Peace organisations

01Which peace organisations are there?

Peace organisations can be roughly divided into four groups. Research institutes study how conflicts arise and how they end. Expert services send trained professionals to conflict regions. Associations and movements bring together people who work for peace. Networks and foundations connect and fund the others.

In Germany there are organisations from all four groups. Some are well over a hundred years old, others only emerged in the 1990s, when civil conflict transformation became a field of work in its own right. The overview on this page names the best known, each with its founding year and the focus it gives itself.

The selection is meant as orientation, not as a ranking or a recommendation. W3ltfrieden is not connected with any of the organisations named.

02Which institutes research peace?

Among the best-known institutes worldwide is SIPRI in Stockholm, founded in 1966 by decision of the Swedish parliament. SIPRI researches conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament. Slightly older is PRIO in Oslo, founded in 1959, which studies the conditions for peaceful relations between states, groups and individuals.

In Germany several institutes work in this field. The Peace Research Institute Frankfurt was founded in 1970 as the Hessian Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research and has used the abbreviation PRIF since 2023. The Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg was set up in 1971; its first director was Wolf Graf von Baudissin. The bicc in Bonn was founded in 1994 with the support of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The Berghof Foundation, founded in 1971 by Georg Zundel and now based in Berlin, combines research with practical work in conflict transformation. Peace research in Germany is funded, among others, by the German Foundation for Peace Research (Deutsche Stiftung Friedensforschung), which the federal government set up in October 2000 and which is based in Osnabrück.

03Who works directly in conflict regions?

The Civil Peace Service (Ziviler Friedensdienst) is a programme for violence prevention, civil conflict transformation and peacebuilding. It is run by nine German peace and development organisations and funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). Its member organisations include the AGDF, Bread for the World, EIRENE, the GIZ, KURVE Wustrow and peace brigades international.

One of the best-known member organisations is Pro Peace, known until recently as forumZFD. The association was founded in February 1996 as the Forum Civil Peace Service, is based in Cologne and runs an Academy for Conflict Transformation that trains professionals for peace work.

The Action Committee Service for Peace, AGDF for short, was founded in 1968 by an initial nine organisations. It is an umbrella organisation based in Bonn that pools the interests of its members and connects them with one another.

04Which associations and movements are there?

The oldest German peace organisation is the German Peace Society (Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft). Bertha von Suttner and Alfred Hermann Fried founded it in Berlin on 9 November 1892; both later received the Nobel Peace Prize. Since 1989 it has been called Deutsche Friedensgesellschaft-Vereinigte KriegsdienstgegnerInnen (German Peace Society, United War Resisters), DFG-VK for short.

The International Fellowship of Reconciliation was founded in 1914 at a conference in Konstanz, when Christians from several countries tried to avert the threatening war. The Catholic movement pax christi emerged in France at the end of 1944, and its German section was founded in 1948. It goes back to the reconciliation between French and German Christians after the Second World War.

The medical organisation IPPNW was founded in December 1980 by physicians from the USA and the Soviet Union and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for its work against nuclear weapons. The Federation for Social Defence emerged in 1989 after a conference in Minden attended by around a thousand people.

05How do peace organisations work together?

Many organisations are connected in networks. The most important in the German-speaking world is the Platform for Civil Conflict Transformation. It was founded in 1998, has connected civil society peace work ever since and revised its charter in 2025.

There are also international alliances: pax christi Germany is a member of Pax Christi International, and the Civil Peace Service is an alliance of nine member organisations in the Civil Peace Service Consortium. Such alliances share knowledge, coordinate their work and represent common concerns.

For individuals this means: if you want to work for peace, you will often find a suitable organisation faster through these networks than through a single website.

06What role do the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe play?

Alongside associations, institutes and services, there are organisations whose members are states themselves. The largest is the United Nations, founded in 1945. At that time it had 51 member states; today it has 193. Its work follows the purposes and principles of its Charter. Under Article 17 of the Charter, the costs are borne by the members, and the General Assembly apportions them broadly according to each state's capacity to pay.

The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, or OSCE, goes back to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. It was opened in Helsinki on July 3, 1973 with 35 states, as a forum for dialogue and negotiation between East and West. Its work is still based on the principles of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. With 57 participating states, the OSCE describes itself as the world's largest regional security organisation. It understands security comprehensively: politico-military, economic and environmental, and in a human dimension.

The Council of Europe was founded on May 5, 1949 as the first of the major European postwar organisations and has its seat in Strasbourg. According to the German Federal Foreign Office, it promotes human rights, democracy and the rule of law for around 700 million people and today has 46 members. It should not be confused with the European Council of the European Union.

The difference from the other organisations on this page lies in membership. In the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe, governments negotiate with one another. Institutes, specialist services and associations work independently of states, even if some of them receive public funds.

07How are institutes, services and associations funded?

Funding depends heavily on the type of organisation. SIPRI in Stockholm receives a substantial part of its funds as an annual grant from the Swedish Government. For individual research projects, the institute also raises money from other organisations.

The Leibniz Institute for Peace and Conflict Research in Frankfurt is funded as a member of the Leibniz Association by the federal government and the state of Hesse, according to its own figures 54% from federal and 46% from state funds. The city of Frankfurt adds a fixed annual grant, and the researchers raise third-party funds for individual projects. The institute sets its own research topics, and its constitution guarantees its academic freedom.

The German Foundation for Peace Research also goes back to the state. The Federal Republic established it in October 2000, represented by the Federal Ministry of Research. According to its statutes, its purpose includes contributing to the political and financial independence of peace and conflict research. Its foundation council has five members from academia, four from the federal government and three from the Bundestag.

Associations and movements are usually registered associations in which membership fees play an important role. If you want to support an organisation, you can usually find information on its funding, statutes and governing bodies on its website, often under About us or Transparency.