Past Program

Peace is key to ensuring Asia's sustained development and prosperity as the world's most populous region grows in global geopolitical and economic importance. But despite the region’s rich experience in mediating peace and reconciliation, the learning exchange between regional, local and community-driven initiatives has so far been low.

Launched in 2020, the Asia Peace Innovators Forum aims to shape long-term peace, stability, and regional cooperation in Asia by building a network of mid-career professionals working in different sectors and countries to exchange knowledge, community-driven approaches, and best practices. Due the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, this program has been moved primarily online, where every two weeks the selected Asia Peace Innovators will tackle a different element of peace-building. 

This online program addressed youth empowerment.  Rather than focus on theoretic concepts, this program allowed participants to discuss actual practical challenges they face in implementation.  The discussions asked a range of questions, including: how to build trust during a time of pandemic restrictions; how to create cultures of non-violence so that violent extremism is not an option for youth even if there is a new injustice; how to effectively co-create programs with youth, schools, and parents and to institutionalize such programs to ensure they are not dependent on specific individuals; what methodologies best allow evaluation of programs and progress; and how to build youth movements to scale from small volunteer organizations to something larger and more professional while still maintaining grassroots impact.

This program is open exclusively to accepted participants of the Asia Peace Innovators Forum.