Conflict Prevention and Sustaining Peace

After a period of decline, violent conflict has been increasing over the last decade. Today’s conflicts are proving increasingly difficult to resolve due to the proliferation of actors and forms of violence – such as criminal, local and unconventional warfare – creating complex systems of confrontation resistant to traditional conflict management techniques. The UN needs a strong understanding of these multi-dimensional conflict systems and also of how its tools for addressing violence can be adapted to these contexts to manage, resolve and – centrally – prevent this violence and conflict.

UNU-CPR aims to help the UN and its partners develop and implement effective, evidence-based policies to prevent violent conflict around the world. Our goal is to combine evidence and analysis to influence policy discussions in New York and other policy centres and – equally or even more importantly – inform prevention and conflict resolution initiatives in the field.

UNU-CPR designs and implements its work in collaboration with the UN Secretariat, other UN system entities, Member States, and a global network of research partners as well as UN missions in the field. It builds its projects jointly with UN agencies and other key research and policy partners, ensuring direct engagement with policy processes at multiple levels. UNU-CPR personnel have been invited to brief the Security Council on multiple occasions – for example, on children in armed conflict, transitional justice, sexual violence and sanctions, and Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration.

UNU-CPR’s work has informed a variety of UN reform efforts and guidance reviews, including the revision of the Integrated Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Standards (IDDRS); Paris Principles Steering Group field handbook on prevention of child recruitment, release and reintegration; and the efforts of the Global Coalition for Reintegration. UNU-CPR personnel have also testified in national parliamentary proceedings, been invited to brief UN inter-agency groups and Resident Coordinators, and appeared in a range of media outlets.