New York, USA - With the beginning of the new year, the Universal Peace Federation wishes to thank all its international and local chapters, Ambassadors for Peace, and all those working for the sake of peace for their great efforts in 2009. We invite everyone to review this brief report [PDF] of the UPF’s work in 2009.
Even more importantly, we should pause to take a moment to consider the challenges and opportunities facing the cause of peace in the years ahead.
One prominent milestone for this coming decade is the year 2015, identified by the United Nations as the year for the accomplishment of the Millennium Development Goals. It’s widely known that progress has been slow and that broader partnerships are needed in order to address pressing global issues. For this reason, many governments, religious bodies, and NGOs are joining a call to declare 2011 to 2020 the UN Decade of Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, Understanding, and Cooperation for Peace.
Global peace needs a foundation of inner peace. In an address marking the launch of the Universal Peace Federation in 2005, Dr. Sun Myung Moon commented that peace will never come about without a spiritual reformation. “Peace among nations can never come when those entrusted with the task have not found peace in themselves,” he said. He added that people and even nations need to realize that our destinies are linked to each other: “As long as the 200 or so member states at the United Nations think primarily of their own interests, peace and development remain unlikely.”
Yet the UPF Founder remains optimistic that the human family can overcome its age-old divisions of race, religion, and nationality and become “One Family Under God,” and has challenged nations to make significant steps to that goal by January 2013, two full years earlier than even the target date for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
Accordingly, UPF is committed to the vision of a world of peace and is expanding its partnership with UN and other agencies to offer programs of interfaith dialogue and reconciliation, strengthening and supporting marriage and family, and promoting a culture of service.