Initiative Active · New York Introduction During UNGA Week 2026
A cultural diplomacy initiative that uses the table as a tool for dialogue, trust-building, and partnership.
Piloted in private, invitation-only convenings including Nobel laureates, senior institutional leaders, and heads of state. Due to the private nature of these gatherings, individual participants are not publicly identified.
What This Initiative Is
A structured framework for informal diplomacy across community, institutional, and diplomatic settings.
The Peace Cookbook Initiative is built on a simple premise: shared meals can create the conditions for dialogue where formal processes alone may not.
The initiative translates that premise into a repeatable framework that can be used in high-trust environments to support conversation, relationship-building, and cross-cultural exchange.
It has been tested through private, invitation-only convenings that brought together Nobel laureates, senior academics, heads of state, and cultural leaders. These early implementations served as controlled settings for understanding how the table can function as a practical instrument of trust-building.
The next phase focuses on structured deployment through community organizations, universities, cultural institutions, embassies, permanent missions, and UN-adjacent programming.
Every conflict eventually requires dialogue. The initiative creates a structured setting in which dialogue can begin.
Define the conflict, division, or relationship gap the convening is intended to address.
Bring together the right participants in a private, invitation-only setting designed for openness and discretion.
Food, hospitality, and shared cultural context create a neutral starting point for exchange.
The convening is not the endpoint. The framework is designed to support continued contact and future dialogue.
Each table contributes to a broader record of how informal, culturally grounded convenings can support peace-building and partnership.
The Framework Works at Multiple Scales
A repeatable model for community, institutional, and diplomatic use.
For community leaders, educators, and local organizers seeking a practical format for dialogue in neighborhoods, schools, and civic spaces.
For institutions working in peace-building, intercultural dialogue, education, and post-conflict settings.
For embassies, permanent missions, and multilateral institutions seeking a neutral, culturally grounded format for relationship-building and informal exchange.
Review the framework and implementation materials
Choose the hosting model that fits your setting
Clarify the issue, relationship gap, or convening purpose
Gather participants in a structured, high-trust environment
Support follow-up and continued relationship-building
The g7+
Twenty conflict-affected and fragile member states with a shared commitment to peacebuilding and country-led development.
The g7+ is an intergovernmental organization established in 2010 to provide a collective platform for countries affected by conflict and fragility.
Headquartered in Dili, Timor-Leste, it brings together 20 member states around priorities including peacebuilding, statebuilding, and development shaped by country experience.
The Peace Cookbook Initiative draws from themes central to g7+ member states, particularly the role of dignity, culture, trust, and local agency in post-conflict environments. The project is not a substitute for formal political process. It is a complementary cultural diplomacy framework designed to create space for dialogue and relationship-building.
Each chapter in The Peace Cookbook engages a member nation through culture and cuisine, presenting food not as ornament but as an entry point into resilience, memory, and exchange.
Sustainable Development Goal Alignment
Primary alignment with SDG 16 and SDG 17.
The initiative supports SDG 16 by creating structured, informal settings for dialogue, trust-building, and cross-cultural exchange.
- Supports informal dialogue across cultural, political, and institutional boundaries
- Encourages trust-building in controlled, high-trust settings
- Provides a complementary format alongside formal diplomatic processes
- Uses shared cultural practice to reduce barriers to exchange
The initiative supports SDG 17 by convening participants across sectors and creating the conditions in which partnerships can form and deepen.
- Brings together actors across government, academia, civil society, and culture
- Supports cross-institutional and cross-cultural partnership formation
- Provides a neutral convening platform for continued engagement
- Strengthens relational groundwork that can support future collaboration
Depending on host setting and implementation, the initiative may also support goals related to education and inclusion.
- Useful for universities and civic learning environments
- Adaptable for community-based dialogue settings
- Relevant to programs that strengthen participation and mutual understanding
New York Introduction During UN General Assembly Week
A private, invitation-only gathering introducing the initiative in New York during United Nations General Assembly Week.
The Peace Cookbook Initiative will be introduced in New York during United Nations General Assembly Week, when diplomatic missions, multilateral institutions, and international stakeholders are convened in the city.
The event is designed as a focused introduction to the initiative as a cultural diplomacy framework for dialogue, trust-building, and partnership.
Sponsorship, embassy participation, and select press inquiries are currently open.
Request the Blueprint
Available by request for community, institutional, and diplomatic use.
The digital edition contains the full framework for convening a peace table, including implementation guidance, cultural chapters, and SDG alignment materials.
Requests are reviewed on a rolling basis to ensure the material is used in settings aligned with the initiative’s purpose.
The limited hardcover edition is available separately by private inquiry.
Complete framework · cultural chapters · implementation guidance
Selected pages and overview materials
Available by private inquiry
Contact the Initiative
For hosting, partnership, diplomatic, and institutional inquiries.
The initiative welcomes inquiries from community organizations, universities, embassies, permanent missions, cultural institutions, and aligned partners seeking to use or support the framework.