The participants in the First International Meeting of Directors of Peace Research and Training Institutions, organized by UNESCO on 27 and 28 November 2000, on the theme: ‘What Agenda for Human Security in the Twenty-first Century?’;

Thank UNESCO for this initiative which allowed numerous peace research and training institutions to take part in the proceedings by means of a direct and fruitful dialogue;

Unanimously note that current and future human security considerations are taking on global proportions, and that all factors in the human security equation are interacting on a world scale, in such a way that the need to understand them as one single theme is a cognitive step that increasingly needs to be taken everywhere, based on an intensive sharing of everyone’s contributions;

Aware that peace research and training institutions, through their function as centres of training, analysis and policy elaboration, have a special responsibility in this respect, undertake to increase their cooperation in a common research effort to propose better ways to achieve peace, human security, development, respect for human rights and the promotion of democratic principles;

Anxious to disseminate their conclusions as widely as possible, adopt as the basis of their continuing project the following Agenda for Action:

Human security is indivisible. A general dynamic of equitable and balanced development is its best cornerstone. The growing interaction of societies on a worldwide scale increasingly demonstrates the overall need for human security, though it is not yet enough to prevent all forms of violence or conflict. The world’s future depends upon a growing need for human security and a better understanding of all the risks and threats that affect populations and individuals;



Awareness of the global and universal nature of human security necessary to all forms of progress and acknowledgement of the appropriate role of the peace research and training institutions in this respect, call for a considerable evolution in people’s minds;



The representatives of peace research and training institutions share an important responsibility in this field, through their capacity to bring into dynamic interaction a realistic analysis of the world in its current state, a clear perception of the changes awaiting it and a constructive vision of the actions to be undertaken in order to provide general progress with the conditions necessary for human security, that is to say the possibility of its being of a lasting nature.

Consequently, the participants in the First International Meeting of Directors of Peace Research and Training Institutions,

Decide to create the International SecuriPax Network for the Promotion of Human Security and Peace in order to remain united for the purpose of future activities;



Welcome UNESCO’s proposal to assign to the Network they have thus created, the SecuriPax Forum (http://www.unesco.org/securipax), aimed at facilitating the exchange of information and best experiences and practices in the field of human security;



Decide to work together with a view to contributing to the promotion of concrete actions of general interest, ranging from joint efforts to define human security indicators to high-level training activities;



Decide also to work together to mobilize multiple capacities, and this on the basis of all the contributions and recommendations made at this First International Meeting of Directors of Peace Research and Training Institutions;



Express their willingness to organize regional and subregional meetings in the coming years in the framework of the International SecuriPax Network;



Invite similar institutions interested in this Agenda for Action to join them in the Network created and to share efforts with them.