Francesco Serafini to Receive 2025 IPA | AIP Community Leadership Award

The International Peace Alliance | Alliance Internationale de la Paix (IPA | AIP) is honoured to announce that Mr. Francesco Serafini, Italian peacebuilder, environmental steward, and community leader, has been named the recipient of the 2025 IPA | AIP Community Leadership Award.

The IPA | AIP Community Leadership Award recognizes individuals whose leadership, empathy, and action have fostered peace and community resilience. Mr. Serafini’s lifelong dedication to sustainable development, biodiversity conservation, and youth empowerment has created lasting positive change across communities.

“Francesco Serafini embodies the spirit of community-led peacebuilding through environmental stewardship, education, and grassroots action,” said the Hon. Dr. Alvin Curling, President of IPA-AIP. “His work demonstrates how local action and global citizenship can transform conflict-affected and marginalized communities into spaces of hope.”

Mr. Serafini is the Founder and President of The Garden of Peace, an international initiative that transforms lands affected by conflict into gardens of healing and reconciliation. Under his leadership, The Garden of Peace empowers communities to reclaim and regenerate war-torn or neglected lands, transforming them into spaces for reflection, education, and intercultural dialogue while nurturing biodiversity and ecological restoration.

An accomplished agronomist with specialization in tropical and subtropical agriculture, Mr. Serafini served for over two decades as Head of Research, Development, and Environment at the International Olive Council (IOC), leading global initiatives in biodiversity conservation, climate action, and sustainable agriculture across the Mediterranean and beyond. His work has included the creation of world olive germplasm collections, advancing climate resilience in farming, and promoting sustainable water management practices. 

Based in Madrid, Spain, Mr. Serafini has collaborated with the International Labour Organization (ILO), the Italian Red Cross, and educational and humanitarian organizations to advance youth empowerment, social cohesion, and sustainable community development.

Mr. Serafini’s leadership has also extended to authorship of globally recognized publications, including the World Catalogue of Olive Varieties and Production Techniques in Olive Growing. His innovative tools for calculating the carbon footprint of olive oil production have supported environmental action worldwide.

The IPA | AIP Community Leadership Award will be formally presented to Mr. Serafini at the Peace Ambassadors Awards Gala & Grand Ball, the culminating event of the 2025 International Peace Festival, on September 26, 2025, at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto, Canada.