On 6–7 May 2026, the Swedish Dialogue Institute for the Middle East and North Africa (SDI) participated in the 8th Bologna Peacebuilding Forum, where it hosted and moderated the session Ending Wars: Challenges and Dilemmas from Ukraine to Syria. Across the two days, discussions addressed the changing landscape of peacebuilding, including the role of AI and digital technologies, shrinking civic space, shifting donor priorities, weakened multilateralism, and the long-term conditions required to build sustainable peace.
A central theme was that peace cannot be treated as a technical outcome or a single political event. Whether discussing digital tools, reconstruction, mediation, accountability, civil society mobilisation, or women-led peacebuilding, speakers stressed that sustainable peace requires political vision, justice, inclusion, social trust, and local ownership.
SDI’s session made a particular contribution by placing Ukraine and Syria in conversation. Although fundamentally different, both contexts raised urgent questions about sovereignty, legitimacy, accountability, political inclusion, and the role of external actors. The discussion challenged simplified ideas of what it means to “end” a war, underlining that peace requires more than stability or reconstruction; it must be built through rights-based governance, social trust, and political orders that recognise people as citizens with agency and dignity.
Across the forum, one message was clear: sustainable peace is not declared once violence stops. It is built, protected, contested, and renewed over time.
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Last updated 16 Jul 2026, 12.05 PM
