we do have evidence that if you invest in prevention, it's not only the right thing to do, but it is more cost effective than what you can do when you try to intervene in a conflict or rebuild after a conflict,” Spehar states.
Investing in peace
The 2018 UN and World Bank report, , highlighted the cost-effectiveness of prevention. For example, research by the Institute for Economics and Peace on post-genocide Rwanda found that every $1 invested in peacebuilding saved the country $16 over two decades — money that would have been lost in a recurrence of war.
“It looked into the empirical evidence, and it came up with a formula that basically showed us that for every dollar you invest in prevention, you can save a lot more money further down the line. As far as I’m concerned, prevention is a no-brainer. Peacebuilding is a no-brainer,” she adds.
Despite the evidence and the common saying that “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” the world military expenditure continues to sky-rocket. In 2023, it increased for the ninth consecutive year, reaching a total of $2.4 trillion.
In comparison, the Peacebuilding Fund asked for $1.5 billion to support at least 40 countries from 2020 to 2024. By the end of this funding cycle, it is projected to receive less than $800 million — a little over half.
“Our peacebuilding work requires less than 1 per cent of the money that the world is already spending on wars, on addressing violence, on tackling corruption, and on trying to resolve crime. So, imagine what we could do with that money in terms of protecting lives and livelihoods, instead of wasting billions on cleaning up the mess of war, of crime, of violence.”
In this video, the head of the UN Peacebuilding Support Office, Elizabeth Spehar, gives an interview to the Guardian’s Andrew Roth on preventing conflicts and building sustainable peace. Learn more about UN Peacebuilding.