A Legacy of Peace:
The United Nations and the Nobel Prize
For eight decades, the United Nations has stood as the world’s defence for peace, engaging countries and communities across every continent. Its mission is an enduring pledge: to prevent and end conflict and violence, champion human rights and forge the foundational path toward a future that is secure, prosperous and sustainable for everyone.
Its resolve is anchored by a fundamental truth, articulated by Secretary-General António Guterres: “Power does not reside in the hands of those who dominate or divide. Real power rises from people – from our shared resolve to uphold dignity.”
As the United Nations, representing 193 countries and 8 billion people, marks its 80th anniversary, we honor its legacy. A legacy that is defined by the quiet yet extraordinary courage of ordinary people persevering on the frontlines of peace - a commitment repeatedly validated by the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
Peace must be paced by human progress
In 1950, Ralph Bunche received the Nobel Peace Prize, recognizing his remarkable achievement as a mediator in negotiating a ceasefire between Israelis and Arabs during the conflict that followed the 1948 creation of the state of Israel.
At his Nobel Lecture, he stressed that “peace must be paced by human progress. Peace is no mere matter of men fighting or not fighting.”
“Peace, to have meaning for many who have known only suffering in both peace and war, must be translated into bread or rice, shelter, health, and education, as well as freedom and human dignity – a steadily better life.”
In this photo, taken in 1964, he meets Dr. Martin Luther King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, just weeks after King won the Nobel Peace Prize. Bunche Ralph was the first African American to be awarded the Peace Prize.
Photo: UN Photo/Yutaka Nagata/New York
Peace is more than just the absence of war
In 1954, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) made history as the first UN entity to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, recognized for its "efforts to heal the wounds of war by providing help and protection to refugees all over the world."
Nearly three decades later, in 1981, UNHCR won the Nobel Peace Prize again. It was honored for its efforts to particularly support the repatriation of refugees across Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the 1970s. At that time, UNHCR supported about ten million refugees.
Today, the world faces the highest levels of displacement on record. By mid-2025, over 122 million people were forcibly displaced, marking a full decade of year-on-year increases in displacement. The photo shows displaced families in Pakistan following a devastating earthquake in 2005.
“Peace is more than just absence of war. It is rather a state in which no people of any country live in fear or in need,” said UNHCR’s first High Commissioner for Refugees, Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, receiving the 1954 Prize.
Photo: UN Photo/Evan Schneider/Pakistan
No peace which is not peace for all
In 1961, former UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld tragically died in a plane crash near Zambia while en route to critical ceasefire negotiations during the Congo crisis.
He was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year, recognizing his success in developing the United Nations into an effective and constructive international organization - one capable of truly embodying the principles expressed in the UN Charter.
Hammarskjöld was also recognized for having organized a peacekeeping force in the Middle East after the Suez crisis, and for his commitment to peace during the civil war in the Congo.
Accepting the prize on his behalf, fellow Swedish diplomat Rolf Edberg said that Hammarskjöld "invested all his strength of will, and at the end more than that, to smooth their road toward the future."
He believed that “no peace which is not peace for all” - meaning there can be no peace until there is peace for all.
Photo: UN Photo/New York
Children are the primary agents of change
In 1965, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) received the Nobel Peace Prize for “improving living conditions for children and mothers in developing countries.”
Upon giving the prize, the Nobel Committee declared that “everyone has understood the language of UNICEF, and even the most reluctant person is bound to admit that in action UNICEF has proved that compassion knows no national boundaries."
Today, UNICEF’s work has never been more critical but severe cuts to global aid and the consequential rollbacks in vital services are having immense impact on children worldwide. About four and a half million children under five could lose their lives and another six million could be forced from school by the end of 2026.
“Giving help and hope to children in crisis gives something to us all. When we share vaccines, we stop diseases before they cross borders. When we provide education, we foster opportunity, not desperation,” it says.
Photo: UNICEF/Bangladesh
If you want peace, secure justice
The International Labour Organization (ILO) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1969 “for creating international legislation insuring certain norms for working conditions in every country.”
Established in 1919 as part of the Treaty of Versailles, ILO’s Constitution begins with the affirmation “that universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.”
In 2025, the ILO warned that geopolitical tensions and trade disruptions are weakening the global economic outlook, leading to slower job growth. The organization maintains that meaningful job growth is possible only if the world strengthens social protection, invests in skills development, promotes social dialogue and builds inclusive labour markets to ensure technological change benefits all.
In this photo, Congolese refugee Angelique Kahindo runs a tailoring business in Uganda following an apprenticeship. With her six children, she fled to Uganda during fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2009 when she lost her husband.
Photo: AVSI Foundation/Uganda
Soldiers as a catalyst for peace
In 1988, UN Peacekeeping won the Nobel Peace Prize “for preventing armed clashes and creating conditions for negotiations.”
Former UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar received the award on behalf of the entity, saying “the essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war.”
“It is in fact the exact opposite of the military action against aggression foreseen in Chapter VII of the charter.”
Since 1948, UN Peacekeeping has been one of the most globally recognized symbols of the world’s ability to come together to help countries move from conflict to peace.
The enduring legacy of the more than two million peacekeepers, who have served in over 70 missions under the UN flag since 1948, lies in the lives saved and the futures rebuilt, not just the conflicts contained.
Photo: UN Peacekeeping/Lebanon
Peace has no parade, no pantheon of victory
In 2001, the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to the United Nations and then Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The Committee proclaimed that the only route to global peace and cooperation is through the United Nations.
In his acceptance speech, Kofi Annan offered a profound reflection on the nature of peace itself, calling the Committee a "vital agent for peace" in a world saturated with conflict.
He observed: “Sadly, a prize for peace is a rarity in this world. Most nations have monuments or memorials to war, bronze salutations to heroic battles, archways of triumph. But peace has no parade, no pantheon of victory.”
Annan asserted that peace must be sought not as an abstraction, but as a tangible reality: “Peace must be made real and tangible in the daily existence of every individual in need.”
He concluded that answering the fundamental needs of the human family “will be the mission of the United Nations in the century to come.”
Photo: UN Photo/New York
Force does not heal old wounds; it opens new ones
The Nobel Committee presented the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its former Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, with the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way.”
At the Nobel lecture, ElBaradei said “imagine what would happen if the nations of the world spent as much on development as on building the machines of war… imagine a world where we would settle our differences through diplomacy and dialogue and not through bombs or bullets.”
In 2005, the world spent about $1 trillion on its militaries. Nearly 20 years later, the number almost tripled to $2.7 trillion and is expected to reach $6.6 trillion in the next ten years.
“History has taught us that war rarely resolves our differences,” said ElBaradei at the lecture. “Force does not heal old wounds; it opens new ones.”
Photo: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe/New York
Warming of our climate system is unequivocal
In 2007, the Nobel Peace Prize went to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former US Vice President Al Gore for “their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.
R. K. Pachauri, the former Chairman of the IPCC, who delivered the Nobel Lecture, said that “peace can be defined as security and the secure access to resources that are essential for living. A disruption in such access could prove disruptive to peace.”
In 2007, the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report warned that the “warming of the climate system is unequivocal”, and “most of the global average warming over the past 50 years is very likely due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases increases.”
In its latest assessment report, released in 2023, the Panel of scientists and experts delivered an even starker message - “every increment of warming results in rapidly escalating hazards. More intense heatwaves, heavier rainfall and other weather extremes further increase risks for human health and ecosystems.”
Photo: NASA
Peace is a question of will
In 2008, Martti Ahtisaari, a statesman, diplomat and mediator who dedicated his life to the cause of peace, received the Nobel Peace Prize for his decades-long efforts to resolve conflicts around the world.
Working with the United Nations, he made invaluable contributions, including as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Namibia, Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Management, Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa and Special Envoy for the Future Status Process for Kosovo.
At the Nobel Lecture, he noted “wars and conflicts are not inevitable. They are caused by human beings. There are always interests that are furthered by war. Therefore those who have power and influence can also stop them.”
“If we work together, we can find solutions. We should not accept any excuses from those in power. Peace is a question of will,” he added.
Photo: UN Photo/Namibia
Our task is to consign chemical weapons to history, forever
In 2023, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “its comprehensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons.”
The organisation implements the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993, which prohibits the development, production, stockpiling and use of such weapons. OPCW has verified the complete destruction of declared stockpiles and conducts inspections to verify that the convention is observed.
The horrors of chemical warfare were tragically demonstrated during World War I, when over 124,000 tons of chemical agents were released, causing nearly 100,000 deaths and leaving millions with horrific injuries.
The Convention has led to the verified destruction of 100 per cent of the world's declared chemical weapons stockpiles since 1997.
“Our task is to consign chemical weapons to history, forever - a task we have been carrying out with quiet determination, and no small measure of success,” said Ahmet Üzümcü, the former Director-General of OPCW during the Nobel Lecture.
Photo: OPCW
Let us all unite to fight injustice and oppression
In 2018, the Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to Dr. Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their tireless efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.
Murad, who herself was enslaved by the Islamic State in 2014 after growing up in Iraq’s Yazidi community, used her Nobel Lecture to issue a powerful global call.
As the first Goodwill Ambassador for the Dignity of Survivors of Human Trafficking at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, she urged everyone to “unite to fight injustice and oppression.”
“Let us raise our voices together and say: No to violence, yes to peace, no to slavery, yes to freedom, no to racial discrimination, yes to equality and to human rights for all.”
Her message remains critically urgent today. With the bodies of women and girls tragically continuing to be used as battlegrounds in wars, the United Nations verified over 4,600 reported cases of conflict-related sexual violence last year alone - alarming figures that still do not reflect the true global scale and prevalence of these crimes.
Photo: UN Photo/New York
Don’t ask us to choose who lives and who dies
In 2020, the World Food Programme (WFP) received the Nobel Peace Prize for “its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”
David Beasley, the then Executive Director WFP, who received the Prize on behalf of the UN entity, said “when we don’t have enough money, nor the access we need, we have to decide which children eat and which children do not eat, which children live, which children die.”
“Please, don’t ask us to choose who lives and who dies.”
Today, supporting millions of people everywhere who need access to food to live has never been harder and more heartbreaking.
Cuts to official development assistance and global aid have reduced WFP’s funding by 34 per cent from 2024 to 2025, meaning it will reach 21 percent less people with emergency assistance, up to 16.7 million people risk losing their food assistance and 11 countries could drop over 500,000 people from assistance.
Photo: UN Photo/Albert Gonzalez Farran/Sudan