Peace Building in Practice: Creating Shared Security at All Levels

Never before have the fates of individual communities and nations been so intertwined, exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic. And never before have our safety and well-being depended so much on the safety and well-being of others. A new approach to thinking about safety and security is required: an approach where we commit to our mutual well-being and equitable access to resources. Shared security is a paradigm that promotes the safety and well-being of people throughout the world. It is the idea that shared problems require shared nonviolent solutions and that our interests are best served when we foster peaceful and just relationships together. The vision of shared security is very simply the idea that “my peace is your peace”—the understanding that peace and security are indivisible. It is a peace-building paradigm and belief that we can find mutual solutions to societal problems without weapons or violence. A shared-security approach invests seriously in peace building instead of war building in the name of security. It imagines a world where leaders are mobilized not to build walls, separate families, and bomb targets but to work together to prioritize peace building, support people-powered movements, and invest in early interventions that address the root causes of conflict long before violence and discrimination erupt, dividing civil society and fracturing the institutions that enable cooperation and democracy.