Collectively Resolving Complex Conflicts Depends on Uniting Efforts to Sustain Peace, Deputy Secretary-General Tells Group of Friends

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, at the second meeting of the Group of Friends of Sustaining Peace, in New York, 13 September 2016:

I thank Ambassador Gómez Camacho for taking the initiative to establish the Group of Friends of Sustaining Peace.  The term “sustaining peace” ends the simultaneous adoption of the resolutions on peacebuilding in the General Assembly and the Security Council mark qualitatively highly significant step forward for the United Nations.  The concept of sustaining peace is new in the sense that it was formally adopted during the past General Assembly session.  But, is also as old as the United Nations itself.

Even if the term is not used in the Charter, the idea and its rationale are at the very heart of the United Nations mission.  What use is it to prevent war or resolve it, if we cannot sustain peace?  We have learned so many lessons in the past 70 years about how difficult this challenge is.  Cardinal amongst those lessons is that success hinges on the collective effort of Member States and the United Nations system, pulling together in pursuit of common goals.

That is why I am heartened by the presence of so many of you here today.  The resolutions on sustaining peace urge us to unite our efforts to prevent the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict.  To me, the two most important words in that sentence are unite and prevent.

We must unite because conflicts are increasingly complex.  Our ability to manage them has been stretched to the limit.  We can no longer afford the fragmented efforts that have been a hallmark of the past.  We can no longer afford half measures.  We can no longer afford to do so poorly when it comes to tackling conflict’s root causes.

At best, we prevent conflict in the first place, thus sparing people untold misery and suffering.  And we spare ourselves the vastly more complex and costly challenge of resolving conflict after horrible harm has been done.  This is at the heart of the sustaining peace resolutions.

It is also the basic message of other recent major reports and multilateral agreements:  the HIPPO report [High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations], the Global Study on Security Council resolution 1325 (2000), the Security Council resolution 2250 (2015) on youth, the Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement on climate change and the World Humanitarian Summit.

These reports and agreements contain clear and highly consistent messages.  Prevention is imperative.  Peace, development and human rights are deeply intertwined, interrelated and interdependent.  This is also the spirit of our Human Rights up Front initiative which has prevention as its core and objective.  Complex cross-cutting challenges cannot be dealt with in silos.

When we fail to unite our efforts across the pillars, we are less than the sum of our parts.  Fragmented efforts cost more, but achieve less.  In other words, the problems and challenges are connected.  And the solutions must be as well.

We need to work as “one” across the United Nations system to provide coherent support to implement the ambitious agreements and goals Member States have set for themselves.  The “twin resolutions” envisage a key role for the Peacebuilding Commission [PBC] in conflict prevention.  Specifically, they highlight the Commissions’ role in “advising, bridging and convening” to sustain peace.

The PBC’s long-term focus and its broad approach involving all peacebuilding actors within the United Nations system and beyond can add tremendous value to the work of the Security Council.  I therefore encourage this Group and the larger family of Member States to strengthen the Commission’s advisory role to the Council.

Any agreement is as strong as its implementation.  That is why this Group of Friends is so important.  You can identify challenges and solutions.  You can mobilize support.  You can champion implementation among the entire membership.

For our part, the United Nations system remains deeply committed to heeding the calls for prevention and sustaining peace.  Step by step, we are changing our working culture towards more coherence and integration.  On 27 April, the same day as the sustaining peace resolutions were adopted, the Chief Executives Board adopted a statement of commitment.  The statement focused on bringing the United Nations system together to support conflict prevention and peacebuilding within the broader 2030 Agenda.

The regular meeting of United Nations principals on the implementation of the Secretary-General’s report on peace operations, which I chair, will now also follow up on the implementation of the sustaining peace resolutions.  In addition, the Senior Peacebuilding Group, chaired by Oscar Fernandez-Taranco, is developing a strategic results framework.  The Group will serve as the consultative forum for the Secretary-General’s report on sustaining peace for the seventy-second session of the General Assembly.

We have already established a working group to develop the options on financing of United Nations peacebuilding activities.  The issue of financing is critical.  We cannot afford to spend more than $30 billion on humanitarian and peacekeeping response without equivalent investment in prevention.

It is extremely worrying that the Secretary-General’s Peacebuilding Fund [PBF] is running out of money.  The Fund needs at least $100 million per year to do its work.  We are grateful to the eight Member States hosting the pledging conference for the PBF next week.

We need strong, multi-year commitments to make the Fund a success.  We count on your strong support so that we can collectively and effectively sustain peace.

Thank you.