Greater funding needed to improve peacebuilding process – Security Council

Calling for the United Nations to play a lead role in coordinating international efforts to help countries recovering from conflict stabilize and eventually prosper, the Security Council stressed the need today for greater funding to assist in peacebuilding and to lay the groundwork for longer-term reconstruction and development.

In a presidential statement issued at the end of a day-long open debate, Deputy Permanent Representative Karen Pierce of the United Kingdom said that Council members recognized that financing should be “available from the outset” for recovery and peacebuilding activities, as well as to help later in the longer-term processes.

The statement highlighted that the UN should lead the coordination in the field in countries emerging from conflict, working closely with regional organizations, international bodies, individual Member States, international financial institutions, civil society and the private sector to support the process.

It also welcomed the efforts of the UN Peacebuilding Commission, set up in late 2005, in providing advice and leadership and called on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to give advice within the next year on how best to improve the UN system’s handling of peacebuilding.

Earlier, he told the debate that the UN must become more coherent in coordinating its activities, increase its capacity on the ground and build up its civilian expertise.

In the presidential statement, Ms. Pierce noted that post-conflict countries face a vast array of challenges, ranging from re-establishing the institutions of government, disarming, demobilizing and reintegrating the national armed forces, reforming the security sector, respecting human rights and revitalizing the economy.

“The Security Council underlines that civilian expertise in post-conflict peacebuilding is essential in helping to meet these needs,” she added.