CMI’s updated Strategy 2030 strengthens our impact on peace

As the world becomes increasingly divided and the nature of conflict evolves, CMI – Martti Ahtisaari Peace Foundation amended its Strategy 2030 earlier this year to adapt to these changes. This article – a version of which appeared in the latest annual report – outlines three new complementary priorities that will strengthen the organisation’s work from 2025 to 2030.

Profound global shifts are impacting our peacemaking efforts. Recent conflicts such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza have exacerbated geopolitical fragmentation. Multilateralism is weakening, and institutions like the United Nations face significant challenges in upholding peace and international security. Adherence to commonly agreed-upon international norms is diminishing.

The nature of conflict is shifting, with more internationalised intrastate conflicts and technology playing a growing role in both warfare and peacemaking. Rapid urbanisation and a youth demographic bulge continue to increase the risk of social unrest but also offer opportunities for positive change.

“These new priorities will strengthen CMI’s work from 2025 to 2030 and complement Strategy 2030.”

These shifts are reflected in CMI’s annex to Strategy 2030 (published 2025), which realigns our direction and serves as our guiding framework in contributing to peace where we operate. In all, six areas were identified in a review process involving all CMI staff. The three outlined below are grouped under the objective of ‘mastering the craft of peace’ while the three others in the updated strategy support the objective of ‘increasing institutional resilience’.

Working alongside youth in preventing and resolving conflicts

The youth bulge has the potential to become either a demographic dividend or a source of social and political instability. CMI must seize this opportunity and work alongside young people as essential partners in conflict prevention and resolution.

CMI has extensive experience working with youth in regions such as South Sudan, the South Caucasus, and the Lake Chad Basin. In Finland, CMI’s peace education project, Ahtisaari Days, has pioneered efforts to strengthen young people’s conflict resolution skills for more than a decade. CMI has also contributed to Youth, Peace, and Security (YPS) policy frameworks both nationally and globally.

To enhance our programmatic work and meet the increasing demand from stakeholders, we will place greater emphasis on the agency of youth in dialogue and mediation. Our existing thematic priorities, Women in Peacemaking and Digital Peacemaking, will be complemented by a third thematic priority: Youth in Peacemaking.

By 2030, we aim to be recognised as a leading independent partner on youth, peace, and security-related issues, having demonstrated measurable impact and established our distinctive role in the field.

Leveraging artificial intelligence

The forces of war have effectively harnessed new technologies to further their agendas. It is now imperative for the forces of peace to strive to close this gap.

The rapid evolution of digital technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), has the potential to profoundly reshape the peace and security landscape. While AI’s analytical capabilities offer unprecedented opportunities to enhance conflict prevention and resolution, these same advances are also enabling more sophisticated forms of warfare, such as autonomous military systems, targeted cyber-attacks, and AI-powered information warfare.

This technological revolution presents peace organisations with the dual challenge of harnessing AI’s constructive potential while addressing its destabilising effects on global security.

“By 2030, we aim to be recognised as a leading independent partner on youth, peace, and security-related issues.”

CMI has made significant progress in realising its Strategy 2030 vision of becoming a pathfinder in Digital Peacemaking. The organisation has successfully utilised digital technologies across its operations to advance peace, strengthening foresight, inclusion, and joint analysis in CMI-led dialogue processes.

However, more work remains to fully realise the potential of digital approaches, particularly AI. To address the new opportunities and challenges that this technological leap presents, CMI will invest in leveraging AI to enhance both impact and operations.

Our approach will continue to balance the application of technology with our core human-centred values, ensuring that digital tools and AI serve to enhance, rather than replace, the critical human elements of peacemaking.

Bridging gaps and strengthening multilateralism

The multilateral system is struggling to deliver on its mandates as the global balance of power shifts. Polarisation, distrust and uncertainty are rising, with new centres of influence challenging traditional powers. Consensus on key peace and security issues remains elusive. As a result, peacemaking is becoming more fragmented rather than unified under the United Nations umbrella.

CMI’s seminar at the United Nations in 2025 exemplifies our efforts to create space for dialogue and exchange, and underlines our support of multilateralism.

CMI’s Strategy 2030 is based on complementarity, focusing on engagement, coordination, and collaboration with international, state, regional, and civil society actors. As local conflicts are increasingly connected to complex global dynamics, effective coordination of support for dialogue and mediation becomes more critical and challenging.

CMI has a strong track record of cooperating closely with, and supporting, multilateral actors, and will continue to champion multilateral solutions. Over the next five years, we will continue to strengthen cooperation with the EU and focus on strengthening networks and partnerships with other key global and regional peacemaking actors, especially the United Nations (UN), African Union (AU), Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

We will deepen our engagement with middle powers and regional coalitions, many of which have long been diplomatically active but are gaining influence amid a shifting global landscape. We will also create spaces for the exchange of diverse peacemaking approaches and methodologies, contributing to both policy and practice, and fostering cooperation in specific contexts where our goals align.