During the United Nations Decade for the Culture of Peace (2001-2010) it was possible to evaluate the growth of the Global Movement for a Culture of Peace by means of several sources of information. Now that the Decade is over, what means to we have to know if it is continuing to grow?
Information was available through several sources during the Decade. We published reports from over a thousand organizations in the World Report on the Culture of Peace. As of 2009, information was provided from more than 700 events on the website of the International Day of Peace. At the beginning of the decade, we provided information on a regular basis from civil society organizations on the "Who is involved" section of UNESCO's website for the culture of peace. As of 2001, the site listed 181 international partner organizations of the civil society, and almost a thousand national partner organizations. Although the UNESCO site still exists, it has not been updated in recent years, and it remains to be seen if UNESCO's renewed commitment to the culture of peace (see CPNN article of October 25, 2011) will extend to civil society partners.
For the year 2011 it seems that the most complete information is on the Culture of Peace News Network (CPNN) which existed previously, but which has now been expanded to replace the function of the World Report on the Culture of Peace.
According to the information published during 2011 in CPNN, the movement is continuing to grow everywhere and in every domain of action. There were 144 articles that came from all regions of the world: global 35, Africa 22, Europe 22, Arab States and Middle East 17, Latin America 17, North America 16, South and Central Asia 11, East Asia and Pacific 4. The articles concerned all program areas of the culture of peace: peace education 29, democratic participation 21, free flow of information 20, tolerance and solidarity 18, sustainable development 16, human rights 16, disarmament and security 13, women's equality 11.
Increasingly, the articles on CPNN are written by young reporters from around the world. In the last two months, ten articles were written by reporters coming from Mexico, Brazil, Ghana, Malaysia, Palestine, USA, France, Switzerland and Holland.
As of this last year, CPNN has become multi-lingual. The website is now available in English, French and Spanish, and articles are published in all these languages. During 2011 there were 26 articles in French and 18 in Spanish or Portuguese, all of which were accompanied by an English translation.
No doubt there is much happening for a culture of peace that is not being reflected in CPNN or other Internet information systems. Often it seems that people are working for one or another of the eight program areas without realizing that it contributes overall to the culture of peace. In any case, please help us to provide the broadest view possible of the movement by sending us information and articles. See the submit article page for CPNN.
Note: if the photos do not show up, you may also get the bulletin at http://cpnn-world.org/bulletin/bulletin-12-1.html.
