CTC 20th Anniversary | A Conversation with ASG Michèle Coninsx, Executive Director of CTED

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the passing of Security Council resolution 1373 and the creation of the Counter-Terrorism Committee. As a part of the year of commemoration, CTED experts reflect on their work.

Michèle Coninsx was appointed Assistant Secretary-General and Executive Director of CTED by Secretary-General António Guterres on 11 August 2017 and took up her position on 3 November 2017. 

You’ve had a long career working for international organizations, as well as for your national Government, Belgium, and helped create, build and then lead a major regional organization (the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust)). What motivated you to come to the United Nations and CTED? 

Assistant Secretary-General Coninsx: I think I’ve been extremely fortunate to be involved in the fight against terrorism over the past 35 years. I feel strongly that halting terrorism and bringing terrorists to justice are of paramount importance, and I am grateful that I have been able to dedicate my time and energies throughout my career to these efforts.

I started working at the local level in the prosecutor’s office, and then I gradually became involved in terrorist-related cases in Brussels, becoming one of the three national prosecutors involved with the fight against terrorism at the country-wide level. I remember well when I went to court to prosecute the suspects in one of the first cases of international terrorism held in Brussels.  I was truly stuck by the significance of the work to prosecute terrorist crimes and also to deliver justice for the victims of terrorism.   

I gradually learned more and more about counter-terrorism and bringing terrorists to justice and saw first-hand the importance of coordination and cooperation in order for this work to be effective. Around this time, I was also providing aviation security courses world-wide for the International Civil Aviation Security.  This experience clearly demonstrated to me that fighting terrorists was not something that could be done only at the local level or even at the country level, but needed to be tackled at multiple levels, including the international one. 

After some time, I was asked by the Ministerial Council of the Government of Belgium to join Eurojust, which at that point, was a provisional unit made up of 15 European Union Member States and just beginning its activities. I accepted and then became President of this provisional Eurojust, under the Belgian presidency, starting in July 2001. 

No one could foresee that, in the middle of that six-month presidency, we would all be affected by the “9/11” attacks against the United States. Immediately after those attacks, together with the Deputy Director of Europol and colleagues from the Council of the European Union, I went to Washington, D.C. and Ottawa to pave the way for future international cooperation with them.

After “9/11”, the fight against terrorism became the top priority of the Belgian presidency of the European Union. And at the end of that year, Eurojust was being adopted as a European Union body involved in international judicial cooperation and coordination. While I did not expect to stay at Eurojust for longer than a few years, I only left in 2017 after having served as Vice President and then President of the organization. Witnessing Eurojust’s growth and being part of its development into such an important player in the fight against terrorism was something that I very much enjoyed.  

Then in 2017, the opportunity presented itself to be considered for this job at the United Nations supporting the Security Council. Heading the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate has really completed my whole picture of fighting terrorism for more than 30 years at the local, national, regional, and international levels.  In my career, I’ve been able to see first-hand how terrorist threats, trends, challenges and the responses of Member States have evolved over the last decades and, particularly, the last 20 years.  And it has been clearly demonstrated time and time again that our efforts to fight terrorism can only be successful if and when they are cooperative, comprehensive and global.  I remain fully committed to continue these efforts. 
 

28 September 2001 marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of resolution 1373 (2001) and the creation of the Counter-Terrorism Committee. Could you provide a brief history and some context for what has been called a “landmark resolution”? 

Assistant Secretary-General Coninsx: Of course, the United Nations was engaged on the issue of terrorism well before the Security Council adopted resolution 1373 (2001). But it is evident that the “9/11” attacks were a huge turning point. When you consider that nearly 3,000 people were killed, more than 6,000 people were injured, and more than 90 nationalities were victimized, you realize that it was not only people in New York, Washington, D.C., or elsewhere in the United States that were affected. No, the whole world was attacked. 

I recall the words of then-Secretary-General Kofi Annan in response to the “9/11” attacks.  He said, “All nations of the world must be united in their solidarity with the victims of terrorism, and in their determination to take action…”  And when the Security Council looked at that attack, they saw it as a threat against international peace and security and recognized the need to engage because, wherever a terrorist attack occurs, we must all be unified in fighting that threat. And on 28 September 2001 the members of the council demonstrated their strong unity and their collective determination to do something about terrorism. The Council drafted and unanimously adopted resolution 1373 (2001) under very difficult circumstances.

This landmark resolution defined a broad mandate to prevent and counter terrorism, but also had justice at its heart in clearly stating that we must all fight to bring terrorists to justice. Resolution 1373 (2001) created a body of legally binding obligations on Member States, calling upon them to implement measures intended to enhance their legal, institutional, and operational capacities to counter terrorist activities at home, in their regions, and around the world, and to work together to prevent and suppress terrorist acts. It specifically called on Member States to prevent the financing of terrorism and to refuse safe haven to terrorists. In particular, it called on States to increase cooperation to prevent and counter terrorism and established the Counter-Terrorism Committee, which consists of all 15 members of the Security Council, to monitor States’ implementation of the resolution. 

So, yes, the attacks of 11 September 2001 had a catalytic effect. They were a wakeup call, which led us to consider all forms of terrorism and the need to fight it at the global level and to ask all Member States to join forces to strive for international cooperation at all levels. And resolution 1373 (2001) transcended those infamous events to become the foundation of the future work done by the United Nations, Member States, international and regional organizations, and other stakeholders actively engaged in the fight against terrorism.

How would you characterize the significance of the past two decades and the legacy of the Counter-Terrorism Committee?

Assistant Secretary-General Coninsx: Well, once resolution 1373 (2001) was adopted and the Committee was established, you then had 15 Security Council Member States devoting their full time and attention to counter-terrorism related issues. The Committee became the norm-setter and policy developer at the level of the Council and has continued to lead in these areas. 

I would like to highlight that while only 15 Member States serve on the Security Council at any given time, the membership changes every year with five newly elected members joining the Council and five members rotating out.  Considering that five States are permanent members and some Member States have served more than once, this means that in the past 20 years a total of 93 different Member States have served on the Security Council, representing all subregions of the wider UN membership and each contributing their efforts and endorsements to the Counter-Terrorism Committee’s two decades-long body of work.  This is significant.

Since September 2001, the Council has taken the leading role in guiding the evolution of the approaches required to address the threat of terrorism.  It has adopted more than 20 resolutions dealing with counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism conducive to terrorism to address the vast and dynamic evolution of the global terrorist threat, as well as all kinds of related risks and challenges, including Member States’ fragilities and various emerging trends and developments, all happening at a pace never seen before. 

Security Council resolution 1535 (2004) established CTED as a special political mission to support the Committee in its work to monitor, facilitate and promote implementation of the relevant Security Council resolutions. Even as the Committee’s membership and Chairmanship are rotated, CTED ensures the provision of continued support to the Committee and maintains its institutional memory. This helps ensure consistency and an even-handed approach in the Committee’s dialogue with all Member States. 

The many Security Council resolutions that have been adopted over recent years have broadened the scope of Member States’ obligations to counter terrorism. In order to help them comply effectively with those obligations, CTED translates those resolutions’ political and highly technical requirements into very practical legal, institutional and operational measures to be implemented by Member States. This is important because, at the end of the day, Member States are the owners of the measures to be taken. 

Over recent years, the Council has also adopted a number of key presidential statements and policy documents, including the Madrid Guiding Principles on stemming the flow of foreign terrorist fighters (S/2015/939); the 2018 Addendum to the guiding principles (S/2018/1177), which addresses the issue of returning and relocating FTFs; the Technical guide to the implementation of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) and other resolutions (S/2019/998); and the Framework document for Counter-Terrorism Committee visits to Member States (S/2020/731). These resolutions and documents continue to play a critical role in guiding our work on the Committee’s behalf, as well as relevant partners, and CTED continues to promote the Council and Committee’s policies and international standards, codes, and best practices. 
 
The work of the Security Council and the Counter-Terrorism Committee remains relevant to the ever-changing terrorism threat landscape.  The mandates of the Committee CTED have continued to expand and evolve to address the ever-changing terrorism threat landscape in a growing number of areas, including the development of comprehensive and integrated counter-terrorism strategies, the return and relocation of foreign terrorist fighters and their family members, legal and judicial measures, international cooperation, countering the financing of terrorism, countering violent extremism, the increasing links between transnational crime and terrorism, law enforcement, border management, biometrics, aviation and maritime security, the protection of critical infrastructure and soft targets, countering terrorist narratives, issues relating to the roles of women and children in terrorism, the misuse of information and communications technologies (ICT) for terrorist purposes, and restrictions on humanitarian assistance operations, among others. The Committee has also consistently emphasized that integration of the gender perspective and respect for human rights and the rule of law constitute essential components of successful counter-terrorism efforts. 

However, despite the considerable progress achieved over the past two decades, we recognize there is still much work to be done in a number of areas.

How would you say that the terrorist threat has changed over the past 20 years and how would you describe the current threat?

Assistant Secretary-General Coninsx: There has been a huge evolution in the spectrum of threats, risks, challenges, fragilities, responses and trends that we could not have been foreseen even just a few years ago. Since the “9/11” attacks, we have notably seen Al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as Da’esh continue to evolve from centralized organizations into more decentralized groups with a proliferation of affiliated groups all around the globe. This constant evolution makes the fight against terrorism more complex and more difficult. 

Another major trend was the flow of foreign terrorist fighters to the conflict zones of the Middle East. Large numbers of people, from more than 100 States, travelled to Iraq, the Syrian Arab Republic, and then other regions to engage in terrorism. And we saw that, not only were the numbers huge, but also there were people from all age groups: men, women, and entire families were travelling to the conflict zones. And then, after a period of time, many of the same groups either attempted to or succeeded to return to their home States or relocate to other States. 

We have also witnessed many other major trends, including the rapidly increasing use of the Internet, social media, and other communications technologies for all kinds of terrorist purposes, including propaganda, recruitment and incitement. We have seen people being inspired by the online propaganda and recruitment activities of terrorist groups, their affiliates, and violent extremist groups. 

Over the past few years, we have also witnessed an increase in the activities of “lone wolf actors” and individuals motivated by xenophobia, racism, acts of intolerance, and violence, including sectarian violence. We have also seen a similar trend in terrorism financing, in the sense that we increasingly see the use of cryptocurrencies and crowdfunding via social media. This of course makes the tracing of terrorist money flows more complex and more difficult. Two other key areas of focus that have emerged are managing violent extremist prisoners and the prevention of radicalization to violence in prisons. 

So, yes, we are now facing a very broad range of threats and issues that we did not face 20 years ago and that have now become part of our daily concerns and activities. And one of the biggest recent challenges has of course been the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the onset of the pandemic, CTED has continued to focus on its short, medium and long-term impact on terrorism, counter-terrorism, and countering violent extremism, as well as on how that impact differs in conflict and non-conflict zones. We have also looked at how the pandemic has affected and exacerbated existing trends, including in the context of the increasing abuse of the Internet and social media, as people around the world spent more time online under lockdown, becoming increasingly vulnerable to misinformation and violent extremist messaging.

How has counter-terrorism changed to address the evolving terrorism threat? Do you see any distinct characteristics of the fight against terrorism over the past years?

Assistant Secretary-General Coninsx: Much as the terrorism threat has changed over the past 20 years, the response to terrorism has also adapted greatly over the same period. I’m speaking about the responses of Member States and also the international community, and particularly the work of the Security Council. One aspect that has not changed, however, and rightly so, is the focus on the awareness of and respect for the victims of terrorism.  The victims, the survivors and their families should always be placed at the centre of our counter-terrorism efforts. 

When looking at the whole scope of Security Council resolutions on counter-terrorism you will see that they deal with a wide variety of themes which have developed over time: from countering the financing of terrorism, to the links between organized crime and terrorism, to developing counter terrorist narratives and ways to counter violent extremism leading to terrorism, to aviation security, and to the use of ICT for terrorist purposes. They also address measures to stem the flow of FTFs and deal with returning and relocating FTFs and family members, and also address the impact of counter-terrorism on international humanitarian assistance. Many of these technical areas are relatively new to the Security Council and reflect the impact of the evolving terrorist threat, as well as that of emerging technologies and practices. 

Specifically, we have seen that border management has become increasingly important, owing largely to the cross-border movement of terrorist groups and FTFs across unmonitored or under-monitored borders and their use of “broken travel” tactics. As a result, States have needed to develop more sophisticated measures to identify and halt terrorist travel. Some States have introduced measures to identify travellers before they even board airplanes, for example, using electronic visas. Many have introduced legislation requiring airline carriers to provide advance passenger information (API) and use Passenger Name Records (PNR). States are also starting to use biometrics, facial recognition technology, and watch lists. 

Because these highly technical issues also have an important human rights component, States must ensure that they respect international and domestic human rights laws in implementing all these sophisticated counter-terrorism measures. The Security Council has consistently identified the requirement for compliance with international human rights obligations and has also stressed that gender and youth sensitivities should be taken into consideration. Those themes are therefore addressed as cross-cutting issues in all our activities, and we also discuss them with Member States during the country assessment visits conducted on the Committee’s behalf and in our ongoing dialogue with States. 

This is a big shift from the earlier days of counter-terrorism, when the focus was on criminal justice, law enforcement, and civilian and military intelligence. We now have to ensure that all 193 Member States are convinced of the need to take a multidisciplinary approach, or what could be called an “whole-of-Government” approach). 

Many States have also increased their focus on countering violent extremism conducive to terrorism, adopting a comprehensive, whole-of-society approach that includes civil society organizations (CSOs), academia, community and religious leaders and the private sector with a view to strengthening the resilience of the population and raising communities’ awareness of the need to work together to counter radicalization to violence and prevent violent extremism which could lead to terrorism. That is certainly a distinct characteristic of the evolution in counter-terrorism.

Another distinct characteristic, which has proven its worth over time, is the continued global nature of the response to terrorism. Member States continue to work as sovereign nations with national interests, yet have also strengthened regional and international cooperation, information-sharing, mutual legal assistance, and other forms of interactivity and collaboration through international, subregional, and regional organizations and multilateral engagements. For example, even though FTFs travelled to the conflict zones from individual States, the effect on the international community of their movement through transit States and States bordering conflict zones (and now their potential return home or relocation to third-party States) has demanded a coordinated global response. 

I think that the greatest change, however, is the overall evolution in the global community’s approach to terrorism. Before “9/11”, many steps had been taken in response to terrorist activity, but the fight against terrorism was essentially reactive. When we look at resolution 1373 (2001), we see that the language was about prevention. We have since leaned strongly into the preventive areas of counter-terrorism, and this has been reflected in the security measures adopted over the past 10 years or so, as well as in the work undertaken to help Member States draft counter-terrorism strategies and to support them in their efforts to counter violent extremism.  And now we are moving towards being more proactive, asking how the international community can be better placed to proactively address (potential) terrorist activity, which, I think, is the right direction.  

What makes the Committee and CTED unique and crucial in addressing the threat of terrorism, and what would you say are the most important and impactful steps that the Committee and CTED have taken to support counter-terrorism efforts? 

Assistant Secretary-General Coninsx:  One thing that makes CTED and the Committee unique and also crucial components of the United Nation’s overall efforts to address the threat of terrorism is our “assessment” mandate. We conduct our assessments in a fair and neutral manner, looking at how well Member States are implementing the relevant Security Council resolutions. Because we use the resolutions and other publicly available policy documents, such as those I highlighted earlier, as baseline criteria, our assessments are transparent and consistent across all Member States. 

When we conduct an assessment visit, we look at the whole spectrum of Security Council security measures. We not only dig into the technical operational levels of counter-terrorism capacities and practice, but also consider issues of good practice, discuss areas of non-compliance, and address political will. With respect to all 193 Member States, we ask the same key questions and make the same key points, interacting at both the working level and the highest political levels. Of course, we also look at the specific situation of each State to examine its various specific vulnerabilities, lacunas, and shortfalls in implementation, as well as its effective practices and successful measures. And in doing so, we are able to access a goldmine of information. Between our many assessment visits and our various stock-taking efforts over the years, we have established the world’s largest database of legal, institutional and operational measures taken by Member States to counter terrorism. 

As a result of all these assessments, the Committee and CTED have developed a unique and unparalleled “bird’s eye view” of the global terrorist threat and Member State’s capacities to counter-terrorism through their legal frameworks, institutional structures, policies, and regional and multilateral relationships. We have also built up a global perspective of State’s needs and challenges, as well as their political will, in relation to countering terrorism in general and to States’ implementation of specific Security Council resolutions. This is crucial. Since 2009, we have conducted a global survey of States’ implementation efforts every five years and published our findings on global terrorism threats, trends and measures taken by States to implement the relevant Council resolutions. 

The Committee has a unique impact by making recommendations to visited States on where they need to make improvements and enhancements to their national counter-terrorism structures and systems in order to bring them into compliance with the relevant international standards. CTED then facilitates the delivery of technical assistance by referring assessed needs to its UN and other partners. Our diagnosis of a State’s needs, what we sometimes refer to as an “x-ray print”, enables technical assistance providers and UN partners to be very focused and targeted in responding to assessed priority needs. Our recommendations also help assessed States to prioritize the necessary follow-up actions. This is particularly important in the current COVID-19 environment in which restrictions and economic consequences make prioritization of Government activities even more challenging. 

In speaking about CTED, I think it’s important to emphasize first and foremost that, despite being limited in size, we are an agile body. For as much as we conduct assessments for all Member States, we are also able to focus attention as needed on individual States or regions of heightened threat and rapidly provide targeted assessments.  We are also able to rapidly assess and conduct research on emerging areas of potential threat.  We have had a major impact through our work in analysing new and emerging trends, threats, and challenges and bringing them to the attention of the Security Council and wider UN membership.  It really is quite amazing to consider what CTED has been able to accomplish since 2004 with its small group of dedicated subject-matter experts, given the number of resolutions we cover and the breadth of our mandate. 

You’ve been Executive Director of CTED for almost four years, now. What do you see as the most significant achievements of CTED during that time? 

Assistant Secretary-General Coninsx: CTED has been extremely busy and productive over the past four years, so there are many achievements to highlight. I would say that the partnerships we have developed over recent years are remarkable because we have extended them into a vast network of international and regional organizations and UN partners. We have established an ongoing dialogue with UN Resident Coordinators, UN regional representatives, Under-Secretaries-General, Special Representatives of the Secretary-General, Assistant Secretaries-General in specific regions, the various UN Country Teams, and other field-based UN operational partners. These relationships have helped ensure that the findings of our assessments, including the identified good practices and lessons learned, and our work to facilitate technical assistance delivery are shared widely, and in a timely fashion, with those entities and government bodies that can best make use of the information. When all the players have all the pieces of information about the key gaps and security concerns and the respective solutions, then we can be effective in our global efforts to fight terrorism. 

We have also developed a broad network of experts and academics — across a wide range of NGOs, CSOs, think tanks, and the private sector — with whom we can brainstorm and explore ideas and mutually develop insights into the latest trends. Our relationships with more than 100 academic institutions, research centres and think tanks, developed through our Global Research Network (GRN), provide us with the disaggregated data and information that we need to help the Committee make more targeted and focused decisions at the highest political and policy levels. These exchanges inform our own work, and we also share this information with Member States through our ongoing dialogue, and with the wider counter-terrorism community through our various analytical products. 

We also engage regularly with the private sector on issues relating to ICT and terrorism. We have developed contacts with the major global technology companies and, some years ago, launched the “Tech Against Terrorism” initiative to help ensure that small and start-up tech companies have the same counter-terrorism knowhow as the bigger players. We are also a part of the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) Advisory Board. These are mutually beneficial relationships that allow us to exchange policy, legal and technical information on new tech developments, misuse of the Internet for terrorist purposes, and matters relating to the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and access to data, all of which are key issues. 

The development of this expanded network has helped bring the results that we always seek: meaningful impact on the ground and the direct delivery of technical assistance to Member States. CTED serves as the bridge-maker between the bodies that deliver technical assistance and the Member States who need it; between those who have complex, technical, and evidence-based information and those who need to understand that information and use it to implement measures at the policy and operational levels. 

We’ve also developed a broad range of new publications — 20 unique products since 2017 — many of which (including our Trends Reports, our regional Analytical Briefs, and our research papers on the effects of COVID-19 on terrorism and counter-terrorism) are based on our work with our partners. We have also contributed to several guidelines for Member States on the use of digital evidence (or “e-evidence”) and battlefield evidence retrieved in war and conflict zones by the military. Those guidelines have focused on ways to ensure that such evidence is tangible, acceptable and legal and can be submitted as evidence in court. We have also contributed to joint compendiums on the responsible us of biometrics, as well as on the protection of critical infrastructure and “soft” targets against terrorist attacks. Much of this work has been undertaken in recent years, not always in easy circumstances.

Over the last four years, CTED has conducted 61 assessment visits on behalf of the Committee, to a wide range of States. This includes visits to three Permanent Members of the Security Council, of which two were visited for the first time and one received a follow-up visit. This is quite unique, and I can assure you that those visits were conducted in the same objective, independent, even-handed way as every other visit and that all measures relating to all the Council resolutions that we routinely assess in our work were also tackled with respect to those States. 

All this work has been made particularly challenging in the context of the travel and other restrictions imposed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Dialogue with Member States is an integral part of our mandate, and we have been forced to develop creative and innovative methods to ensure business continuity and to ensure continued confidential and secure dialogue with Member States (and of course with the Committee). We have notably made the transition to a hybrid visit model that includes both a virtual and a physical component. We have thus far completed the virtual components of 10 visits, and three more are currently under way. We have also completed the desk review of all 193 Member States and developed our assessment documents into cloud-based e-tools. This is a huge step forward, which enables us to develop more qualitative and quantitative data and to better evaluate and analyse the measures taken by Member States. I think that this has been a remarkable achievement. 

Earlier, I mentioned our engagement with CSOs and our work to ensure that considerations of human rights, gender and international humanitarian law are integrated into all our activities on a cross-cutting basis. We now regularly request meetings with CSOs during our the assessment visits we conduct on behalf of the Committee and also regularly invite CSOs to participate in our briefings and to brief the Committee itself. I would say that our work over the past four years to regularize our relationships with CSOs and to embed human rights compliance and gender sensitivities into all our work and our dialogue with Member States has been particularly significant. 

Another key achievement of the last four years has been our contribution to the to the UNOCT-led United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact and the balanced implementation of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. CTED serves as the Chair, Vice-Chair, or Co-Chair of five of the eight Compact Working Groups (on Legal and Criminal Justice, the Financing of Terrorism, Border Management and Law enforcement, Gender, and National and Regional Counter-Terrorism Strategies, respectively. In fact, we contribute to all eight Working Groups, which focus on all four pillars of the United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. CTED is also an active contributor to the “All-of-UN” capacity-building missions (or “one UN” missions) as part of the UNOCT’s global capacity-building programmes. 

So much has happened and so many things have been accomplished over the past four years. And we need to follow that same trend of productivity, partnerships, and ongoing dialogue with Member States as we move forward. 

What are the next steps for the Committee and CTED, looking ahead to the 30-year anniversary of the Committee’s establishment?

Assistant Secretary-General Coninsx:  The dynamism that we currently see will certainly not go away. Unfortunately, we shall continue to be confronted by terrorist activity, despite the very good work done on all fronts by Member States and relevant stakeholders. We have been confronted by major challenges, such as COVID-19, and we have seen how the effects of climate change, poverty, lack of justice, the feeling of exclusion on the part of minorities or whole populations can lead to conditions conducive to terrorism, potentially fuelling radicalization leading to violent extremism. So it's up to us to keep pace with the latest trends, the latest conditions, the latest technologies and, of course, the latest threats. 

In the counter-terrorism community, people often speak about the “weaponization” of things. We speak, for example, about the weaponization of the Internet and social media. And we increasingly speak about the weaponization of artificial intelligence, cryptocurrencies, unmanned aircraft systems (drones) and other new technologies. We must always bear in mind that everything that we can use against terrorism can also be used by terrorists against societies that fail to remain vigilant. We have to keep pace with these technological developments, and that will require us to continue to develop our own technical expertise in CTED so we can continue to be effective in our work to support Member States and the Committee.  

One area in which the Committee and CTED are already heavily engaged, yet could and should invest further, is that of partnerships. I would stress in particular the value of the partnerships developed between the various players in the United Nations and the international community through the UNOCT-led Global Counter-Terrorism Coordination Compact. We must continue to develop these partnerships and also develop new and deeper relationships with a panorama of players.

We must also seriously consider the future of counter-terrorism efforts, with respect in particular to CTED’s role in facilitating technical assistance delivery and the many capacity-building programmes being implemented by the various UN entities. The focus for future capacity-building must be to enhance the impact on the ground for Member States. And we must also consider how to enhance the ownership and sustainability of the information, technology, materials and skills delivered. 

In the context of our review of the past 20 years, we need to consider not only our successes, but also the mechanisms and practices that have been less effective in our collective effort to combat terrorism. A considered review of lessons learned -- both positive and negative -- will be essential. And that is where we can really step up over the next 10 years.  We must expand and deepen our partnerships, and focus more on follow-up and sustainability, and find ways to ensure tangible impact. The 193 Member States of the United Nations need results. And we need to make the difference in the efforts of Member States to counter terrorism and all related threats to international peace and security. So, over the next decade, it will continue to be “all hands on deck”, with no time to lose to do and deliver more than what we have been doing thus far.