Nordic Statement Joint Informal Interactive Dialogue on the 2025 Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture

Mr. President of the General Assembly. Mr. President of the Security Council.

Thank you for convening this Informal Interactive Dialogue – and for your statements.

Your excellencies.

I have the pleasure to deliver this statement on behalf of the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and my own country Sweden.

We thank the Permanent Representative of the Arab Republic of Egypt and the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Slovenia for the Elements Paper. We support the ideas and suggestions contained therein. The paper is a good starting point to further develop concrete, substantial and ambitious ideas on how the peacebuilding architecture can best be strengthened to tackle the challenges of the future. 

Allow me to share three observations. 

First,

We very much appreciate that the very first sentence in the Elements Paper emphasizes impact in the field. We believe that this country level-focus should be front and center in the resolutions. Let us also – in addition to discussing the Peacebuilding Commission, the Peacebuilding Fund and the Peacebuilding Support Office – highlight the UN field presences.

The Resident Coordinators, the Peace and Development Advisers working in many of their offices, the UN Country Teams – and Peacekeeping Operations or Special Political Missions where present – are vital for the UN´s capability to foster peace and strengthen resilience, in cooperation with the host Government, civil society and others. For example, they can offer concrete on-the-ground support for the development and implementation of inclusive, voluntary and nationally owned national prevention strategies, as discussed in the Pact for the Future.

Let us therefore focus the resolutions on how the UN peacebuilding architecture can enable UN field presences to engage more efficiently and more coherently in peacebuilding action, within the UN system as well as with non-UN, local, national and regional actors. The Peacebuilding Fund is a key mechanism ensuring that the UN Country Teams, as well as their civil society partners, can deliver concrete, tangible peacebuilding at the country level. Ensuring that it is well-resourced to do so remains a key priority for us.  

Second,

and connected to above, we see the PBAR as an excellent opportunity to optimize the coherence of and strengthen synergies between UN peacekeeping and peacebuilding work, throughout the lifecycle of peace operations. Peacekeeping efforts are most impactful and sustainable when aligned with the UN’s broader preventive and peacebuilding activities and we are glad that this very topic will be discussed in next week´s Peacekeeping Ministerial in Berlin. The fact that the PBAR also coincides with the review of the future of all forms of peace operations must be taken advantage of.

Third,

Human rights are at the heart of conflict prevention. We look forward to resolutions that provide for regular interaction between the Peacebuilding Commission and UN Human Rights Mechanisms. All three pillars of the UN are central for the peacebuilding architecture. We also look forward to boosting the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda and to counter the serious consequences of gender equality backlash, as the 25th anniversary of the WPS agenda is approaching. This agenda is both strategically and operationally critical for advancing sustainable peace. The Youth, Peace and Security agenda, soon celebrating its 10th anniversary, is also crucial for any peacebuilding efforts to succeed.

We know that climate change and environmental degradation are risk multipliers, especially in fragile states. The peacebuilding architecture must have the capacity to identify these risks and act – like the Peacebuilding Fund is already contributing to. We foresee that these aspects will be given due attention in the resolutions.