Informal Interactive Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace

Convened by the General Assembly and the Peacebuilding Commission

26 March 2019, Trusteeship Council Chamber

Session 1: Operational and Policy Coherence, Leadership, Accountability and Capacity in Supporting Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace 

Thank you, President. Let me first thank you for convening this Informal Interactive Dialogue on peacebuilding and sustaining peace. I would also like to thank all panelists for their presentations. 

Today’s meeting sets an important precedent in strengthening the advisory role of the PBC to the General Assembly on promoting coherence across the UN system, as this is the first dialogue of this kind between the two bodies on sustaining peace, as confirmed by the leaders of the two bodies earlier this morning. Building on today’s discussions, the PBC should work more closely with the General Assembly, as it has been doing with the Security Council and ECOSOC in recent years. I am a firm believer that the PBC can play an instrumental role in reducing the fragmentation and enhancing the coherence across the three pillars, if it effectively plays its advisory and bridging role to the relevant intergovernmental bodies. 

Although more time is needed to assess the impact of the ongoing reform initiatives, especially in the field, it is encouraging to see the Secretariat move steadily towards a single integrated peace and security architecture. I am particularly pleased to learn that the two Assistant Secretary Generals for Africa and Peacebuilding have been making joint trips to places like Darfur and Central African Republic to come up with joint recommendations on addressing the needs on the ground, based on joint analysis.

However, it is still unclear to me how the ongoing reforms will lead to a better alignment between the peace and security pillar and the development pillar, although I am a bit more enlightened on how it is working on the ground after having heard from Mr. Piper’s presentation this morning. But, I am curious to know how the newly-coordinated resident coordinators, without a clear mandate, can work across the development-humanitarian-peacebuilding continuum, and whether the single regional structure shared by DPPA and DPO can provide the necessary support to the resident coordinators in non-mission settings, as set out in the report of the Secretary-General.   

I know that some Member States harbor some concerns about the resident coordinators’ involvement in the political sphere. But I do get the sense that we are talking past each other on this important subject. In order to move forward on this issue, I would like to propose that we have a series of focused and in-depth discussions at various levels across the three pillars to demystify the role of the resident coordinators. 

In my view, all resident coordinators do not necessarily need to work across the development-humanitarian-peacebuilding continuum. It would only entail a handful of countries, including those where the DSRSGs are already playing a triple-hatted role, including that of a resident coordinator, as emphasized by Mr. Piper this morning. As he rightfully pointed out, the UN Funds and programmes and ECOSOC have an enormously important role to play in strengthening this nexus on the ground. 

In this regard, I am wondering how the panelists, in particular Mr. Piper and Mr. Fernandez-Taranco, view this challenge of strengthening the interlinkages between development and peacebuilding especially in the field and whether there exist some of the institutional mechanisms that have been put in place in the field to promote coherence and coordination within the UN system and with the outside stakeholders in terms of peace-development nexus. After all, the ultimate objective of the reforms is to enhance greater coordination and coherence in the field, more than at the headquarters. Thank you.