The start of the UN Decade of Action to accelerate action on delivery of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, has been marked by the global pandemic of COVID-19. Now in its second year, the pandemic is still gripping the world at different levels of intensity and continues to threaten progress towards a more peaceful, just, and inclusive world for all. Once we reach the period ‘after the pandemic’, the epidemic of violence – which takes over half a million lives annually – will continue to ravage many regions and communities, many of them potentially transformed by the global health emergency and its political and social aftermath.
The Pathfinders, in collaboration with Wilton Park, and with the support of the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), and the German Federal Foreign Office (GFFO), convened in July 2020 an expert-level workshop to identify a common goal and share strategies to make progress in reducing violence worldwide.
The key step in this effort was forging a high-ambition platform that inspires political leadership, recruits champions, and drives national and local action towards an equally ambitious goal of halving global violence by 2030.
This platform was launched at the Peace One Day event in September 2021 . Pathfinders are currently building a multi-stakeholder coalition of political and civil society leaders, policy influencers and renowned experts, and activists and community organizers who will act as champions of Halving Global Violence, and be key advocates for evidence-based solutions, innovative partnerships and new ways of financing to achieve the target of worldwide 50% violence reduction.
Objectives:
The first-ever meeting of the Halving Global Violence Task Force is an opportunity for members to:
- Convene and share their perspectives and priorities for global violence reduction, informed by their geographic and expertise diversity.
- Agree on the strategy, work methods and themes which will be guide the Task Force’s efforts.
- Approve the direction for Halving Global Violence’s research strategy from 2021-2023.
- Identify key stakeholders and partners whose knowledge, networks and resources should be leveraged going forward.
Wilton Park reference number: WP1932V
