외교부

Remarks at the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC)

8 March 2018

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I would also like to begin by thanking you for organizing this important meeting today and expressing my appreciation to the President of the General Assembly for joining us at the PBC to share his views on the High Level Meeting on peacebuilding and sustaining peace in April.

As one of the strong proponents of meaningful-but-less-controversial outcome document for the high-level event, I would like to join others in welcoming your decision, Mr. President, to pursue a procedural resolution accompanied by a Chair’s summary. I am confident that it will help sustain the hard-won momentum in mainstreaming peacebuilding and sustaining peace across the UN system, and I look forward to the follow-up discussions in the process leading up to the April event. I hope we can come up with a brief resolution, procedural in nature but reasonably ambitious on the actions to take, that could provide a way forward for implementing various options and proposals in the SG’s report on sustaining peace, hopefully reflecting the informal discussions we have had recently at the retreat yesterday, and the day before yesterday. 

Mr. Chairman, as I have mentioned at the retreat - at the GA meeting last Monday, our distinguished colleague from Bangladesh succinctly summarized the SG’s report on sustaining peace into three words -- coherence, reform and resources. The PBC, PBSO and PBF, the three components of the peacebuilding architecture, have an increasingly important role to play in achieving each of these three key objectives. I do not want to go into the details on the reason why, as their recent performances speak for themselves in this regard. 

We know that concerns are still being raised by Member States and the Secretariat alike about the concept of sustaining peace and the possibility of development resources being diverted to peace and security. But, rather than engaging in a conceptual debate on sustaining peace, our mid-term review exercise on sustaining peace should be more focused on how to strengthen these three peacebuilding components already in place. A proactive and action-oriented approach rather than an intellectual exercise will better serve our collective interests.  

With this forward-looking and practical attitude, we look forward to working closely with you, Mr. President, in the preparations for the upcoming High-Level meeting.  You can count on our full support.  Thank you.