21st September is International Peace Day!
The theme for 2016 is “The Sustainable Development Goals: Building Blocks for Peace.”
The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were agreed by the UN in 2015, and set targets for the world to “end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all” by 2030. These goals are seen as ‘building blocks’ for peace – Goal 16 makes this clear: ‘Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels ’
Goal 10 ‘Reduce inequality within and among countries’ is all about ensuring economic equality. Meanwhile, Goal 12 ‘Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns’ helps show that by ‘thinking global and acting local’ we can achieve this in a sustainable way. So Peace Day will highlight how our current theme Think Global, Act Local, Get Equal fits into our overall aim of promoting Peace & Justice.
Peacemakers, our sister organisation, will be working with local school children and staff on the day to explore how the SDGs relate to peace and what they can do to initiate change, with the aim of building and sustaining more peaceful school communities.
So pop into Peace Hub to celebrate, find out more, and take action to make sure the benefits of global development get shared fairly at a local level.
Read more about the SDGs, and International Peace Day.