The two-day 2026 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development starts today, November 3 in Stockholm, Sweden.
The forum runs till Tomorrow-November 4, 2026 and is being attended by over 450 people from more than 100 countries, said the SIPRI press release.
The 2026 edition of the Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development under the theme ‘From Rupture to Repair: New Visions for Peace and Development’ aims to move beyond crisis management and narratives of gridlock to focus on new visions and transformative solutions when addressing today’s global peace, security and development challenges.
At the opening of the 2026 Forum, Stefan Löfven, Chair of the SIPRI Governing Board, invited participants to use the next two days as an opportunity to share insights and experiences as a way of provoking new thinking and strengthening collective resolve, it reads.
His welcome address acknowledged that the rupture in the global security architecture is not just a failure of diplomacy but also a failure to prevent conflict and protect civilians. However, it also presents an opportunity: ‘As many states turn to hard security and narrow national interest, we need to ensure that human-centred security is also on the agenda.’
The Forum’s opening panel, ‘After the Rupture: What Now?’, brought together leading voices to discuss the fracture in the global order and ask whether new ideas can emerge in that space to shape what comes next.
Moderator Karim Haggag, SIPRI Director, described the split-screen reality we are living in where many conflicts are playing out across our screens at the same time and where universal laws are not being universally applied.
He invited panelists to reflect on who is most affected by the breakdown in the global order and what questions need to be answered urgently, the release added.
Dr. Manal Radwan, Advisor and Special Envoy to HH the Minister of Foreign Affairs for Negotiations and Peace Efforts, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, opened the panel discussion by emphasizing that one size does not fit all when it comes to conflict resolution. With lack of trust at unprecedented levels, there needs to be a focus on conflict transformation and relationships and imagining a future that has not yet existed. ‘One of the most important lessons is the challenge of what we used to take for granted: confidence-building measures.’
Panelist Serena Awad, Program Officer, American Friends Service Committee, and member of the Youth Advisory Board launched at this year’s Forum, drew on the example of Gaza to state that it is too early to talk about the future when we cannot even cope with the present.
She urged participants not to rebuild an international system that feels different at conferences but does not translate to the reality on the ground. ‘I believe that rebuilding is not about asking people to simply trust the international system but actually giving them a reason to do so.’
Kajsa Ollongren, Secretary-General, European External Action Service, underlined that the rules of the international system are not the problem; the problem is that they are not respected. She envisages the European Union (EU) as a uniting voice on the international stage.
‘How can we be effective in finding solutions to all the conflicts we have talked about this morning? I talked about the superpowers in the world. I think the EU should be one of those superpowers.’
Swarna Rajagopalan, Peace Educator, Political Scientist, Chaitanya Consultancy, underlined the role of young people in bringing about change. When discussing the most urgent questions to address, she challenged the audience to rethink peace without getting mired in its opposite. ‘What is peace, unfettered, unshackled, unburdened by conflict, violence, inequality? Do we have the power—and yes, we do—to imagine this?’
The Forum’s closing plenary, ‘Making Peace the Rational Choice’, will bring together perspectives on political leadership, human behaviour, climate and security, and the role of trust in building sustainable peace.
Reflecting the Forum’s theme of repair, the discussion will explore how institutions, relationships and approaches to security can be transformed to address the underlying drivers of conflict and division, release said.
‘Decisions made in the name of security may seem rational and necessary. Yet, taken together, they risk reinforcing the very mistrust and divisions they seek to address. We need to challenge this logic and ask what it would take to make peace a realistic and rational political choice,’ says Per Olsson Fridh, Director-General of the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), who will moderate the closing plenary.
The Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development was jointly organized by SIPRI and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2022 and was independently organized by SIPRI in 2023 and 2024.
Originally called the Stockholm Forum on Security and Development, the name was changed in 2017 to the Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development to reflect the evolving global dialogue that has moved from simple security-oriented perspectives towards a focus on the complex interplay of factors and processes necessary to achieve sustainable peace.
From 2025 the Stockholm Forum has been hosted by SIPRI (established in 1966) co-convened with the Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) which is being participated by donors, government representatives, policymakers, practitioners, researchers and civil society actors.
The 2026 edition of the Stockholm Forum is hosted by SIPRI and co-convened with FBA and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), it added.
