Systemic Modeling of the Peace–Development Nexus

As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, the value proposition of promoting sustainability and peace in the world has become more imperative than ever. It is an appropriate time to pause and reflect on what a post-pandemic COVID-19 world will look like and what constitutes a new mindset toward a more sustainable, stable, peaceful, and equitable world where all humans live with dignity and at peace. As emphasized in this paper, the new mindset must acknowledge that sustainability and peace are two entangled states of dynamic equilibrium. It is hard to envision a sustainable world that is not peaceful and a peaceful world that has not endorsed sustainable practices. This paper looks more specifically at the value proposition of adopting a systems approach to capture the linkages between selected development sectors (e.g., SDGs) and peace sectors (e.g., positive, negative, and cultural). Basic system dynamics (SD) models are presented to illustrate the peace–development nexus dynamics. The models are general enough to be used for different contexts and scales.