Peace is losing
We expected a peace dividend after the Cold War. Instead, conflict has grown.
The Institute for Economics and Peace’s (IEP) Global Peace Index 2025 flags two distressing trends. First, there are 59 active state-based conflicts, the most since World War II. Among the ongoing conflicts, the most notable is the Russia–Ukraine war, which continues to threaten peace across Europe. Second, geopolitical tensions have risen since 2008, reflecting broader fragmentation and a heightened risk of war.
Too often, we underfund peace and settle for piecemeal measures. Society-wide approaches have been effective in ending conflicts in the Southern Philippines and Liberia, and did work for several years in Colombia. However, the broader record is sobering, and progress in Colombia has become fragile.
More wars now end without a settlement. The IEP research shows clear-cut victories, which themselves often sow the seeds of future unrest, fell from 50% in the 1970s to 9% in the 2010s, and negotiated settlements decreased from 22% to 4%. Institutions meant to foster peace are themselves under stress. The UN is doing less with diminished resources in a context of heightened mistrust between Member States, and US and European aid programmes have been sharply scaled back.
A new paradigm
What is needed, therefore, is a new paradigm for peace, one that is holistic in scope, nationally grounded, scalable, and oriented toward the long term.
This paradigm rests on four interlinked commitments:
- Rethink peacebuilding beyond traditional approaches.
- Make peacebuilding a routine function of government.
- Move beyond pilots and scale nationwide.
- Design interventions that endure.
The features that comprise this new paradigm are:
A. Building national capacities
Put national institutions in the lead, with external actors in support through co-design, funding, and skill transfer, so peacebuilding becomes locally owned and sustainable.
B. Country-based careful planning
Start with rigorous, citizen-driven diagnostics that extend beyond capital elites; validate the results with representative stakeholders; then co-prioritise a sequenced, feasible plan and update it through regular feedback.
C. Alignment with key public policies
IEP research shows that peace is closely tied to eight factors: low corruption, a sound business climate, an effective government, respect for rights, equitable resources, free information, good neighbourly relations, and strong human capital. Even partial progress in these areas reduces the risk of violence.
D. Inclusion of security sector reforms
When the police or military undermine stability, they must be reformed. Encouraging peace groups and security leaders to collaborate can transform them into partners in peacebuilding.
E. Fostering peace through culture and media
Include conflict resolution in school curricula and promote media campaigns that share stories of peaceful problem-solving. These long-term investments shape attitudes and normalise nonviolent ways of handling disputes.
F. Embracing new technologies
AI and digital tools now enable early warning, ceasefire monitoring, community dialogue, and real-time sentiment tracking. Technology has helped clear landmines in places like Cambodia, and “peace tech” is drawing commercial investment.
G. Being politically pragmatic
Being willing to work in difficult political contexts is also part of a new paradigm. If peace initiatives are politically squeamish, they will miss out on many opportunities.
H. Getting the right institutional support
Long-term finance and programmatic approaches are essential. Treat peacebuilding as an insurance policy, reducing the likelihood and cost of conflict.
This paradigm should attract new finance, including from the private sector, and rising powers that have learned the cost of violence. It also calls for a broad professional mix—law, diplomacy, education, and social entrepreneurship —with a strong gender dimension, not least since peace processes involving women are more enduring.
Peacebuilding requires the orchestration of multiple actions that reinforce one another. When embedded nationally, these efforts will strengthen diplomacy and peacekeeping, not replace them. Rober J. Berg and Lord Des Browne
Peacebuilding requires the orchestration of multiple actions that reinforce one another. When embedded nationally, these efforts will strengthen diplomacy and peacekeeping, not replace them. In time, “national capabilities for peace” should become a norm of governance. Within a generation, we believe that at least half the world’s states could achieve them, with most others following within another generation.
Establishing a new paradigm
How can such a paradigm be established? A useful analogy can be drawn from global health. In 1990, the UN’s World Summit for Children galvanised global consensus on reducing child mortality. UNICEF mobilised governments, churches, media, and civil society, saving an estimated 90 million young lives over the next two decades.
Global health institutions then developed innovative financing models such as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) and the The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Leaders recognised that existing structures were insufficient and invested in new institutions with focused mandates and substantial funding.
Peacebuilding can and must follow the same path, and the proposed fund is intended to augment global peacebuilding, particularly that of the United Nations.
An International Fund for Peace
To anchor the new peacebuilding paradigm, we propose an International Fund for Peace headquartered in the West, with a regional hub in Singapore.
Mandate and design:
- Scope and clients: Serve national governments and major subnational authorities; support regional bodies in exceptional cases.
- People and expertise: Staff with practitioners in conflict resolution, institutional design, and social entrepreneurship.
- Services: Provide advisory support, institution-building, and selected operations.
- Finance model: Blend public and private funding, with clear value propositions for each. Charge countries that can pay based on a sliding scale.
- Governance and partnerships: A board drawn from respected public and private leaders, working closely with the United Nations and civil society.
Such a fund would provide countries with the means to plan and sustain peace systematically, while attracting new capital from rising powers and private investors who understand that peace is in their interests.
Sceptics may ask whether it is realistic to propose such an institution at a time when the international system is strained, and multilateralism is under attack. On the contrary, history suggests that this is the right time, as thoughtful leaders are seeking better solutions, and proven tools exist. The economics are compelling. A recent IMF study estimates that every dollar spent on peacebuilding yields a return of $15–$103. Few investments promise such human and financial dividends.
The full paper may be requested by writing to [email protected]
We are grateful for editorial and research support from Anand Patel and for reviews by Joseph Sany (former Vice President, United States Institute of Peace), Sheldon Himelfarb (founding chair, PeaceTech Lab), and Ravi Venkatesan (former chair, Bank of Baroda; chair, Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet).
The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.
Image credit: Alamy, Eitan Simanor
