Peacebuilding Commission

Organizational Committee

2^nd Meeting* (AM)

Organizational Committee of Peacebuilding Commission adopts annual report

The Organizational Committee of the Peacebuilding Commission today adopted its historic first annual report, which identified the Commission’s main challenge as maximizing its impact on the ground to make the United Nations peacebuilding architecture an effective instrument of international collaboration in support of countries emerging from conflict. 

The report (document PBC/2.OC/L.1) recalled the Commission’s establishment as a response to the recognition of world leaders, expressed at the 2005 World Summit, that international peacebuilding efforts previously lacked an overall strategic approach and coherence.  

The consensus text also noted that, in its first year of operation, the Commission had focused its attention on Burundi and Sierra Leone, and had been committed to an inclusive and nationally driven process aimed at maximizing the involvement of all relevant actors on the ground, including civil society and the broader international community.  The Organizational Committee of the Commission had begun to address key organizational, procedural and methodological issues. 

Also according to the report, the Commission had adopted provisional rules of procedure, which would be reviewed through an expert group, and, among other things, it adopted provisional guidelines on civil society participation, on the understanding that those would also be subjected to review.  A working group on lessons learned had been established and, in the context of the country-specific format for the consideration of the cases of Burundi and Sierra Leone, the development of integrated peacebuilding strategies had been launched.

Commission Chairman, Kenzo Oshima of Japan, this morning thanked members for their support in enabling the Committee to take prompt action on the formal adoption of the report.  He also expressed his appreciation to former Commission Chairman, Ismael Abraao Gaspar Martins of Angola, under whose skilful guidance the report had been negotiated.

Egypt’s representative, Wael M. Attiya, stressed the need to pay parallel attention to several issues in the report, among them the development of the Commission’s working methods, including through the establishment of an expert group to review the rules of procedure before the end of 2007, in accordance with the decision of the Organizational Committee in December 2006.  He also drew attention to the need to design a process to articulate the Committee’s recommendations, in accordance with the Commission’s founding resolutions, as well as to continue the advocacy work of the Commission and broaden knowledge about its role, both within and outside the United Nations.  It should also be ensured that projects financed by the Peacebuilding Fund had a catalytic effect on the ground.

It was announced that the next scheduled formal meeting of the Organizational Committee would be 10 a.m., Wednesday, 12 September.

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*     The 1^st Meeting was covered in Press Release PBC/17 of 27 June.

For information media • not an official record