COPENHAGEN PEOPLE POWER CONFERENCE
April 8 -10, 2025
ActionAid Denmark, together with partners, hosts the 2nd Copenhagen People Power Conference on April 8 - 10, 2025.
This isn’t just another conference—it’s an extraordinary gathering of inspiring social movement leaders, government changemakers, dedicated donors, UN representatives, academics, and activists from around the world—all coming together to amplify the impact of social movements and define new ways to support their work for a just, peaceful future.
This year’s focus is urgent and powerful: How can we come together to support social movements that lead the charge for just peace from below?
From Palestine to Ukraine, from Sudan to Myanmar, the need for effective strategies to promote just and lasting peace is evident. Social movements are vital for addressing the economic, political, and social injustices driving conflicts, and the inclusion of movements as key conflict stakeholders and peacemaking agents in their own right, is critical for conflict transformationand for achieving lasting and just peace.
The 2nd Copenhagen People Power Conference therefore aims to directly improve the prevention, mitigation, and resolution of violent conflict around the world, by exploring the vital role of social movements in driving positive change and increasing the support from key external stakeholders their work for just peace.
The key takeaways from the 2023 Copenhagen People Power Conference is highlighted in this report.
Join us!
We invite activists, movement leaders, government representatives, parliamentarians, researchers, multilateral institutions, private and bilateral donors, media, and civil society organisations from around the world, focused on how to solve the violent crises of today and invested in supporting social movements to do so.
What’s in store?
- Inspiring Keynotes & Panels featuring thought leaders like you who are reimagining pathways to just peace.
- Interactive Workshops to share best practices and explore real-world scenarios and strategies for impactful action.
- Engaging Roundtables & Dialogues lively discussions on the newest research and learnings of social movements.
- Collaborative Networking establish alliances for collective action that will continue long after the event!
Themes for the conference
Participants and speakers from around the world will come together at this conference to explore a variety of themes centered on the role of social movements in fostering just peace and identifying effective strategies to support their efforts, including:
- How non-violent resistance ensures just conflict transformation
- What role movements play in addressing structural violence and social grievances, especially those of women and marginalized groups, that formal peace agreements overlook
- How their efforts shape and expand our understanding of what peace means
- How institutional actors can best support movements, ensuring that their efforts for just peace is resourced, protected, and integrated into formal peace processes
- What lessons institutional actors can learn from movement-centered peace work to inform their own work at the national and international levels
- What unique contributions women’s groups make to peace processes, and how we best integrate gender perspectives into both local and institutional peace efforts
- And much more!
What do we want to achieve
Social movements are at the heart of efforts to create lasting peace: addressing fundamental injustices, challenging unequal power dynamics, building alliances across society, leading strategic nonviolent actions, brokering local ceasefires, and pushing for democratic governance.
Yet, despite their critical role in addressing the root causes of conflict, these movements are often overlooked and sidelined in formal peace processes, which tend to prioritize armed actors, undermining the long-term success of peace efforts as history shows that peace agreements driven by elites alone often fail to endure.
The Copenhagen People Power Conference 2025 seeks to change this by strengthening global efforts to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflict. The conference will focus on rallying essential support from key stakeholders for movements that are driving the push for just and sustainable peace.
Social movements creating People Power
At the core of many conflicts worldwide lies deep-rooted economic, political, and social inequality— like unequal access to resources, land, food, housing, and education, along with the marginalization and discrimination of women and minorities. That’s why the fight for peace is inseparable from the fight for social and structural justice, making the support of social movements essential for meaningful conflict transformation.
There’s growing recognition that institutional peacemaking and movement-led approaches complement one another in transforming conflict and building lasting peace. While institutional peacebuilders often adopt an impartial stance that prioritizes stability, social movements bring transformative justice to the forefront. And while institutional approaches tend to focus on engaging state and armed group leaders, social movements ensure that efforts connect with society by fostering broad and inclusive participation.
Research shows that social movements, both small and large, play a vital role in advancing peace before, during, and after conflicts. Yet, they are often overlooked in formal peacemaking processes. To reform an international peace-making system in deep crisis, providing stronger support to these movements is crucial.
Meet some of our speakers:
Guadalupe Vázquez Luna
Guadalupe Vázquez Luna, known as Lupita is a renowned Mexican activist, human rights defender, and social leader. She is committed to advancing the rights of indigenous and rural communities, particularly in the Chiapas region. Vázquez Luna is known for her work with "Las Abejas," a collective of indigenous women advocating for justice, equality, and environmental sustainability. She is also involved in fighting for victims of violence and working to raise awareness of gender inequality. She is still seeking justice for the Acteal massacre in 1997 that killed 45 people including her parents. Currently, Guadalupe continues her activism, focusing on improving the lives of marginalized communities and empowering women through education and advocacy for social change.
Mary Lawlor
Mary Lawlor is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, a position she has held since May 2020. In this role, she monitors and reports on the conditions affecting individuals who promote and protect human rights worldwide. Lawlor advocates for the safety and rights of human rights defenders, engaging with governments and non-state actors to implement effective protection strategies. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Centre for Social Innovation at Trinity College Dublin, focusing on Business and Human Rights. Prior to her current roles, she founded Front Line Defenders in 2001, an organization dedicated to protecting human rights defenders at risk. Lawlor's extensive career includes leadership positions in Amnesty International and numerous accolades for her human rights work.
