From Local Voices to Global Action: What the Voices of SDG16+ want you to hear

Last week, the 2026 Voices of SDG16+ Official Side Event brought the experiences and recommendations of local peacebuilders, activists and community leaders to the United Nations High-Level Political Forum (HLPF), highlighting how communities around the world are advancing peace, justice, and inclusive societies. Co-organised by the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding (CSPPS), Accountability Lab, Alliance for Peacebuilding, Life & Peace Institute, Namati, Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, Peace Direct, and the Transparency, Accountability and Participation for the 2030 Agenda (TAP) Network, the event showcased how local practitioners are evolving, scaling and flourishing solutions amid growing global challenges. 

The key messages shared by the five 2026 Voices of SDG16+ finalists were clear: meaningful progress on SDG16+ requires listening to communities, investing in locally led solutions, providing predictable and sustained support, and opening the doors to real and meaningful participation. Their stories highlighted the importance of inclusive representation, youth leadership, accessible justice, locally led solutions, and sustainable support for civil society. They reminded global decision-makers that peace is not only an outcome of development, but a foundation for achieving progress across the 2030 Agenda. 

In 2026, the campaign's theme, "Evolving, Scaling, and Flourishing Amidst Crisis: Local Voices Transforming SDG16+", highlights how local civil society organisations are adapting to an increasingly challenging global context marked by shrinking civic space, reductions in international development assistance, rising military expenditure, and growing conflict. By showcasing resilience, innovation, and locally led solutions, the campaign demonstrates why investing in local peacebuilding is essential for achieving peaceful, just, and inclusive societies worldwide.

What should Member States and other stakeholders take into the second week of the HLPF?

Across four countries, five stories, and three languages, the messages converged:

• Representation matters. Institutions cannot be genuinely inclusive when the people they serve remain absent from positions of power—and when informal networks continue to reproduce exclusion despite formal commitments to equality.
• Peace must be treated as a precondition for sustainable development. Progress on education, gender equality, decent work and strong institutions cannot be sustained where violence and structural exclusion remain unresolved.
• Young people must be recognised as partners and decision-makers. Not future leaders, nor passive beneficiaries, but as leaders today.
• Justice must reach communities. Legal rights mean little if people cannot understand, access, or have the space to exercise them.
• Policies must move beyond paper. Decisions made in New York and other global forums must translate into tangible improvements in people's everyday lives.
• Local knowledge is expertise. Communities do not need solutions imposed from above; they need governments and partners willing to listen, co-create and provide the resources and opportunities that allow locally led solutions to grow.
• Participation must come with power and resources. Inviting civil society to the table is not enough if local actors cannot participate in shaping decisions, access sustainable funding, or safely continue their work.
• Donors must invest in trust, not only in projects. Small and flexible first grants can transform organisations. Diversified funding can make them sustainable. Research can turn lived experience into policy change. Technical cooperation and access to networks can open doors that money alone cannot.
• And, crucially, support should not depend on who designed the idea. Donors must be prepared to support good work even when they did not create it themselves.

The recommendations come from people who are already transforming institutions, building community networks, advancing access to justice, creating paths toward peace and ensuring that those most often excluded can be heard.

The 2026 Voices of SDG16+ finalists reminded us that the work of building peaceful, just and inclusive societies is already happening – through women mediating local conflicts, young people leading civic action, communities advancing environmental justice, grassroots organisations expanding access to justice, and local leaders strengthening social cohesion in contexts of crisis. We invite you to watch their stories and amply their voices here!

As the HLPF continues in New York this week, Member States and other relevant stakeholders have the opportunity to take these recommendations and voices beyond global policymaking; as partners whose knowledge, courage and leadership are essential to achieve the 2030 Agenda.

Because the people closest to today's challenges are often already building tomorrow's solutions.

The question is whether the world is ready to listen – and to act.