Positive Peace is supported by a set of eight interrelated factors (or Pillars) that the IEP has empirically proven to increase the peacefulness in a community in long-lasting and resilient ways.
Peace that is underpinned by having the attitudes, institutions and structures that create and sustain peaceful societies is referred to as Positive Peace.
High levels of Positive Peace occur where attitudes make violence less tolerated, institutions are more responsive to society’s needs, and structures underpin the nonviolent resolution of grievances.
Rotary International envisioned the importance of Promoting Positive Peace with the involvement of Rotarians throughout the world. In this connection, RI entered into a Strategic Partnership with the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP) in 2017, to promote Positive Peace. More information is available at: https://www.rotary.org/en/institute-economics-and-peace
Rotary and the IEP established the Rotary Positive Peace Activator Program which functions as an international network of Peacebuilders trained in the IEP Positive Peace Framework, equipped to provide peace training and project support to Rotarians. RI-IEP has trained and appointed Positive Peace Activators in the US & Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia, East Africa, and West & Central Africa. RI-IEP is recruiting in the other global regions. It is envisaged that there will be more than 200 Positive Peace Activators by 2024. Feel free to email peace.partners@rotary.org to interact with a RI coordinator for further details.
Positive Peace is supported by a set of eight interrelated factors (or Pillars) that the IEP has empirically proven to increase the peacefulness in a community in long-lasting and resilient ways.
The Positive Peace Framework encompasses concepts of Systems Thinking where each pillar is a system which also impacts the other seven pillars in varying degrees to effect change. The Theory of Change entails Inputs, Outputs, Outcomes and Impact. Together with the four disciplines of Moral Imagination, which are the Centrality of Relationships, the Practice of Paradoxical Curiosity, the Provision of Space for the Creative Act, and the Willingness to Risk, help to Promote and Strengthen Positive Peace.
Delegates will be given more information with case studies on the Positive Peace Framework and how best they could Promote and Strengthen Positive Peace and Create Hope in the World.Sign up to the Rotary Positive Peace Academy for the free online courses on offer.
There is a general feeling of helplessness and hopelessness as we see history keep repeating itself with devastating wars and wanton destruction of property, life and limb. There were wars before Rotary existed and wars after; the senseless slaughter of human life has not stopped with the signing of the UN charter in 1945. Whereas the United Nations acts as a corporate body to try to resolve conflict, Rotarians have always tried to help peace percolate up from the grassroots. Peacemaking is first a local matter. Rotary continues to Create Hope in the World for a lasting Peace. Its high level Peacebuilding efforts over the years are traced to the present time.
Peace has been one of Rotary’s top goals almost since the day Paul Harris founded it in 1905. In 1914, the convention adopted a resolution proposed by the Rotary Club of Hamilton, Ontario, that the International Association of Rotary Clubs “lend its influence to the maintenance of peace among the nations of the world.”
In 1917 when Arch Klumph was RI President, he called Rotary “a force that has taken on an impetus that cannot be diminished”, when he spoke to the Atlanta convention. His words were to assume prophetic significance in Rotary’s quest for peace, for it was his vision that led to the creation of The Rotary Foundation. From the beginning, the single guiding principle of the Foundation has been to bring peace to the world through education and the relief of suffering, and by helping people to better understand one another – particularly in cross-cultural settings.
In 1921, the RI Convention in Edinburgh incorporated into Rotary’s constitution the goal ”to aid in the advancement of international peace and goodwill through a fellowship of business and professional men of all nations united in the Rotary ideal of service.”
In 1940, The Rotarian published a commentary that came out of the RI Convention in Havana, Cuba. Long before there was a United Nations, before “human rights” was a term most people even understood, the Rotarians meeting in Havana adopted a resolution calling for “freedom, justice, truth, sanctity of the pledged word, and respect for human rights.” It was a major milestone in Rotary history. It threw down the gauntlet and said, in effect, “Rotary has no interest in the religious or political affairs of your country, but if you do not treat your people with the rights any human being deserves, then Rotary cannot operate there.”
In 1945 approximately 50 Rotarians served as delegates, advisers, or consultants at the UN charter conference in San Francisco. Five Rotarians subsequently served as president of the UN General Assembly: Oswaldo Aranha, Carlos P. Romulo, Lester B. Pearson, Prince Wan Waithayakon, and Sir Leslie Munro.
In November 1945 UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) was founded. Rotarians in Europe looked beyond the bombs that were raining down on cities across the continent and began planning the peace that would ultimately have to come. Their fellow British Rotarians convened a conference to discuss what would happen after the guns of war had been silenced and how they could promote cross-cultural understanding to avoid future conflicts. They met repeatedly drawing more expatriate leaders into the caucus. When peace finally dawned, this group evolved into UNESCO.
In 1948 the newly chartered United Nations wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and used the resolution from the 1940 Rotary Havana convention as its framework.
Throughout the 1950’s and 60’s, almost every Foundation program was designed to improve cross-cultural understanding through people-to-people exchanges or shared projects. Matching Grants, Grants for University Teachers, Ambassadorial Scholars, Group Study Exchange teams, etc., may have all fulfilled different functions, but collectively, they upheld the same principle: when “foreigners” meet and break bread with one another, exchange their family stories, and learn about each other’s cultures and traditions, they come away with the realization that we are more alike as people than we are different.
In the early 1980’s, a growing number of Rotarians called on the organisation to do even more to promote peace.
In 1982 RI’s World Understanding and Peace Committee discussed the creation of a permanent forum for promoting peace. Rotary’s New Horizons Committee received many suggestions encouraging Rotary to be a more forceful advocate for peace. In June 1982, the Trustees agreed to “authorise, on a trial basis, for three years, the annual award of six Rotary Foundation scholarships (one from each region of the world) for the study of international relations, world peace, or international behaviour.”
In 1988 Rotary created Peace Forums on a three-year pilot programme to raise awareness about issues that cause conflict and activities that promote peace. On February 28 1988, RI President Charles Keller convened the first Rotary Peace Forum in Evanston, Illinois, bringing together experts on international relations, government officials, and Rotarian leaders to consider the topic “Nongovernmental Organizations and the Search for Peace.” The event was so well attended and the outcome so constructive that additional Rotary Peace Forums were held in various cities around the world. In November 1988, at a Peace Forum in Hiroshima, Japan, RI President Royce Abbey told the participants, “Reconciliation is the very heart of peacemaking. It means to build instead of to destroy; to restore to friendship and harmony.” He emphasized that in the modern age, both the necessity for peace and the opportunities for achieving it have never been clearer.
In 1990, the Trustees of The Rotary Foundation broadened the program of the Peace Forums and changed the name to Rotary Peace Programs.
In 1994, the Rotary Club of Oslo-Skayen, Norway, launched the Shalom-Salaam peace project following the Oslo Peace Accords. Perhaps they drew their inspiration from former Canadian Prime Minster and honorary Rotarian Lester B. Person, who said on accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 1957, “How can there be peace in the world when people do not know each other, and how can they know each other when they have never met?”
In 1996 while in Evanston, Illinois, Past RI President Rajendra K. Saboo of Chandigarh, India was pondering an appropriate way to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Paul Harris’s death. He reckoned that if Northwestern University has the Kellogg School of Management, “why not a Rotary school of international peace studies? It would be a place where we could develop people who might later go on to become civil servants, prime ministers, foreign secretaries, and presidents.”
In April 1999, the Trustees of The Rotary Foundation committed $2 Million for the creation and support of the Rotary Centers for International Studies in Peace and Conflict Resolution in seven universities, in what was to be a watershed moment in the Foundation’s history. The idea was to elicit scholarship applications from 10 new Rotary Peace Fellows engaged in peace-building and conflict resolution for a two-year master’s degree program – all paid for by The Rotary Foundation. As of 2023, these Rotary Peace Centers are:
In 2017 Rotary entered into a Strategic Partnership with the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP) to promote Positive Peace. Rotary envisioned the importance of Promoting Positive Peace with the involvement of Rotarians throughout the world and established the Rotary Positive Peace Activator Program jointly with the IEP and has trained and appointed Positive Peace Activators in the US & Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia, East Africa, and West & Central Africa. RI-IEP is recruiting in the other global regions. It is envisaged that there will be more than 200 Positive Peace Activators by 2024.
At the RI Council on Legislation which met from 10-14 April 2022 in Chicago, Illinois, delegates voted to “Amend the Avenues of Service” to include Positive Peace.
On 17th April 2018, at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, 52 Rotarians and friends came together to perform in the presence of over 2000 delegates including the Royal family, Heads of State and government ministers. Each performer represented one of the 52 Commonwealth countries and collectively played drums and other acoustic instruments under the theme: “ Rotary and the Commonwealth Drumming for Peace”. They were led by the renowned London Philharmonic Orchestra percussionist Kevin Hathway and the performance was acclaimed a resounding success by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon who was the Minister of State for the Commonwealth at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
On 30 Sept 2021, RI President Shekhar Mehta participated in an online panel discussion organised by the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) themed “Eliminating the Existential Threat of Nuclear Weapons”. His bold and ground breaking quotes at that event were: “Nuclear disarmament is an issue that affects all of humanity. It is important that Rotarians have taken action to raise awareness about this. My personal position is that Rotary leaders should begin the hard work of convincing fellow Rotarians that we can take stronger positions for nuclear disarmament while remaining non political in our approach as organizations like the Red Cross have already done. There is so much we can do. We fully encourage our members to get involved in efforts to raise awareness and to inform fellow Rotarians of the scientific facts in support of nuclear disarmament so we can reach our goal of disarmament”. The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (UN-TPNW) is the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons and was adopted by 122 countries in March 2017. On 22 January 2021 it became binding international law after it was ratified by 50 countries. To date, 68 countries ratified the treaty and it is in force in those countries that signed it.
On 2nd June 2022, Rotary was involved in the lighting of the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacons in the Capital Cities of Commonwealth Countries and beyond to commemorate the Platinum Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II. As Beacons were lit from the eastern most cities of Samoa and Tonga to the western most city of Honolulu in Hawaii, a Peace Wave was formed – this was known as the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Rotary Positive Peace Wave: because the pillars of the Positive Peace framework were impacted.
In June 2022 at Shekhar Mehta’s Presidential Conference in Houston themed “Serve to Bring Peace”, Rotary’s support for Peace in Ukraine was recognised and it showcased the ability of Rotary’s vast network in providing rapid humanitarian relief in the country and to millions of people who fled their homes.
In March 2023, Rotary International President Jennifer Jones joined the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Baroness, The Right Honourable, Patricia Scotland at the Commonwealth Day reception held by His Majesty, King Charles III in Buckingham Palace, to promote the Commonwealth’s 2023 theme: "Forging a Sustainable and Peaceful Common Future".
President Jennifer said “It is quite significant for us to join in recognizing the role and leadership of the Commonwealth of Nations and its fifty-six member countries. I was struck by how aligned the mission and values are with those of Rotary. Especially our mutual desire for peace among all peoples and nations, and our belief in justice for everyone, everywhere.”
In February 2024, RI President Gordon McInally will headline a Presidential Peace Conference in London, England, which will focus on Promoting and Strengthening Positive Peace in order to “Create Hope in the World”. A wide range of topics which impact and bring change for the better will be put forward. This Rotary International Presidential Peace Conference will show how Rotarians can create environments where Positive Peace can be built and maintained through sustainable and measurable activities in communities worldwide.
As a humanitarian organization, Peace is a cornerstone of Rotary’s mission. We believe when people work to create Peace in their communities, that change can have a global effect.
Rotary’s Four Roles in Promoting Peace through its members are as follows: