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Good morning, this is Kasmira. As Geneva Peace Week kicks off today, we spoke to one of its founding partner organisations that has been playing a role in peacemaking for 75 years. Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, a South African politician, activist, and the director of the Quaker United Nations office in Geneva who’ll be speaking today, told us “peace is not the absence of conflict, it’s the presence of justice”. Read her interview below.

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Kasmira Jefford

31.10.2022


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Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, South African politician, Quaker, radical feminist and peacemaker, became director of the Quaker United Nations office in Geneva in 2021 – and the first African director of any Quaker international agency. (Credit: KJefford)

✊ Quaker United Nations Geneva director: ‘Freedom is a constant struggle’. Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, who will be speaking at the opening of Geneva Peace Week on Monday, tells Geneva Solutions about how she became a South African activist fighting for women’s rights during and after the apartheid, to a Quaker and peacemaker.

Geneva Solutions (EN)

🔬 Human rights under the microscope. The UN Human Rights Committee will deliver its conclusions on Thursday after reviewing how the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan, Japan, Ethiopia, Nicaragua and Russia over the last two weeks. Russia and Nicaragua, whose delegations were a no-show, faced questions about the crackdown of protesters from the civil and political rights watchdog. The UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights will also travel today to Liberia for the first time, where the experts will particularly inquire about rights threats to indigenous peoples and rights defenders.

Here's what else is happening


Also on the agenda


📌 31 October | Financing the Global Adaptation Challenge. Record breaking heat waves, droughts and floods this year were a reminder that climate change is already here. Developing countries, often hit the hardest, need to adapt quickly to climate impacts to survive. But as they grapple with a growing number of crises, money is tight. In this high level panel, climate envoys from Egypt and the Marshall Islands join high officials from international organisations to discuss how to scale up finance for adaptation, ahead of climate negotiations in Egypt.

UNCTAD (EN)

📌 1-3 November | The World Summit on Frontline Humanitarian Negotiation. The number of people in need of assistance has exploded, as climate change and Covid, followed by war in Ukraine sent shockwaves across regions. Humanitarian actors, policy makers and experts will be at the Intercontinental Hotel in Geneva and online to discuss how to continue to deliver aid in a highly complex and tense world where trust is becoming more and more scarce.

Centre of Competence on Humanitarian Negotiation (EN)

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