The Kofi Annan Geneva Peace Address is a high-level lecture on peace, held annually as part of Geneva Peace Week. This fifth edition of the address was delivered by Martin Griffiths, International Mediator and former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs. 

Paying tribute to Kofi Annan, Martin Griffiths centered his keynote address on the importance of people and humanitarian action when it comes to peacemaking. His address was followed by a “Peace Dialogue”, in which he engaged with three young peacebuilders to bridge international perspectives on peacebuilding and peace making, exploring innovative strategies for facilitating dialogue, mediating conflict, and fostering sustainable peace. Amongst them was Victoria Do Nascimento Houpert, who in addition to being a master’s student at the Institute, is an accredited lawyer and co-founded Instituto Eduardo Guthler, a non-governmental organisation that designs creative campaigns and projects to promote organ donation in Brazil. She took part in the panel along with Mariyum Areeb Amjad, Program Officer, HIVE Pakistan, Dao Manh Nghia, Founder and President, DMN Initiative, SDGs Council, DMN Foundation. The panel was moderated by Ahmad Fawzi, one of Kofi Annan’s former spokespersons and communication advisors.
 

Watch the 2025 Kofi Annan Peace Address

How do you think art and creativity can facilitate dialogue in difficult times?

At this year’s Kofi Annan Peace Address, I shared a personal story that led me and my friends to design and structure an organisation that promotes organ donation in Brazil — the Eduardo Guthler Institute. Although unrelated to the peacebuilding field, this experience showed me firsthand how art and creativity can facilitate dialogue in difficult or sensitive situations.

In Brazil, the main obstacle to organ donation is the rate of family refusal (46%). Our focus is to encourage people of all ages to communicate with their families about their decision to become organ donors. This isn’t an easy conversation to have, though. It involves imagining a scenario where your parents might have to make that decision for you if you were to pass away before them.  

Our team is convinced that the message of organ donation needs to be framed differently and communicated through creative approaches, such as the art exhibition that we organised. By presenting the topic through a variety of pieces that reflected artists subjectivities, we created a space where this difficult conversation seemed easier. We have received numerous messages from the public saying that this event and other activities encouraged them to speak with their families — making everything we do profoundly meaningful. 

In my view, creative approaches have great potential to open difficult conversations, convey crucial messages, and shed light on struggles that were previously in the dark. This experience has shown me that even in the most sensitive or challenging topics, art can be a bridge for dialogue and understanding.

How can emotion then go on to address conflict and unlock peace negotiations? 

Peace negotiations and conflict mediation require several techniques, methods, training, and practice. Yet, at the core, it’s about relationships and knowing how to nurture them. 

In one of the Master Mediation sessions, a workshop organised by the Peacebuilding Initiative,  the practitioner shared an example of how a video from one of the parties in a conflict helped move the mediation forward. The negotiation was stuck, and the actors didn’t want to meet. Through the video, the mediation team could show to the other group that they shared similar goals, opening a pathway for dialogue.

We’ll never really know what the representatives felt when seeing the video, but I am certain that their emotions played a role in taking the next step toward peace. Visuals, sounds, and other sensory experiences mobilize us in deep ways, and I believe in their potential to build empathy and foster understanding, even in the context of peace negotiations.

What fresh perspectives can young people bring to peacebuilding?

Youth engagement is crucial for building sustainable peace. A peace that is both collective and intergenerational in order to endure in the long term.

It is difficult for me to define our common fresh perspectives. The world is so wide, diverse, and complex — and I think that’s exactly the beauty of it. Each one of us is on a different journey and can bring something fresh to the table, shaped by our personal experiences, professional background, personality, and interests. 

However, if I had to choose one defining trait of our generation, it would be our strong commitment to justice. What makes this perspective fresh is not only our refusal to accept impunity, but also our insistence on embedding justice throughout every step of the peacebuilding process: highlighting the needs of those affected, ensuring that implementation is adapted to local contexts, and holding systems accountable. 

You are a member of the Peacebuilding Initiative – what is like to be part of a community of dedicated, young peacebuilders in this time of unprecedented conflict? 

Joining the Peacebuilding Initiative was an obvious choice for me. The initiative brings together brilliant people committed to delivering high-quality and diverse events. It is also an incredible platform to discuss ideas about peace, learn from one another, and — most importantly — have fun while building something we believe in. 

In this time of upscale armed violence across the world, being part of the initiative makes us more determined and conscious of the urgent need for dialogue and resilience. It reinforces the importance of working collectively toward a common goal. Being part of this community is a rewarding journey that offers opportunities not only to develop a wide range of skills but also to build friendships along the way. 

Following the discussions of the evening, what message do you have for the international community on the future of peacebuilding? 

As we addressed previously, the violence we are witnessing is unprecedented. It’s very common to attend classes, events, workshops, read the news, or have informal conversations with my peers and discover another angle on the same problem, seeming that the solutions are very distant. It’s interesting to notice as well that in those same moments, a glimmer of hope emerges at a certain point in the conversation. A sort of consolation or coping mechanism that helps us keep going.

The 2025 Kofi Annan Peace Address shone as a full radiance of hope. This experience reminds me that, even in the darkest times, dialogue, empathy, and collaboration can open new paths. My message would be to continue to invest in spaces that nurture these connections, actively listen to youth voices across different regions of the world, address the root causes of cycles of violence and concentrate efforts into the implementation of the peace transition. Effective implementation and collective effort are key to achieving lasting peace.