Remarks on the occasion of the
Meeting of the G20 Foreign Ministers
Session 2 – Maintaining Peace in a Complex World

17 February 2017, Bonn

Good morning colleagues,

Following the very productive discussions we had yesterday on the topic of 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, I am very honoured to lead this morning’s discussions on the issue of Maintaining Peace in a Complex World.

As Secretary Guterres and many speakers emphasized yesterday, there is a strong connection between development and peace - there can be no peace without development and no development without peace. In this context, I thank our host, Germany, for designing this meeting in a way that lets us explore the deeper causes of numerous conflicts taking place in many parts of the world. The fact that the G20 Foreign Ministers are meeting at this critical juncture in a rare stand-alone format is a reflection of the extraordinary circumstances we face collectively.

The key concept for this session – sustaining peace – is rather new. It was only last year that the UN adopted resolutions endorsing this concept. It encompasses the entire life-cycle of conflict – before, during, and after – while placing prevention in the forefront and through all three pillars of UN’s engagement – peace and security, development and human rights.

In essence, sustaining peace is the latest in the evolution of our understanding of peace and the ways to achieve it.

When the Cold War ended in the early 1990’s, many hoped to benefit from the so-called “Peace Dividends.” Back then, the notion of peace at the UN was basically a linear one spanning from preventive diplomacy, peace enforcement, peace-making, and peacekeeping to post-conflict peacebuilding.

The record of our efforts to maintain peace around the world did not meet our expectations. The UN soon realized serious shortcomings in its ability to build a peace that is sustainable, particularly in addressing post-conflict situations. Hence the UN Peacebuilding Architecture was created in 2005.

Yet again, this arrangement came short of stopping old conflicts and preventing new ones. It was unable to overcome the entrenched problem of fragmentation in the UN system. At the same time, there was too little attention to prevention and too much emphasis on crisis response. In fact, the UN still invests only 1.5 per cent of its entire budget on prevention.

From these reflections, the UN introduced the concept of sustaining peace in its 2015 review on peacebuilding architecture.

Of course, one may say that prevention is nothing new. After all, the very notion of prevention is enshrined in the UN Charter. What is new is our collective sense of urgency to put prevention up front. Against this backdrop, UN Secretary-General Guterres stressed in one of his very first statements since his inauguration and I quote, “Prevention should not merely be a priority, but the priority of the UN,” unquote. I believe this is a critical first step in getting it right.

To help him, and through him ourselves, let’s get it right this time. To do so, on my part, I wish to submit the following sets of policy directions and actions that the G20 could consider in order to create favourable conditions for sustaining peace.

First, the G20 should commit to strengthening the culture of prevention. Despite its widely recognized need, prevention has yet to receive the political commitment and resources required for taking concrete and effective actions on the ground. In this regard, the G20 should support Secretary-General Guterres’ call for “a whole new approach” to weave a culture of prevention across the international and regional fora. Placing prevention on the agenda of high-level meetings, such as today’s, is one way of rendering sustaining peace the much needed political support.

Also what is critical to conflict prevention is to enhance global early warning and response capacity. The G20 should provide strong support to the UN’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its capacity for early detection and action. Among a number of early warning signals, human rights violations deserves particular attention. In this regard, the Human Rights up Front initiative is an important prevention tool that addresses human rights violations before they escalate into a crisis. The responsibility to protect (R2P) also calls on Member States to develop national capacities to counteract the earliest signs of mass atrocity crimes.

Second, the G20 should take a holistic and integrated approach to implement sustaining peace. We must break away from the current working culture of fragmentation and move into the culture of integration and cooperation. This is the only way for us to properly address the root causes of conflict as was pointed out during our previous session on the 2030 Agenda.

In this connection, the G20 should help reinforce the mandate of the UN Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) so that it can be an effective bridge-builder among relevant bodies and serve as a key platform for achieving sustaining peace. To this end, as the Chair of PBC this year, Korea will strive to strengthen the Commission so that it can better serve its role as an advisory body for the principal organs of the UN.

Finally, the G20 should rally global partnerships for sustaining peace. The G20 should support efforts within and outside the UN to strengthen partnerships with relevant stakeholders – international financial institutions, regional organizations, private sector and civil society – to forge what I might call the “Coalition for Peace.”

On this point, we have documented success stories in which partnerships have been key in preventing further instability. In Gambia, for instance, the joint efforts by the UN, AU, and ECOWAS, together with strong military deterrence, was instrumental in preventing a costly conflict after the elections.

Partnership is also critical in order for us to step up our financial support toward the cause of sustaining peace. To this end, we should also explore ways to reform the current financing structure of the UN and relevant institutions to better support prevention initiatives.

In this regard, I very much look forward to the Secretary-General’s upcoming report on peacebuilding and sustaining peace. I would like to take this opportunity to offer him Korea’s full support as he takes on this task at this critical juncture.

Distinguished Colleagues,

As you are all aware, my country is an epitome of so many trials and tribulations throughout its modern history – absolute poverty, colonization, internecine war, and a nation divided – just to name a few. Had the international community focused more on sustaining peace in the Korean Peninsula 70 years ago, perhaps we would not have gone through a devastating war and still struggle with its repercussions today. This is why we place so much value on sustaining peace.

With this in mind, Korea is fully committed to translating the sustaining peace agenda into practical deliverables as Chair of the UN PBC and through sharing its experiences. In the course, Korea will work closely with Secretary-General Guterres and Member States to weave the sustaining peace agenda into all aspects of UN activities. And I ask for the G20’s active support in taking our shared initiative forward. Thank you. /END/