What if
all the children of this world received the next Nobel Peace Prize?
On World Children's Day 2025, we asked this question without knowing where it would lead. Today, January 31, 2026—the final day for nominations—that question reached Oslo. Multiple times. From different countries. Submitted by people who hold the right to nominate.
Today, we thank them. And everyone who kept the question alive. Who talked with young people about what they thought of this idea. Who helped bridge generations and borders. This question now belongs to everyone who heard it, embraced it, and passed it on. That was our hope. That is what happened.
Two words—What if—started a journey no one could have planned. From a small circle at the World Child Forum in Davos to Oslo, carried by people who often don't know each other and may never meet. Yet something connects them: a willingness to sit with a question rather than rush to answer it. To hold it open. To let it breathe. That's what questions do. They open spaces where thinking becomes possible. They create connections where none existed. That's the only way something truly new can emerge.
Whether the children of the world make the Nobel Peace Prize shortlist is now up to the committee in Oslo. That's for them to decide.
What we can shape is something else: In July 2026, 250 children, young people, and adults will gather in Davos. Not to deliver answers, but to keep asking. To listen. To think together about what responsibility means in a world we don't just want to explain to the youngest among us—but build with them. The World Child Forum is where questions like this come to life. Not as an agenda item, but as a way of being. Not as an outcome, but as a beginning. The idea of a Nobel Peace Prize for all children was born there. It wasn't planned. It grew from conversations, from encounters, from the courage to imagine something that didn't exist yet. What will emerge in July 2026, we don't know. That's the point.
"What if" is a method. A way of seeing the world that treats the future not as fixed, but as open. Not everyone has heard this question yet. Not everyone knows about the World Child Forum. That's not failure. It just means we're still on our way. It's also an invitation: To anyone who believes the world can change—especially when times are hard. To anyone who doesn't ask whether it's worth it, but just does it. To anyone looking for a place where their questions belong.
Thank you to everyone carrying this question. It's working. And it's only the beginning.
Thank you!
Achim Greisel, Aline Sommer-Noack, Prof. Dr. Anabel Ternès von Hattburg, André Stern, Annette Risi, Armin Ilgenfritz, Berni Hanel, Britta Buhck, Carmen Knoebel, Caroline Battel, Christian Fuchs, Christian Wehner, Franz Walter, Fritz Hinrichsmeyer, Dr. Gerald Hüther, Guido Volk, Harald Buchheister, Prof. Dr. Harald Welzer, Isabel Albrecht, Janina Lin Otto, Janine Wölfel, Jerome Braun, Judith Dobner, Julian Richter, Kerstin Dreier, Leon Pelikan, Lina Westermann, Marie-Claire Graf, Prof. Maja Göpel, Miriam Zeleke, Niklas Ganssauge, Nils Langemann, Peter Spiegel, Phieby Nicole Skadow, Raban Ruddigkeit, Rahel Tschopp, Reinhard Kahl, Schubert Antje, Silke Weiß, Stefan Magh, Dirk Böttcher, Prof. Dr. Lars Hochmann, Magret Rasfeld, Stella Schaller, Tamara Will, Vera Ganssauge, Vera Kießling, Vlorë Krug, Wendy Suter-Lim, Werner Pommerenke, Wolfgang Tiefensee, Yeonjae Lee, MdB Josephine Ortleb, Lee Hyunchul, Seo Kilsoo, Cho Haejoang, and many more.
World Child Forum
What does the World Child Forum actually do? We play. We experiment. We take questions and reshape them into new ones. A place where adults truly listen when children speak. Where no one has the final word. Where an eight-year-old's question carries the same weight as a sixty-year-old's experience. Every day, a question no one can answer alone.
Why Davos? Because this is where decisions about the future are made. And those who will live longest with those decisions are rarely in the room. That's the Davos Loop: Collect questions where the future is being decided. Explore them where no one has the final word. Sometimes something new emerges. A question no one has asked yet.