James Holmes has spent much of his professional life working where diplomacy is most tested, in societies shaped by division, contested identity, and fragile trust. As Founder and Secretary General of the International Communities Organization (ICO), he leads a practice-driven approach to peacebuilding that connects global policy discussions with the realities faced by communities living at the margins of political settlements.
Since establishing ICO in 2016, Holmes has overseen initiatives across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, including long-term engagement in Kosovo, Cyprus, and Cameroon. Under his leadership, the ICO has moved beyond the “unevenly translated” promises of international declarations to focus on the granular work of minority inclusion and local governance. With Special Consultative Status at the UN, the ICO now serves as a vital interlocutor between Member States and the civil society actors operating on the ground.
This bridging role is the catalyst for ICO’s latest contribution to global policy: the report, For Our Future. Developed in direct response to the United Nations Pact for the Future, the report avoids the trap of restating ambitions. Instead, it leverages field experience to provide a blueprint for how peace and inclusion can be delivered in diverse political contexts.
In this candid discussion, Holmes reflects on the urgent shift required as international attention moves from drafting frameworks to making them work.
From where you sat, what revealed the most about the international community’s readiness to translate the Pact for the Future from shared aspiration into shared delivery?
What struck me most at the launch was not the uniformity of views, but the convergence around a single concern: credibility now hinges on implementation. Across UN leadership, Permanent Missions and civil society, there was a shared recognition that the Pact’s ambition will only matter if it can be operationalized in ways that respond to lived realities. The willingness of 55 Member States to engage in a working discussion, not a ceremonial one, signaled a shift from declarative multilateralism toward problem solving multilateralism.
Equally important was the openness to learning from practice. Several delegations explicitly asked how lessons from local governance, minority inclusion and prevention could be adapted within their own national contexts. That readiness to move beyond one‑size‑fits‑all frameworks, and to acknowledge that implementation must be iterative and context‑specific, is a meaningful departure from past approaches.
Finally, the presence of actors from across the UN system alongside smaller civil society organizations suggested a growing acceptance that delivery will require partnerships that look different from those of the past. The Pact was negotiated inclusively; its implementation must be no less so. What we saw at the launch was not consensus on every solution, but a shared seriousness about closing the gap between New York commitments and community‑level impact.
James Holmes, Founder and Secretary-General of the International Communities Organisation (ICO), speaks at the Fnor iFuture event at the United Nations in New York on December 3, reflecting on turning the UN Pact for the Future into action.@ICOcommunities @abdulla_shahid… pic.twitter.com/jXe4AUhEz6
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ICO’s work often begins where dialogue has stalled for years. How do insights from Cameroon, Cyprus, Kosovo and other divided settings shape your approach to building practical pathways for the Pact’s implementation phase?
Our experience in working with minority communities and peoples as well as within fragile and deeply divided settings has taught us humility. Intractable conflicts are rarely the result of a single blockage; they are shaped by history, identity, fear and shifting geopolitics. Divisions run deep, opportunities for dialogue are often narrow, and progress requires not only political will and courage at the local level, but a degree of alignment in the wider geopolitical environment.
In places like Cameroon, Cyprus and Kosovo, we have learned that change rarely comes through dramatic breakthroughs. More often, it comes incrementally, by building on past progress, creating safer conditions for interaction, and steadily reducing the practical and psychological barriers that keep communities apart. This is long-term work, and it requires patience as much as ambition.
That understanding informs how we think about implementation of the Pact. Especially the peace and security pillar which is the focus of ICO’s work. Rather than seeking to impose solutions, we focus on enabling environments: strengthening local institutions, supporting grassroots resilience, and creating spaces for dialogue that are insulated from political pressure and public scrutiny. In Kosovo, this meant supporting an institutional forum that allows non-majority communities to engage constructively with government stakeholders. In Cameroon, it meant reinforcing local governance capacity so dialogue could translate into tangible improvements in daily life.
These experiences remind us that sustainable implementation is not linear. It depends on trust built over time, on practical cooperation as much as formal dialogue, and on a willingness to stay engaged for the long haul. That is the mindset we believe the Pact’s implementation phase now requires.
What specific gaps in the current multilateral system convinced you that the “For Our Future” report was needed, and how do you intend it to guide real decision‑making rather than sit on the shelf?
The gap we identified was not a lack of commitment, but a recognition for the need for more practical, usable guidance for implementation detailing how progress can be made across diverse political and social contexts.
“For Our Future” was conceived as a practical bridge between aspiration and delivery. It distills lessons from field‑based experience, what has worked, what has failed, and why, and presents them in a form that policymakers can adapt rather than adopt wholesale. The intention was never to prescribe a model, but to offer transferable principles grounded in evidence.
To prevent it from becoming a shelf document, the report seeks to be embedded within an ongoing process. We hope it will lead to dialogue with Member States, UN entities and civil society. In other words, the report is a living reference point, not an endpoint, a tool for co‑learning as the Pact moves from text to practice.
What does an outcome‑oriented dialogue look like in practice, and how will ICO help ensure that communities most affected by conflict have a seat in that process?
Outcome‑oriented dialogue begins with clarity about purpose: dialogue designed to unlock decisions, change behavior, or create new channels of participation. Practically, this means agreeing in advance what success looks like, and pulling on mechanisms to realize this success whether that is a policy reform, a new institution, or improved access to services. This is what we call a new covenant. We hope future dialogues convened by ICO will help to determine how that new covenant will look like – and how it can help member states develop better, inclusive, transparent, accountable relationships with some of the most vulnerable communities.
At ICO, we pair dialogue with outcomes. In Kosovo, dialogue with non-majority communities is linked to a policy development mechanism that seeks to address issues. In Cameroon, community consultations fed directly into capacity‑building programs for local councils. This connection between voice and consequence is what gives dialogue legitimacy.
Our ongoing discussions with member states will need to touch on the detailed mechanism for addressing issues faced by minority communities, whether these be on language rights, economic opportunities, cultural heritage or political participation. It is also means to discuss mechanisms that ensure affected communities, often vulnerable minorities and peoples have a seat means more than inviting them into rooms.
Our role is to help to facilitate continuing dialogue on implementation and suggest best practice so that future work on the pact for the future implementation remains meaningful, continuous and linked to tangible outcomes.
Credit: International Communities Organisation (ICO)
How can the Pact elevate minority protection from a peripheral issue to a core measure of long‑term stability and shared‑future governance?
Minority protection is often treated as a moral obligation rather than a strategic necessity. Our experience shows it is both. Exclusion, political, economic or cultural, is one of the most reliable predictors of instability. Conversely, inclusive governance strengthens resilience.
The Pact can elevate minority protection by embedding it across prevention, peacebuilding and development commitments, rather than siloing it as a human rights add‑on. This means measuring success not only by the absence of violence, but by participation, access and trust.
Practically, this requires supporting institutions that enable minorities to shape decisions affecting their lives, protecting culture and language, and addressing structural inequalities that outlast political agreements. When minorities see themselves reflected in governance, the idea of a shared future becomes credible, and stability becomes sustainable. It requires investing in their capacity to participate in equal footing, protecting safe spaces for engagement, and sustaining involvement beyond headline moments.
How do you intend to use ICO’s position between grassroots realities and UN policymaking to keep implementation grounded in lived experience?
Our ECOSOC status gives us access, but our field presence gives us responsibility. We see our role as translators, not just of language, but of experience. We bring community‑level insights into institutional spaces in a form that decision‑makers can act upon, without stripping them of complexity.
This means feeding evidence from practice into policy discussions, convening dialogues that include those rarely heard, and remaining accountable to the communities we work with. It also means resisting abstraction: continually testing whether proposed solutions would make sense on the ground.
Implementation succeeds when policy is informed by reality, and reality is shaped by policy. Our task is to keep those two in conversation.
We also hope to position this work as something that can help both communities and member states. Working with member states to illustrate issues facing vulnerable communities and how these issues can be solved to support conflict prevention, resilience and social cohesion is beneficial across societal lines, existing in this gap between grassroots and the UN helps us to work with both parties and act as a bridge.
What model of partnership or accountability can finally close the gap between commitments made in New York and action taken locally?
Closing that gap requires shared accountability. Governments, UN entities and civil society must see themselves as co‑owners of delivery, not sequential actors. That means clearer feedback loops, transparent benchmarks, and mechanisms that allow adaptation when assumptions prove wrong.
Civil society plays a crucial role here as a delivery partner and early warning system.
Communicating the plans for implementing the Pact for the Future, in a way that is accessible, transparent and allows for interaction will be equally as important.
Collaboration between member states and civil society should be designed to sustain momentum beyond summits and ensure implementation remains responsive rather than performative.
As attention turns from drafting to delivery, what early steps will matter most over the next year to prevent the Pact from losing momentum?
The Pact is ambitious by design, but early momentum will depend on identifying areas where progress is both achievable and visible. Prevention and inclusion offer some of the most realistic early wins, not because they are easy, but because modest investments can quickly reduce risk, build trust and demonstrate intent.
One priority should be strengthening national and local prevention capacities that already exist but are under-resourced or disconnected. Supporting local dialogue mechanisms, minority engagement platforms, and early-warning systems is tangible, politically feasible, and directly aligned with the Pact’s peace and security commitments. These are interventions where progress can be measured within months, not decades.
A second early step is to anchor implementation in a small number of pilot contexts rather than spreading effort too thinly. Demonstrating how the Pact works in practice, through concrete case examples, will do more to sustain momentum than additional declarations.
Finally, continuity matters as much as speed. The Pact risks losing energy if it becomes tied to summit cycles rather than delivery cycles. Establishing light, regular platforms for exchange between Member States, the UN system and civil society, focused on problem-solving rather than reporting, can help maintain focus, allow adaptation, and keep implementation grounded.
Early success will not come from doing everything at once, but from showing that the Pact can move from words to action, step by step.
