Peacebuilding Commission

Recognizing that women’s economic empowerment contributed greatly to the effectiveness of post-conflict prosperity, the Peacebuilding Commission today urged Governments, as well as international and regional organizations, to improve female participation in all stages of peace processes, from conflict resolution to post-conflict planning.

Speakers at a special event today highlighted the private sector’s potential to help fragile countries emerge from years, if not decades, of conflict by creating jobs and economic stability while healing rifts among diverse peoples.

The Liberia configuration of the Peacebuilding Commission today adopted the draft outcome of its second review of the implementation of mutual commitments on peacebuilding in that country.

The new Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission today urged members to “put our heads together” on ways to reinforce the body’s founding vision — providing strategic advice and harnessing expertise and financing to help post-conflict countries avoid sliding back into war or chaos — so that in 2013, the Commission could gain its rightful place within the United Nations peacebuilding architecture and beyond.

Commending Sierra Leone for committing to peaceful, free and credible elections, the Peacebuilding Commission today stressed the need for national leadership and sustained international support in managing the root causes of conflict, addressing emerging threats to peace consolidation and establishing conditions conducive to holding the presidential, parliamentary and local council polls, slated for 17 November.

Heads of State and Government and other high officials of the nations that made up the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission this afternoon reaffirmed their commitment to bolstering the stability of countries emerging from conflict through reinvigorated international efforts, in a special event coinciding with the start of the sixty-seventh General Assembly session.

Adopting today an initial assessment of the first review of a joint strategy between the Government of Guinea and the Peacebuilding Commission to promote national reconciliation, reform the security sector, and provide job opportunities for women and young people, the Peacebuilding Commission agreed that the country’s political transition must culminate in the holding of free, transparent and politically and technically credible legislative elections.

The new Chair of the Peacebuilding Commission pledged today that he would pursue “the path of inclusion” throughout 2012 to enhance the six-year-old body’s ability to mobilize resources and align key actors in assisting the populations of countries emerging from conflict.

Political engagement would be a key component for building peace in the Central African Republic, the top United Nations official in that country said this morning as the Peacebuilding Commission configuration dealing with that country met to adopt the second review of the Strategic Framework for Peacebuilding in the Central African Republic.

Seizing the opportunity to deepen democratic gains triggered by the political transition in Guinea, the Peacebuilding Commission today approved a joint strategy to promote national reconciliation, reform the security sector, and provide job opportunities for women and young people, in a country where, President Alpha Condé said: “Everything is a priority.”