The Culture of Peace (CoP) for Gender Equality Initiative was born out of an event held during the sixty-ninth session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women in March 2025. A group of 11 organizations, led by SGI, met throughout 2025 to develop a project intended to foster intergenerational leadership for the CoP for gender equality. A launch event for the initiative was held on 21 October 2025 in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of UN Security Council Resolution 1325.

The initiative’s goal is to help advance the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda by implementing the UN Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace. In recent years, the WPS agenda has stagnated, and governments have struggled to follow through with their commitments. Additionally, those who fought the hardest to see this resolution come to life—namely local women peacebuilders—are raising concerns on its effectiveness. Although it is the Security Council resolution that is most mentioned globally, 1325 has become detached from people’s lived realities. Seeing this challenge, the experts, academics, advocates and practitioners who make up the initiative decided to fill a critical gap in the agenda—its “prevention” pillar. One way to fill this gap is to link 1325 with the Culture of Peace resolution. 

The United Nations defines the culture of peace as “a set of values, attitudes, traditions and modes of behaviors and ways of life that reject violence and prevent conflicts by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations.” When 1325 is viewed through the lens of the culture of peace, it becomes more relevant to people’s lives because it recognizes the potential of each individual as change agents. 

At the CoP for Gender Equality Initiative launch event, Jonathan Passmoor, Political Councillor of the Permanent Mission of South Africa, and Lister Chapeta, Policy Specialist on WPS of UN Women, voiced their support and interest in the topic. Ivy Koek of SGI co-moderated the event with Veronica Sabbag, Founder of United Voices 4 Peace. Miyuki Kawaoka of SGI gave a presentation on a pilot program on the Culture of Peace for Gender Equality Ambassadors, which is anticipated to begin in 2026. 

During the introduction, Koek shared how the culture of peace serves as the foundation of SGI’s work at the United Nations, as reflected in its annual peace proposals: “We advocate for the culture of peace globally, with the longest standing activities by the Women’s Peace Committee in Japan….It is deeply rooted in our Buddhist philosophy of interconnectedness and interdependence, and the belief in the potential of each person not only to transform their own destiny, but the destiny of the world. What we call ‘human revolution.’  Ultimately, social or cultural change cannot come about without the change in the hearts and minds of each individual.”

CoP for Gender Equality Initiative members include the Arab Civil Society Organizations and Feminists Network, Association Initiatives pour Tchewai, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Cameroon, WILPF Lebanon, Impact Her World Foundation in Nigeria, the Women in Security, Peace and Diplomacy Network and the World YWCA. The NGO Committee on the Status of Women, New York, and the Transparency, Accountability and Participation Network co-sponsored the event.