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I have one of those titles – Head of the PeaceTech division – that leads to the interesting question, “Uh, what’s that?”What better time than on the occasion of UN International Day of Peace, September 21, to answer this?

What is peace?

The interplay between underdevelopment, climate change, violent conflicts and forced migration has created increasingly long and complex economic, environmental, political and social crises from North to South. Violence and conflict are everywhere, not just in areas considered war zones. Every community has conflict, whether it is active and violent (like a civil war) or latent and structural (like longstanding oppression of a minority group). Peace is not only defined as the absence of violence or conflict, but rather as the absence of the possibility of violence and conflict, in both physical and virtual worlds. Peace is when people are interacting non-violently and are managing their conflicts positively.