UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday urged Calls on world leaders to take concrete action and invest in peace, and warns that violence, division and conflict are worsening worldwide and that the dialogue needed to resolve them is lacking.
Guterres spoke during Japan’s annual Peace Bell ceremony at the UN headquarters in New York, which took place in advance International Day of Peace on September 21st. This year’s theme, “Investing in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day,” recognizes what the UN calls “everyday architects of peace,” including volunteers, advocates, civil society leaders and peacekeepers working at the community level.
In his statementsGuterres said peace requires active effort rather than passivity. He warned that conflicts around the world were intensifying, causing communities to be torn apart by violence, and that the solidarity and dialogue needed for viable solutions were largely missing. He noted that where governments failed to secure peace, ordinary people paved the way by raising their voices, bridging divides and healing communities.
The Secretary-General called on heads of state and government to gather for the United Nations General Assembly in the coming weeks high-level debatewhich opens on September 23, aims to follow suit and invest in health, education, nutrition and social protection, and build institutions that people can trust. He called on governments to protect human rights and dignity, recommit to what he called “the time-tested instruments of peace,” including diplomacy, dialogue, negotiation and peacekeeping, and end wars and conflicts.
Guterres’ appeal comes amid what the UN has documented as the highest number of active armed conflicts since World War II. His report from September 2025, “The Security We Need: Reorienting Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future”found that global military spending reached a record $2.7 trillion in 2024, an increase of more than nine percent from the previous year and an amount equivalent to 13 times total global development assistance. The report commissioned by UN member states in the context of 2024 Pact for the futureconcluded that reallocating even a fraction of military budgets could close critical gaps in education, health care, climate adaptation and poverty reduction.
The ceremony also had a personal meaning. Guterres, who leaves office at the end of 2026, told the audience it would be the last time he would ring the peace bell but promised he would continue to champion the cause of peace beyond his term. The Japanese peace bell was submitted to the United Nations by the UN Association of Japan on June 8, 1954, cast from coins donated by delegates from 60 nations.
The UN General Assembly launched the International Day of Peace in 1981. In 2001, the assembly unanimously declared it a period of non-violence and ceasefire. Despite the annual compliance, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs assumes More than 200 million people currently need humanitarian assistance and nearly 120 million have been forcibly displaced by war, crisis and persecution.
