It is a great pleasure for me to join you for this high-level meeting organized in collaboration with the African Union Commission on the future of peacebuilding in Africa.
I would like to express my gratitude to the officials who have travelled to New York to attend this meeting. I would also like to recognize Ambassador Tete Antonio, Permanent Observer of the African Union, and Ambassador Macharia Kamau, Permanent Representative of Kenya and Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), who are present at this opening session with me.
This gathering is very timely. The General Assembly and the Security Council recently adopted identical resolutions on the review of the Peacebuilding Architecture. These ground-breaking texts place “sustaining peace” at the core of national, regional and international peacebuilding and conflict prevention.
Today’s global realities – the changing nature of violent conflicts, the deepening refugee crisis and rising violent extremism – underline the necessity to focus on preventing crises and addressing root causes. Formulating global responses from purely security and humanitarian perspectives is insufficient. We must avoid vicious cycles of military response and continued conflict and suffering.
Through the two resolutions, Member States emphasized the importance of stronger partnerships, especially with regional and sub-regional organizations.
The African Union is a vital strategic partner of the United Nations. Over the past decade, our partnership with the AU and the continent’s sub-regional organizations has grown significantly. This meeting is an opportunity to take further steps together to prevent the lapse and relapse into violent conflict.
Peacebuilding in Africa has been a top priority for the United Nations. We have invested in initiatives in several countries through the Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund (PBF). The Peacebuilding Commission has dedicated considerable time and effort to Africa.
In Guinea Bissau, for instance, the United Nations is working with the AU and ECOWAS to resolve the ongoing political crisis. The sub-regional force, ECOMIB, has played a crucial stabilizing role. It is important that the international community provide support for the extension of the ECOMIB mandate, which will expire next month.
In Burundi, the United Nations and African Union continue to support the East African Community mediation aiming to respond to political violence and a deteriorating human rights situation. As part of our joint response, the Peacebuilding Fund is supporting the deployment of African Union human rights observers. This is the first time the Fund is providing direct support to the AU Commission. By this, we re-affirm our commitment to strengthen the UN / AU partnership.
In Somalia, UN / AU cooperation has been instrumental for democratic transition and stabilization, especially through the AMISOM Force working alongside a UN Political Mission. A Peacebuilding Fund contribution is helping the Federal Government to support Interim Regional Administrations and to extend state authority in the recovered areas in South Central Somalia.
The Security Council and General Assembly resolutions also encourage regular exchanges of views, joint initiatives and information sharing between the United Nations Peacebuilding family and regional and sub-regional organizations, not least the AU Commission. We should institutionalize such interactions, with a renewed focus on sustaining peace.
As we develop our responses along those lines, we must recognize that sustaining peace is a core task derived from the UN Charter. It sets the direction for all UN activities, from conflict prevention and peacekeeping, to work on human rights, reconstruction and development. We should recognise that prevention is a Charter obligation from Chapter I Article 1.
This work requires a shared responsibility and commitment between the United Nations and its Member States -- including on financing. Given the serious funding shortfall of the Peacebuilding Fund, I appeal to you to provide predictable and sustainable financing. We are at a stage where we have raised this conceptually to beyond where it has been, but we have a Peacebuilding Fund that is supposed to be at $100 million – but stands at $60 million and will shortly be $40 million.
The resolutions invite the Secretary-General to propose options to increase, restructure and better prioritize funding for peacebuilding. We have already set in motion a process to develop such options.
Finally, we also need to strengthen the links between our peacebuilding efforts and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. For the first time in development history, we actively connected development on the one hand to peace and security and human rights on the other. The 2030 Agenda has a great potential to address the various factors which drive violent conflicts, including socio-economic and gender inequalities, lack of jobs, poor natural resource management, climate change, as well as corruption and the absence of the rule of law and well-functioning institutions.
In closing, I believe we all sense real opportunities to promote peaceful and inclusive societies in Africa and across the world. All of us at the United Nations look forward to deepening our work with our partners to make sustaining peace a reality for the nations and people of Africa.
Thank you.