Power, people and peace: reflections from the 2025 People Power Conference

In April, Saferworld joined activists and peacebuilders in Copenhagen for the People Power Conference – a space for dialogue, solidarity and collective action. Sara Torrelles Vives, Civil Society Partnerships and Learning Adviser shares her reflections. 

Last week Susana (Saferworld’s CEO) and myself attended the People Power Conference in Copenhagen – a gathering of activists, peacebuilders, organisers and human right’s defenders working across contexts affected by violence and oppression.  

Over three days, we gathered with people from Colombia, Mexico, Myanmar, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and beyond to exchange ideas on solidarity and resistance. Key themes included the need for strategic, connected action; meaningful support for movements; and a renewed focus on rights-based peace. Activists challenged traditional peacebuilding models, questioned the limits of non-violence, and demanded more courageous international responses to genocide, occupation and repression. 

I admit I am not a fan of big conferences, as they can easily become spaces where the audience is passively listening to speakers on various panels, and there is little time for group discussions. As a non-native English speaker, they can also feel slightly daunting. However, this conference was different – perhaps because it was led by activists and people involved in social movements (and I spent a lot of time speaking Spanish!). I was surprised by the energy and drive that was in the room. From the start I could sense that we were a large group of like-minded individuals who were there to share our experiences and remind each other of our collective power. There was an overall feeling that together we will achieve social justice and hold those responsible for human rights violations accountable.  

We left the conference reminded that solidarity is not one-way – it is a shared struggle. And that peace, if it is to be sustained, must be rooted in justice, dignity and self-determination. 

It’s not easy to capture the richness of all the discussions we had (formally and informally), but I’ll try to highlight four points that challenged us and made us reflect on what actions we must take:   

1. Building peace with empathy and foresight 

The conference opened with a call to action: social movements are not only critical – they are often the last line of defence against injustice. But their success requires a collective strategy, and clear tactics.  

Nada Al-Nashif, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, described the global system as being “at risk of crumbling”. She warned of increasing impunity, shrinking civic space and a disregard for international humanitarian law. 

Her remarks underscored the importance of rights-based approaches: “There is no sustainable peace without human rights. They repair trust, build pressure for peaceful solutions, and connect us across different struggles.” She called for greater investment in prevention, accountability, and collective action rooted in empathy. 

2. Debating resistance, unity and legitimacy 

Discussions throughout the conference returned to the issue of armed resistance within non-violent movements – a point of tension among participants. While some argued that non-violence should be absolute, several activists from Myanmar, Palestine, Ukraine, Mexico, Colombia and other conflict-affected contexts pointed out the limits of such framing. I was encouraged by the spirit of solidarity and shared struggle that permeated these conversations. Coming from an international peacebuilding organisation, we were challenged by many of the ideas that were discussed and felt a sense of collective alignment with the struggles of activists and individuals living in conflict affected contexts.   

Participants stressed the importance of strategic, context-sensitive action, and of resisting simplistic labels. For example, when talking about ‘peace’, we must recognise its links to struggles for justice, self-determination and decolonisation. Frantz’s Fanon’s work was referenced throughout many conversations.  

We also spoke about the need to address patriarchal structures within movements, that can silence women activists and push them aside. I was reminded of the importance of feminist approaches to peacebuilding and resistance, and how central they are to building and sustaining peace.  

3. Solidarity must be strategic and sustained 

“Solidarity isn’t a favour”, one speaker said: “It’s an obligation – and a form of protection”. Speakers emphasised that solidarity should not be conditional or performative. It must be genuine, rooted in accountability and long-term commitment. We were asked to invest in: 

• creating spaces for learning exchanges between organisers 
• challenging transnational repression 
• using domestic legal systems to pursue accountability for arms sales and human rights violations 

Again, I was challenged to think about whether we are contributing towards any of that at Saferworld and I thought about the work that my colleagues are doing to strengthen national, regional and international controls on the global transfer or arms, which I am proud of. We have a lot more to do, but we are walking in the right direction.  

4. The meaning of peace and the support needed to sustain it  

In sessions on capacity support and funding, participants called for more flexible, transparent, and politically conscious models of support. Donors were urged to adapt their systems to meet the needs of movements and to support the wider ecosystems they are part of – not just individual organisations. 

Speakers also challenged traditional peacebuilding language. Terms like ‘stability’ and ‘restoration’ were viewed with scepticism, particularly in contexts where people had never experienced peace to begin with. “Peace without justice,” one speaker said, “is just silence.” 

This got me thinking about my own way of talking about peacebuilding, and how I might have used the term ‘lightly' disregarding all the nuance that must come with it. I was reassured that peacebuilding is political, something that has guided my work since I started over ten years ago.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, from the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, closed the conference with a reminder of the power of people: “When legal tools fail, people must act. Social movements have changed history before – and they will again.” 

Hope, she said, is not naive optimism. It is a deep understanding that collective action matters – and that justice is possible. As movements around the world continue to organise and resist, we are reminded that true and sustainable peace can only ever be built collectively.