On International Peace Day, 21 September, the Swedish Peace Federation launched a crowdfunding campaign in collaboration with JCDecaux to kick-start world peace. $102 billion is what is potentially needed. Now people around the world have the opportunity to take a stand, put pressure on those in power and become co-founders of world peace.

- We get what we invest in. Preventing armed conflict is both possible and - compared to the enormous costs of war - a very good deal,' says Agnes Hellström, Chair of Swedish Peace.

The Institute of Economics and Peace produces an annual in-depth report on the impact of peacebuilding and the cost of conflict. One of its conclusions is that every US dollar invested in building peace in conflict-affected countries reduces the cost of conflict by sixteen dollars. Estimates from the Institute for Economics and Peace also show that the cost of armed conflict was $1.02 trillion (nearly 10 trillion Swedish kronor) in 2017.

- If a tenth of that amount - $102 billion or $13 per person - were invested in peace-building efforts, world peace would be much closer. We want to make people think about what the world's resources are invested in and what it might look like if we did things differently," says Agnes Hellström.

The initiative is being launched through an outdoor campaign called #KickstartWorldPeace, which is running on JCDecaux's advertising network on both analogue and digital surfaces across Sweden. The campaign was developed by advertising agency Acne in collaboration with JCDecaux.

Read more about the campaign at kickstartworldpeace.com and about Swedish Peace's work on www.svenskafreds.se

For more information, please contact JCDecaux's Head of Communications Malin Otterström.