PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDER SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNDER SECRETARY-GENERAL FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS

For the first time, during the fourth high-level meeting between the United Nations and regional organizations, a wide spectrum of organizations had agreed to cooperate for peace-building, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast, told correspondents this afternoon at a Headquarters press briefing.  Those organizations represent the whole diversity of political cultures in every region of the world, he explained.

During the high-level meeting, common understandings emerged,

Mr. Prendergast said.  There was consensus that the role of the United Nations and regional organizations in peace-building was to support national endeavours, that root causes of conflicts must be addressed and that peace-building had a political character.  Attendees agreed that peace-building must be a comprehensive strategy, involving a range of political, social, developmental and humanitarian measures.  The United Nations and regional organizations must share information, in order to analyse root causes and dynamics of conflicts, and they must cooperate closely in engaging civil society.

The meeting had adopted a framework that would focus on capacity-building, strategic development, operational interaction, monitoring and mobilizing political will and resources, he said.

The meeting had taken place in the wider context of the open debate on the subject in the Security Council on 5 February.  The Security Council would address the subject again on 14 and 16 February, taking into account the results from the high-level meeting.  The one-and-a-half days of discussions were attended by 18 regional organizations and 23 United Nations organizations.  Three regional organizations had taken part for the first time:  the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).  The President of the Economic and Social Council and representatives of the Bretton Woods institutions also participated for the first time.

According to Mr. Prendergast, the Secretary-General attended the bulk of the meetings, and saw its outcome as a first step in an incremental process away from a culture of reaction and towards a culture of prevention.

Asked how the Secretary-General planned to bring United Nations Member States around to his vision of preventive action, Mr. Prendergast said he had a sense that the mood of the membership was changing.  There would have to be more discussion with Member States in the Peacekeeping Committee and the Fifth Committee. 

The Organization was looking at a "more gentle" timetable for implementation of the report of the expert Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (the Brahimi report), he said.  The starting point for that report had been the realization that the quality of advice given in briefings to the Security Council had not always been ideally suited to informed decision-taking.  A better capacity on the

part of the Secretariat to marshal information in an orderly fashion was necessary.  The Council often did not get a structured overview of issues involved and options for decisions.

Responding to a correspondent's question about who might take the lead in coordinating peace-building activities to avoid duplication, he said that discussions had centred on the fact that different organizations had different sets of comparative advantages.  Duplications, as well as gaps, should be avoided.  A rational allocation of responsibilities based on comparative advantages was important.  One of the recommendations that had emerged from the meeting was to have a working-level meeting at Headquarters in which means of cooperation would be developed.  Better communication would be a part of it.

Commenting on the fact that the Secretariat unit, proposed by the Brahimi panel, which would exchange information and analysis, was seen by some Member States as tantamount to spying, he said that unit would not deal with intelligence, but rather with information.  The unit was seen as a threat by some, but there was also a feeling among other States that the United Nations was not doing enough to alert the Council to developing crises and to helping it to manage those crises.  That was particularly evident in relation to Africa.  One of the benefits of the Brahimi proposals was that the Secretary-General would have a better capacity to draw the Council's attention, not just to particular problems, but also to the issues involved.

Mr. Prendergast said, answering another question, that there had been discussion about mainstreaming strategies related to small arms and light weaponry, as well as issues of gender, protection of children, minorities and refugees, into peace agreements and peace-building.  He said disarmament, demobilization and reintegration went together like a trinity.  Of course, one had to struggle with the global issues of disarmament, he said, but in the field of small arms disarmament, something could actually be accomplished in short order. 

* *** *