Human rights are at the core of the United Nations (UN) system and are one of the building blocks of sustainable peacebuilding. Although these principles have long been recognized, they were recently reaffirmed in two twin resolutions by the UN Security Council and the General Assembly in 2016, which recognized that "development, peace and security, and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing", and that to succeed peacebuilding must encompass both "political and human rights mechanisms".1 Despite broad consensus on these fundamentals, consistent cross-pillar and inter-agency coordination can be challenging, and the difficult political contexts in which UN peacebuilding takes place have often obstructed full realization of human rights objectives. As a result, since the twin resolutions were introduced, a range of actors, both within and outside the UN system, have been taking steps to strengthen human rights within peacebuilding and to further identify complementarity between the two fields and their respective institutions. This Thematic Review is intended to further this conversation by examining one important node within this so-called "human rights and peacebuilding nexus":2 the Secretary-General's Peacebuilding Fund (PBF) and related work by the Peacebuilding Support Office (PBSO), which supports it. The Review explores a sample of 92 projects supported by the PBF between 2017 and 2022, with a view to assessing best practices and lessons learned, and drawing examples of the synergies between human rights and peacebuilding. Three case studies on PBF-supported work in Colombia, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and relating to hate speech and disinformation allow for more in-depth consideration of 23 of these projects, and how they contribute to different peacebuilding and conflict prevention contexts.

107 p. : ill.

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