UN Peacebuilding Commission backs strategy for ensuring peace in Burundi

The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, established to help countries recovering from war avoid a relapse into violence and chaos, today endorsed the framework to engage Burundi, the UN and other international partners to work together to consolidate peace in the African country.

Meeting at UN Headquarters in New York, the Commission agreed that the strategic framework devised by the Burundian Government last month offered the best way forward for mobilizing financial and political support to overcome the internal challenges threatening the country’s long-term recovery.

That framework identifies several major objectives in the years ahead, especially the implementation of a ceasefire between the Burundian Government and the National Liberation Forces (Palipehutu-FNL). Reforming the justice and security systems, generating jobs and making radical improvements in governance are key priorities as well.

The framework also stresses the responsibility of Burundi’s leaders towards achieving stability, as well as the role that the UN Integrated Office for Burundi (BINUB) can play.

The Commission’s Vice-Chair, Ambassador Johan Løvald of Norway, said the framework was the first strategic partnership of its kind and “the fruit of an intense multi-stakeholder process that evolved in parallel in Burundi and here in New York at the UN.”

Established in December 2005, the Commission focuses on reconstruction, institution-building and the promotion of sustainable development in post-conflict countries. Its first two country cases are Burundi and Sierra Leone.