President, Excellencies, Colleagues,
I am pleased to deliver this statement on behalf of the Nordic countries – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and my own country, Norway.
This year’s debate comes at a critical time for the UN in a context of record high numbers of violent conflicts globally, geopolitical tensions, and financial crisis.
It is our joint responsibility to urgently find common ground through the ongoing UN80 reform process, including strengthening the UN’s essential and unique responsibility to sustain peace
Excellencies,
It is equally important to publicly acknowledge all the great work that UN personnel provide to advance peace.
A lot of the precious work that UN colleagues do goes unnoticed. It is difficult to document and communicate that conflicts have been prevented and that peace has been sustained. But even in a time of record-high levels of conflict, we know that peacebuilding and prevention efforts make a difference.
As evidenced by the breadth of peacebuilding initiatives highlighted under the inaugural Peacebuilding Week, the UN and partners deliver daily - and can do more.
The Pact for the Future gives us a shared direction. Our evidence-based toolbox for peacebuilding and sustaining peace is operational and ready to be scaled up to meet increasing needs around the world. The advisory, bridging and convening roles of the Peacebuilding Commission are important in this regard.
This toolbox also includes peace mediation, which is essential to make and sustain peace, and to prevent conflict from reigniting.
Excellencies,
Reform is critical for effective delivery, but adequate, sustained and predictable financing is equally important.
We all know that conflict prevention is cost-effective: Every dollar spent on prevention has significant returns and will save dollars in the future.
We should prioritize resources to support inclusive, nationally owned and led peacebuilding efforts and preventive diplomacy.
In this regard, partnerships are essential including with civil society, women’s groups, youth organisations and IFIs. We know that peace processes in which women participate are more likely to be sustainable and deliver lasting results.
We also have robust catalytic instruments at the UN, such as the Peacebuilding Fund, the DPPA’s Multi-Year Appeal and the UNDP-DPPA Joint Programme on Building National Capacities for Conflict Prevention.
Indeed, the Peacebuilding Fund is an important, flexible and risk-tolerant mechanism that responds to national peacebuilding priorities. Again, we see that the demand for support through the PBF is outpacing the available resources.
Finally,
Greater coherence between the UN’s efforts at country level is essential.
Fragility can quickly escalate into conflict. When that happens, the consequences can be devastating, driving humanitarian crises and reversing hard-won gains.
We should, therefore, ensure greater coherence between country-level efforts, so that humanitarian, development and human rights efforts are also peace positive.
In this regard, the recalibration of the Resident Coordinator system is key, marking an important step towards delivering more coherent and effective results.
To conclude, the Nordic countries remain fully committed to reinforcing the UN Peacebuilding Architecture to meet the challenges of today and sustain peace in the future.
Thank you.