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Innovators Hive
Respace

What we do

Building lasting peace can only be achieved when civil society is at the centre, both when promoting peace at local level and global level. We believe that the people closest to a conflict, with lived experience and knowledge of what works and what does not work within that context, with webs of relations, are best equipped to lead in promoting sustainable peace. Peacebuilding is much more than addressing violent conflicts, trust-building and reaching peace agreements. The need for peace stems from multiple intertwined factors, including inequality, socio-economic marginalisation and polarisation. As such, CSP believes that it is necessary to rethink global collaboration for peace; who is collaborating, and how do they come together to create space for sustainable peace?

While our work until 2023 was mostly focused on changing the existing system, we are now orienting towards future spaces and infrastructures for global collaboration for peace, which are adequate and relevant for meeting today’s world, one fraught with polarisation and polycrisis.

RESPACE team members group picture

RESPACE Initiative and Scenarios Report

In a world facing compounding conflicts and deepening polarisation, it is crucial to rethink our approach to peacebuilding. On this basis, we created the RESPACE initiative alongside REOS Partners and NEAR. Through RESPACE, we convene change agents and thought leaders across geographic, professional and cultural backgrounds to develop scenarios that explore what the future of peace and global collaboration could look like by 2035. These scenarios act as catalysts for meaningful, strategic discussions that challenge us to reflect critically on and strategise for the future. You can read more about the RESPACE initiative here.

A year-long RESPACE journey culminated in the report “RESPACING Global Collaboration for Peace: Scenarios for the Future 2024-2035”. In the report, we explore four compelling plausible scenarios for the future of global collaboration for peace. The scenarios are neither predictions of what will happen nor prescriptions for what should happen. Instead, they are imagined yet plausible stories about the future, rooted in the realities and developments of today’s world. They include unsettling moments, cracks of hope, and prompts for reflection—reminding us how our actions today can ripple across tomorrow and beyond. Interested in diving into the scenarios? Read the report here.

The report invites you to reflect, engage in meaningful dialogue, and strategise about approaches to collaboration across sectors, communities, and networks. It urges us to reimagine the spaces and infrastructures needed for sustainable peace that transcend existing limitations. We invite you to join the growing RESPACE community, collaborate with like-minded individuals, and explore how these scenarios can enhance your work.

UN and Member State Engagement

The Summit of the Future building on RESPACE scenarios, it was a critical stocktake of what the world looks like in 2024 and what recommitments are needed for the future. We organised a side-event where RESPACE Team members Gunjan Veda and Cedric de Coning, together with event sponsors the Permanent Mission of Denmark to the UN in New York, Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO) and event partner Network for Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (NCPPB). The event discussed what insights we can draw from the scenarios for future collaboration on sustainable peace, the importance of equitable global governance mechanisms and the crucial role of civil society and social movements in transforming the existing system.

A UN-CSO Dialogue on peacebuilding at the UN headquarters in New York will mark the end of the ‘informal’ phase of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture Review. In addition to participating in the dialogue, CSP is convening several events in the margins. These include a side-event on democratising UN mechanisms as a conflict preventive measure; a preparatory session for participating CSOs on the role of translocal civil society in peacebuilding architecture and global governance; a learning exchange with INGOs and UN representatives on Respacing global collaboration for sustainable peace, and together with the Permanent Mission of Denmark to the UN in New York , co-host a meeting for member states. These engagements aim to enhance collaboration between civil society, member states, and the UN to transform the UN peacebuilding architecture. We will use the recently published RESPACE report to explore what global collaboration for sustainable peace could look like in the future.

Strategising on Respacing Global Collaboration in Dakar and Geneva

In October 2024, we brought the RESPACE initiative to Geneva at a dedicated workshop session at Geneva Peace Week. Alongside three RESPACE team members - Sever Džigurski, Marwa Eissa, and Joanna Makhlouf, we presented the scenarios to representatives from international peacebuilding organisations, research institutions, local civil society organisations and other actors. The workshop session was opened by a captivating reading of the scenarios, which served to evoke reactions and explore their resonance among the participants. These reactions became an entry point for dialogue, where we explored the scenarios and particularly the promising dimensions within them. It led to a conversation on what we - individually and collectively - can do from where we stand to positively influence the future.

In Dakar, Senegal, we took part in the KPAC24 (Knowledge Platform Security and Rule of Law Annual Conference), where we explored future trajectories for sustainable peace. We connected with civil society and networks, UN representatives and bilateral donors from West Africa through one full-day workshop and a conference session to think collectively about what it means to cultivate global collaboration for sustainable peace. As part of a ‘marketplace’, we developed an interactive game using graphic illustrations from the RESPACE report as cards. The card game strengthened the participants’ uptake of scenarios and inspired new ideas. 

Engaging locally – Decolonising Denmark

For the past year, CSP has explored whether we can play a relevant role in addressing issues of power asymmetries, structural racism and decolonisation in our own local context. As an organisation registered in Denmark, we are initially looking at this context while all team members continue to engage in their local contexts. We consulted with the organisations and activists working on equal treatment of Inuit/Greenlanders in Denmark, and it soon became evident that our experiences in systems transformation in the international peace and development system are also relevant to the post-colonial context of Kalaallit Nunaat/Greenland and Denmark. We are currently developing and fundraising for several project ideas with Kalaallit/Greenlandic partners.

One of the project ideas that emerged from the consultations is to support alliance-building among the civil society organisations working on these issues. Here, CSP could use our experience as a convener and facilitator of systems change in contexts marked by inequities. Another project idea concerns the development of teaching materials on equal treatment, structural racism, colonisation, and decolonisation based on a novel that will be published in both Danish and Greenland. Our aspiration is that multiple complementary efforts to counter structural racism and unequal treatment of Inuit/Greenlanders in Denmark can bring about systems change in both structures, practices, and attitudes.   

Convening Change Agents

During the past five years, the focus on local leadership, localisation, and shifting power has increased significantly, and multiple initiatives to, for example, on innovative funding mechanisms have emerged. Our workshop series and learning sessions aimed to bridge the gap between ambition and reality in promoting local leadership. We convened a network of change agents in Denmark to strengthen their ability to work towards shifting power to local leadership. The workshops figured as safe spaces for change agents to collectively learn, share, problem-solve and strategise, and they were tailored to different target groups. External input from Peace Direct, NEAR, CIVICUS, Saferworld and Centre for Humanitarian Leadership helped spark reflection and discussion.

To facilitate ongoing connectivity, sharing, and learning among change agents, CSP developed an electronic platform for engagement beyond convenings. Innovators Hive is an online library and community connecting people driving change for local leadership. Here, we exchange ideas and share knowledge and resources to learn from each other. Be(e) a part of the community.

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