Communities and countries around the globe face multiple and overlapping crises, fuelled by mounting social, political, and economic pressures. Global leadership and governance structures are failing to address these pressures, with the consequences of this failure most deeply felt in fragile and conflict-affected settings. In this challenging environment, how can greater health equity and gender equality contribute to building more peaceful societies?
This is the question that the Commission set out to explore through their report. To do so, the Commission undertook cross-national statistical analyses of the inter-relationships among health equity, gender equality, and levels of peace and violence to establish if statistically significant associations existed across time and in multiple contexts.
Once they established the existence of these associations, they undertook comprehensive reviews of the literature and case studies to explain how and why these associations exist. These reviews and case studies enabled the Commission to develop their theory of change, namely that improvements in health equity and gender equality can help nudge societies from harmful into beneficial cycles of peace and well-being.
A series of in-country case studies - including Afghanistan, El Salvador and Kosovo - also enabled the Commission to explore the promises of their theory of change, as well as mis-steps to avoid.
Report authors:
Valerie Percival - Associate Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada; Fellow, The Wilson Center, Washington DC, USA
Oskar Timo Thoms - Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON, Canada
Ben Oppenheim - Senior Director, Ginkgo Bioworks, Boston, MA, USA; Fellow (non-resident), New York University Center on International Cooperation, New York, NY, USA
Dane Rowlands - Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Carolyn Chisadza - Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
Sara Fewer - Program Manager, Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden; Former Secretariat Manager, Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT), Stockholm, Sweden
Gavin Yamey - Director, Center for Policy Impact in Global Health and Professor of Global Health and Public Policy, Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Amy C Alexander - Associate Professor, Quality of Government Institute, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
Chloe L Allaham - Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Sara Causevic - Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden; Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT), Stockholm, Sweden; Department of Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
François Daudelin - Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Siri Gloppen - Professor of Government, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway; Director of LawTransform, the CMI-UiB Centre on Law & Social Transformation, Bergen, Norway
Debarati Guha-Sapir - Senior Research Fellow, Johns Hopkins Centre for Humanitarian Health, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA; Institute of Health and Society, UC Louvain, Brussels, Belgium
Maseh Hadaf - Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Samuel Henderson - Doctoral Candidate, Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Steven J. Hoffman - Director, Global Strategy Lab, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
Ana Langer - Professor of the Practice of Public Health, Emerita, Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
Toni Joe Lebbos - Doctoral Candidate, School of Public Policy and Administration, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Luiz Leomil - Doctoral Student, Department of Political Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Minna Lyytikäinen - Doctoral Student, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Anju Malhotra - Professor of the Practice, Center for Women's Health and Gender Equality, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Paul Mkandawire - Associate Professor, Human Rights and Social Justice Program, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Holly A Norris - Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Ole Petter Ottersen - Professor, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; Former President, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
Jason Phillips - Adjunct Research Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Sigrún Rawet - Deputy Director-General, Head of Department for Multilateral Development Banks, Sustainability and Climate, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Stockholm, Sweden
Alexa Salikova - Independent Researcher, Moscow, Russia
Idil Shekh Mohamed - Former Research Coordinator, Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT), Stockholm, Sweden
Ghazal Zazai - Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Tarja Halonen - Former President of Finland; UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation, Member; Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Member of the Leadership Council; UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Land Ambassador
Catherine Kyobutungi - Executive Director, African Population and Health Research Center, Nairobi, Kenya
Zulfiqar A. Bhutta - Founding Director of the Centre of Excellence in Women and Child Health & The Institute for Global Health and Development, Aga Khan University, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan; Co-Director, SickKids Centre for Global Child Health, Toronto, ON, Canada; Professor, Department of Nutritional Sciences & Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Peter Friberg - Professor, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; Former Director, Swedish Institute for Global Health Transformation (SIGHT), Stockholm, Sweden
Institutional affiliation is listed for identification purposes only.
The Lancet Commission on Peaceful Societies through Health Equity and Gender Equality launched its report at an online event co-sponsored by The Lancet and the Wilson Center on September 7th 2023, in the run-up to the 78th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.
During the launch event - introduced by the Wilson Center, The Lancet, and Commission Chair President Tarja Halonen - the Commission presented its findings and recommendations, and was joined by a distinguished panel of experts who discussed the report’s implications and implementation.
Speakers included:
Dr. Ahmed Al-Mandhari, Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean, World Health Organization
Sarah Barnes, Director, Maternal Health Initiative, Wilson Center
Carolyn Chisadza, Commissioner and Senior Lecturer, University of Pretoria
Pam Das, Senior Executive Editor, The Lancet
Peter Friberg, Commission Co-Chair; Professor, University of Gothenburg
Tarja Halonen, Former President of Finland and Commission Chair
Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief, The Lancet
Chris Milligan, former USAID Counselor
Dr. Alaa Murabit, Director, Program Advocacy and Communications, Health, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Valerie Percival, lead report author, Commissioner, Wilson Center Fellow, and Associate Professor, Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University