S/PV.8033 Security Council

In accordance with rule 37 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the representatives of Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Botswana, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cyprus, Estonia, Fiji, Germany, Guatemala, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Qatar, the Republic of Korea, Slovakia, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and Viet Nam to participate in this meeting. In accordance with rule 39 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I invite the following briefers to participate in this meeting: Mr. Youssef Mahmoud, of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations; and His Excellency Mr. Gert Rosenthal, Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture. In accordance with rule 39 of the Council’s provisional rules of procedure, I also invite Her Excellency Ms. Joanne Adamson, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union to the United Nations, to participate in this meeting. The Security Council will now begin its consideration of the item on its agenda. I wish to draw the attention of Council members to document S/2017/692, which contains a letter dated 7 August 2017 from the Permanent Representative of Egypt to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary- General, transmitting a concept paper on the item under consideration. I wish to warmly welcome the Deputy Secretary- General, Her Excellency Ms. Amina Mohammed; Mr. Youssef Mahmoud, of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations; and Mr. Gert Rosenthal, Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture. Egypt has convened this meeting because it believes in the importance of pursuing efforts to enhance the effectiveness of the international peace and security system at the United Nations. Egypt is also concerned about the need to identify a clear vision of the optimum benefits to be drawn from the available tools in addressing crises. There is no doubt that peacekeeping operations are the most important and widely used tool of the Security Council to maintain peace and security, protect civilians and create a climate conducive to the peaceful settlement of disputes. Peacekeeping operations are also a means to facilitate the recovery of societies from the tangible and intangible destruction that is the legacy of warfare. In that regard, Egypt believes that the credibility and effectiveness of peacekeeping mandates are linked to a fundamental restructuring of the philosophy of the maintenance of international peace and security and to the need to shift from the standard, accepted ways of managing conflict in order to seek a true transformation towards the achievement of sustainable peace. Today’s discussion is therefore aimed primarily at developing a strategic approach to enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of peacekeeping operations, and at considering the means available to improving peacekeeping mandates in order to make peace sustainable. This approach gains added importance in the light of the huge challenges related to armed conflict, which are interlinked with the threat posed by the spread of terrorism, organized crime and major population movements, not to mention weak State structures, the torn social fabric, the lack of employment opportunities and low standards of living in certain societies. We hope that we shall emerge from this meeting with a clear vision and practical ideas that will contribute to modifying the culture and the tools used to design and review peacekeeping operations in a manner that will guarantee the twofold goal of ending violence and protecting civilians, on the one hand, and paving the way towards sustainable peace, on the other. I now give the floor to the Deputy Secretary-General.

I thank the Security Council and the Egyptian presidency for this timely reflection on the contribution of United Nations peacekeeping operations to global efforts to sustain peace. The nature of today’s challenges requires us to connect all our efforts for peace and security, human rights and sustainable development. Member States have explicitly acknowledged this interlinkage, most recently in the twin resolutions on the review of the peacebuilding architecture (Security Council 2282 (2016) and General Assembly resolution 70/262). The universality of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its pledge to leave no one behind has put sustainable development at the core of the sustaining peace agenda. Sustainable development cannot be achieved in the absence of the conditions for peace, and implementing all the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will make an enormous contribution to the sustaining peace agenda. The links between both agendas are found not only in Goal 16, on strong institutions and inclusive societies, but across all 17 Goals. Sustaining peace, understood as a process and a goal to build a common vision of a society, underlines the comprehensive, far-reaching and people-centred approach of the 2030 Agenda. Implementing the sustaining peace agenda requires an inclusive strategy that supports the diverse range of our missions and takes account of the entire peace continuum, from prevention, conflict resolution and peacekeeping to peacebuilding and long-term development. The resolutions on the review of the United Nations peacebuilding architecture outline the importance of strong coordination, coherence and cooperation between the Security Council and the Peacebuilding Commission in the formation, review and drawdown of peacekeeping operations. The Council has a vital role to play. Peacekeeping operations need clear, realistic and up-to-date mandates with well-identified priorities, adequate sequencing and the flexibility to evolve over time. Coherence, complementarity and collaboration between the United Nations peace and security efforts and its development and humanitarian work are also essential to preventing conflict and mitigating risks, fostering more sustainable outcomes and ensuring that no one is left behind. Looking ahead, we must work together to ensure that peacekeeping lives up to its full potential as an essential tool for sustaining peace — not in isolation but as part of our new, integrated approach. Peacekeeping missions operate with strong links with the United Nations development system and the humanitarian community to facilitate a more integrated approach to peacebuilding initiatives, exit strategies and transition plans, as we have seen in the cases of Liberia and Haiti. Sustaining peace is an inherently inclusive political process that spans development activities, preventive measures, mediation, conflict management and conflict resolution. Implementing the sustaining peace agenda means putting Member States and their populations in the lead, prioritizing political solutions, making prevention the priority, and leveraging the United Nations three pillars — human rights, peace and security, and development — in a mutually reinforcing way. The Secretary-General’s vision of prevention goes beyond averting crisis and violent conflict and takes account of the changing nature of crises in today’s unpredictable world. It requires a broad, whole-of- United Nations approach, as well as greater synergies for more effective delivery and impact. We need to enhance our support by drawing on the United Nations early warning capacity, mediation, preventive diplomacy and programmes and activities in the field. In line with this vision, the Secretary-General has committed to a surge in diplomacy for peace, in partnership with a wide range of actors. Prevention measures and peace processes must be driven by national leadership and inclusive ownership that recognize the needs and contributions of all segments of society, especially women and young people as our agents of development and peace. With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the international community acknowledged the role of young men and women as critical agents of change. They will find in the SDGs a platform to channel their capacities for peace into the creation of a better world. The future of humankind lies in their hands, and they will pass the torch to future generations. Empowering them and building a sustainable future requires stronger institutions and better governance. That is why we must invest more in development and mobilize our efforts towards fostering peaceful, just and inclusive societies that are free from fear and violence. There can be no sustainable development without peace and no peace without sustainable development, and there can be neither without human rights. In order to achieve sustaining peace and sustainable development we need to engage in strong collective action and enhanced collaboration and partnerships, including with the business community, financial institutions, civil society, and regional and subregional organizations. We need to deepen ties with regional and subregional partners, the World Bank, which is drastically increasing its involvement in conflict- affected countries, and the International Monetary Fund, which is seeking to reduce the destabilizing influence of corruption so as to ensure better investment in peace. At the African Union summit in July, I committed the Organization to strengthening our partnership on political issues and peace operations, with stronger mutual support and continued capacity-building through the joint United Nations-African Union Framework for Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security. The Peacebuilding Commission occupies a unique role in bringing all those partners together. I invite the Security Council to engage more actively with the Commission. Those partnerships must also be based on solid and predictable funding, including for prevention, in line with the sustaining peace agenda. I hope a united Council will consider supporting missions backed by a Council resolution and implemented by our partners, either with assessed contributions or by promoting other predictable financing mechanisms. Let me now turn to the subject of reform. We need to improve how we review peacekeeping operations, in consultation with our development and humanitarian partners, and to ensure a strong human rights and gender focus. Women are the first to bear the brunt of conflict and endure the post-conflict transition, they are also expected to lay a foundation for peace. In all fields of peacekeeping, women peacekeepers have proven that they can perform the same roles to the same standards and under the same difficult conditions as their male counterparts. It is an operational imperative that we recruit and retain female peacekeepers and police. Not only because gender parity is essential for its own sake, but because the involvement of women increases the chances of sustained peace and reduces incidences of sexual abuse and exploitation. We must work together across our silos and address the humanitarian/development/peace nexus, as well as the root causes of violence and conflict. Sustaining peace can be achieved only through a broader vision of prevention. Humanitarian and development actors need to work together to bridge the gap between relief efforts and development aid, and enable Governments and communities to build and strengthen their capacities for resilience, disaster risk reduction and mitigation, and conflict prevention, in particular in developing countries. It is our duty to support the people of the world and provide them with effective and timely humanitarian assistance and development programmes simultaneously, through a coherent whole-of-system approach. Guided by the Secretary-General’s ambition to overcome fragmentation and make prevention the priority of the United Nations, we have taken important steps to outline a comprehensive and bold agenda so as to improve how the United Nations delivers to the people it serves. It is crucial to recognize that development is an end in itself and a central part of our work. The Secretary-General’s repositioning of the United Nations development system and the reform of the peacebuilding architecture reflect the instrumental role of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a road map for sustainable development and sustaining peace. The Sustainable Development Goals are key tools for preventing crises and achieving sustained peace. The reform of the United Nations system has been designed to reinforce the interlinkages between the 2030 Agenda and the sustaining peace agenda, as outlined in the presentation on the Secretary- General’s report on the United Nations development system (E/20183) to the Economic and Social Council in July. Among other steps, the Secretary-General’s recommendation calls for strengthening the leadership of Resident Coordinators and establishing a direct line from them to the Secretary-General, thereby ensuring more responsive accountability, coordination and efficiency on issues that are related to prevention, sustaining development and sustaining peace. In order to effectively implement such reforms and sustain peace we must build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social and environmental shocks and disasters. Each mission and peacekeeping operation must be considered in its unique political and development context. In many ways, one of peacekeeping’s most important contributions to peace is the preparation for a smooth and effective peacekeeping mission drawdown and hand-over to the United Nations Country Team. We have recently seen successful examples of that process in Côte d’Ivoire and soon in Liberia. In Haiti and Darfur, community-violence reduction programmes are impeding the recruitment of at-risk youth by armed criminal groups, thereby contributing to stability and social cohesion. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali mainstreams the prevention of and response to conflict-related sexual violence in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration and security-sector reform processes. In order to deepen those successes we must work together for gender parity, particularly in missions that are moving from military to police and civilian components. For example, we must use the window of opportunity that is emerging from the drawdown of the military component of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti to engage more women in police and civilian operations. Peace processes are rarely short or straightforward. The complexity of current conflicts requires a multidimensional approach that prioritizes a range of initiatives. They include providing crucial protection for civilians under threat and strengthening institutions, as well as the rule of law, so as to bolster respect for human rights at all levels. They require the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of armed groups, and they entail a focus on justice and reconciliation, proven credible elections and the extension of legitimate and accountable State authority. For many people suffering in conflict-affected countries United Nations peacekeeping missions are a rare source of hope for the return of peace. Their success is a source of great pride for us all. I would like to pay tribute to the brave men and women of United Nations peacekeeping missions, whether civilian, military or police, and take the opportunity to encourage more women to join our missions. I would particularly like to honour the sacrifices of those who have lost their lives while providing an indispensable service. In order to ensure that we are on the right peacebuilding track, we must get the politics right. Peacekeeping operations are political instruments that ideally accompany a locally-owned peace process. To that end, missions provide good offices and work closely with the various parties and communities to achieve and implement peace agreements. In considering all those areas, a broader and more sustained level of engagement by members of a united and strong Security Council, individually or collectively, is essential in order to ensure that member States, the United Nations system and all our partners are aligned behind a common purpose and a common vision for action that integrates all pillars of the United Nations and brings all its activities together in a truly integrated fashion. With the adoption of the 2030 Agenda and the sustaining peace resolutions, we have mapped the road to a safer, more resilient and sustainable world. The challenge now is how to ensure that the journey is successful and that its gains are truly irreversible. I look forward to the support of the Security Council in orienting efforts and resources towards our ultimate goal of achieving sustainable development and sustaining peace.

I thank the Deputy Secretary-General for her briefing. I now give the floor to Mr. Mahmoud. Mr. Mahmoud: I thank you, Sir, for inviting me to address the Security Council on such an important subject. The purpose of my briefing is twofold. First, it is to present to the Council the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations’ (HIPPO) view of the conceptual and attitudinal shifts that need to be internalized by peace operations if they are to unleash their potential to contribute to sustaining peace. Secondly, it is to share with the Security Council some of the practical implications of those shifts, in terms of the design, implementation and review of peacekeeping operations. The report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (S/2015/446) devotes some 10 pages to the issue of sustaining peace. Its main thrust is to unpack the spirit and the letter of its title, which calls for “uniting our strengths for peace: politics, partnership and people”. HIPPO views sustaining peace as the ultimate objective of United Nations post- conflict engagement, in which inclusive politics and the people in that inclusive plurality, including women and youth, play a central role. What are the shifts advocated by HIPPO for the purpose of sustaining peace? Let me just mention three of them. The first is to acknowledge that countries emerging from conflict are not blank pages and their people are not projects. Internal actors at all levels of society are the main agents of peace. That means that our efforts to help sustain peace should be motivated by humility to learn from what still works well in countries emerging from conflict and to respect that every society, however broken it may appear, has capacities and assets, not just needs and vulnerabilities. Such an approach goes against the grain of the practices of some outside interveners who believe that countries in conflict lack the competency and resources to address their own predicament. That myopia leads me to the second shift advocated by HIPPO, namely, the need to challenge the assumptions and values that underpin some of the supply-driven templates and technical approaches and solutions that are regular staples in the mandates of a number of peacekeeping operations. Strengthening central State institutions, for example, is believed to create the conditions for peace. However, that approach ignores the fact that State institutions, as they are being strengthened, tend to be in the thrall of domestic ruling elites who are concerned more about power than governance and susceptible “to corruption by powerful groups”. The third shift advocated by HIPPO is politics — legitimate politics, I hasten to add. Lasting peace is neither achieved nor sustained through military and technical engagements, but through political solutions. Peace processes do not end with a ceasefire or a peace agreement, which simply mean that belligerents have decided, sometimes through coercive diplomacy, to move from violence to politics, a transition usually fraught with uncertainties and reversals. HIPPO contends that politics is the best force multiplier where missions are deployed in hostile environments. Therefore, what are the practical implications of those three shifts? Let me mention two. First, there is a need to rethink the way that we analyse peace and conflict when planning and reviewing peace operations. Such analysis should not only assess the factors that drive and sustain violence and instability, it should also map what is still working and not just what needs to be fixed. Such mapping would include surveys of the resilient capacities that host societies and ordinary people are using to peacefully manage conflict and subsist in the direst of circumstances. It would also assess other determinants of peace, such as the commitments of domestic, bilateral and regional stakeholders to the cause of peace, accompanied by an inventory of their respective interests and comparative advantages. Given that the drivers of instability tend to be transnational in origin and effect, the analysis should assess those drivers from a regional perspective. And because women and youth experience conflict differently, specific measures should be taken to ensure their unique perspectives are taken into account at every step of that analytical exercise. Let me hasten to add that several peacekeeping missions are undertaking aspects of that type of analysis, including through surveys. But I suspect that sustaining peace is not the overarching organizing framework for collecting and processing information. The second practical implication of the shifts is the development of a strategic compact for sustaining peace. That could be initiated in response to a specific and firm request from the Security Council. The compact would articulate a shared, context-sensitive understanding of what sustaining peace means in accordance with the spirit and the letter of resolution 2282 (2016). It would outline, on the basis of the analysis I just discussed, the primary responsibilities of the host country and other national stakeholders, as well as the supportive role of the United Nations system on the ground under the leadership of an empowered Resident Coordinator. The compact would also include time-bound performance benchmarks to ensure mutual accountability and facilitate reporting. It would be a strategic framework that would ensure inclusive national ownership and the primacy of legitimate politics. In addition, it would enable the mission to execute its mandate from a long- term, sustaining-peace perspective, whether the task is the extension of State authority or the protection of civilians. The compact would also respond to the call by the Secretary-General and others to build synergies among the three foundational pillars of the United Nations and to put “we the peoples” at the centre of United Nations engagement. The pillars, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, would flow through the compact in an integrated manner. It would also provide a natural home for people-centred approaches, particularly if the compact is vetted through a standing civil society consultative body. I recognize that this is a tall order, and attempts have been made, particularly in peacekeeping missions serving in challenging political contexts where host Governments are unable or unwilling to cooperate. But without a shift in mindset and an up-front investment in strategic analysis and an inclusive compact-building process for the sake of peace, the United Nations, in my view, will continue to deploy peacekeepers into hostile environments with little or no peace to keep, where at times the line between peacekeeping and peace enforcement becomes blurred and where the primary focus during review periods is largely on meeting the pressing operational and logistical requirements for overstretched missions. In conclusion, the next time peacekeeping operations come up for review, particularly those with “stabilization” as their middle name, I humbly suggest that the Council consider the following four questions. First, does the mission have dedicated capacity at the highest level to generate and cultivate legitimate political solutions? Secondly, does the mission have the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to regularly conduct strategic, integrated and participatory analyses to identify how it can contribute to sustaining peace? Thirdly, does the mission have a binding, strategic compact and an exit strategy that, in addition to its intrinsic mandated objectives, are explicitly designed to contribute to the overarching goal of sustaining peace? Fourthly, and lastly, does it have mission-wide consultative mechanisms that put people at the centre and to ensure inclusive national ownership and effective trust-building? The answers to those questions and the debates they may generate might offer the Council, with the advisory support of the Peacebuilding Commission, an opportunity to include in mission mandates provisions that can enhance their potential to contribute to sustaining peace, guided by the spirit and the letter of HIPPO recommendations and the sustaining peace resolutions.

I thank Mr. Mahmoud for his briefing. I now give the floor to Mr. Rosenthal. Mr. Rosenthal: I thank you, Mr. President, for inviting me in my capacity as Chair of one of the three major 2015 reviews on how the United Nations deals with its remit on peace and security. I thank you, also, for the concept paper prepared by you (S/2017/692, annex), which offers guidance for today’s deliberations. All three of the reviews, and perhaps most of all the review on the United Nations peacebuilding architecture, struggled with a fundamental contradiction rooted in the Charter of the United Nations. That contradiction takes on at least three different expressions. First, while we were arguing that sustaining peace requires a coherent and comprehensive United Nations approach, the segmentation of responsibilities assigned to each of the principal intergovernmental organs in the Charter has led instead to a fragmented and muddled approach. As we all know, while the Security Council’s purpose is to maintain international peace and security, it is the Economic and Social Council and, of course, the General Assembly, that deal with human rights, development and governance issues. While there is considerable overlap in the execution of those functions, the traditional pillars of peace, human rights and development generally do operate in the proverbial silos that, sadly, we have all become accustomed to. Secondly, while we were arguing that sustaining peace requires that interventions be made during all the various phases of a potential conflict — before, during and after — the Council has continued to act on the broad assumption that there is some unalterable sequencing in the dynamics that lead to violent conflicts, referring to peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding as if they are part of a natural continuum. Indeed, the Council still attaches the adjective “post-conflict” to the word “peacebuilding”, subliminally relegating the whole concept — and the issue of addressing many of the root causes of conflict — to a relatively peripheral role, because ending a war always takes priority over other matters. Thirdly, and picking up on my previous point, what really deserves priority is preventing violent conflicts in the first place by addressing the grievances that lead to such outcomes. The fact is that while we have all argued that sustaining peace requires putting the accent on conflict prevention rather than acting when the train has already left the station, a review of the Council’s activities over the years reveals that, in practice, the opposite has usually been the case. Those, then, were the contradictions or dilemmas we faced. Much has transpired in the two years since the 2015 reviews were presented. The five major developments that I would like to highlight are, first, the high priority that Secretary-General Guterres assigned to conflict prevention and sustaining peace even before he assumed office and that he has pursued very decisively since. The second was the adoption, on 25 September 2015, of the landmark 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which not only offers a strategic framework for the work of the United Nations moving forward but incorporates into the Sustainable Development Goals a specific commitment to promoting peaceful and inclusive societies. The third was the Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2282 (2016) on 27 April 2016, simultaneously with the General Assembly’s adoption of its resolution 70/262, completing the review of United Nations peacebuilding activities. The fourth was the General Assembly’s adoption on 21 December 2016 of resolution 71/243, which contains the quadrennial comprehensive policy review mandates, along with the subsequent Secretary-General’s report (A/72/124), in June 2017, on repositioning the United Nations development system; and the last is the Secretary-General’s imminent proposal regarding the restructuring of the Organization’s peace and security pillar, based on the preliminary documents already circulated as part of a broader internal review on restructuring the Secretariat. Building on those five major developments has promising prospects for improving the performance of the United Nations in its overarching goal of sustaining peace. Still, the fundamental contradiction that I referred to earlier — the fragmentation of responsibilities assigned to each of the principal intergovernmental organs — persists. Furthermore, even the reform proposals whose outlines have already been announced put the accent on coherence within each of the main pillars — peace and security, sustainable development and human rights — rather than fully addressing cross- pillar coherence. However, a practical, albeit partial, solution to this dilemma appears in resolution 2282 (2016). As the Deputy Secretary-General has already pointed out in her remarks, it consists in fully embracing the potential represented by the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and its subsidiary bodies to propose a bridging of the inputs required by all three intergovernmental principal organs in order to address the root causes of violent conflict and promote sustainable peace. In that regard, we should recall that the PBC is an advisory body to the three principal intergovernmental organs, and that two thirds of its 31 members derive from those organs, with seven members coming from each of the three. Based on the proposals of the Peacebuilding Support Office, and with the full involvement of the members elected by the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and the Security Council, this mechanism could go a long way to fostering cooperation and coherence in the way each of these principal organs contributes to sustaining peace in targeted countries. At the same time, the mechanism would respect the Charter-mandated purview of each. In conclusion, as a result of recent developments, the United Nations appears much better equipped than it was two years ago to do justice to the purposes and principles of the Charter, adapted, of course, to the needs of the twenty-first century. Hopefully, with a clear road map to guide them, both the Secretariat and the Member States will rise to the challenge.

I thank Mr. Rosenthal for his briefing. I now give the floor to the members of the Security Council.

I would first like to thank your delegation, Mr. President, for organizing today’s open debate, which definitely constitutes a valuable contribution to the process of reforming our peacekeeping operations and builds on other discussions that we have had in the past few months, while at the same time contributing to September’s forthcoming high-level general debate. I am also grateful for the briefings from Mrs. Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General, Mr. Youssef Mahmoud, co-author of the report (see S/2015/446) of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, former Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture. The contributions they have made today through their briefings contain a cumulative weight of reflection that makes the poor thoughts I will be sharing today pale in comparison. The nature, origin and characteristics of the issues on the Security Council’s agenda today are very different from those that were on its agendas in previous years. New threats to international peace and security require responses that are tailored to these challenges. In that regard, peacekeeping operations are one of various tools, perhaps the most visible, available to the Security Council in addressing these threats. For some years now, Member States have been working to adapt peacekeeping operations to the complexities of today’s conflicts. We therefore note that we have moved from traditional missions to the increasing use of multidimensional missions mandated with new tasks and often focused on building and sustaining peace. The contribution of peacekeeping operations to the global strategy for building and sustaining peace is undeniable. This can be seen in what has been achieved by various missions in recent years, such as the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic. These Missions have fulfilled a wide variety of tasks, such as helping host countries to define priorities and essential strategies for peacebuilding, helping to create an environment that enables competent national and international bodies to carry out peacebuilding tasks and pre-peacebuilding tasks that help countries lay the foundations for peace and reduce their risk of falling back into conflict. We must also recognize that peacekeeping operations can and should contribute more to the goal of sustaining peace. We already have a wide frame of reference on this topic. We have a number of primary documents which have been issued following various reviews of the United Nations peace and security architecture; various resolutions, both of the General Assembly and the Security Council; and the results of the deliberations of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. Allow me elaborate some considerations that are of special importance to Uruguay with regard to contributing to peacekeeping operations with a view to sustaining peace. In designing and planning the deployment of a peacekeeping operation, it is important to conduct an exhaustive analysis of the operational environment in which the peacekeeping operation will be developed and the real possibilities of achieving the established objectives, as that is a key factor in determining its possible deployment. Once the deployment is decided, it is important to establish clear and achievable goals, the fulfilment of which will make it possible to plan the drawdown strategy of the mission and thereby prevent the creation of dependency and, at the same time, develop national capacities. It is also crucial that peacekeeping staff be properly skilled, trained and prepared to execute all the tasks specified in the mandate. In that sense, national restrictions — so-called caveats — whether they are stated or, worse, not stated; the absence of effective command and control; a refusal to obey orders; a lack of response to attacks against civilians and insufficient equipment cannot be tolerated, as they negatively affect shared responsibility in order to effectively comply with the mandates. Furthermore, political solutions must always guide the design and deployment of peacekeeping operations. Coordination between peacekeeping operations, the Peacebuilding Commission, United Nations country teams and the various development bodies working on the ground must be strengthened with a view to ensuring greater efficiency and effectiveness in critical tasks for peacebuilding and responding to urgent development needs. It is also essential to provide the necessary resources to attain the proposed objectives. The transition processes should ensure that the achievements obtained during the peace process are not jeopardized. In conclusion, I would like to refer to the case of Liberia as a clear example of a transition to the presence of the United Nations on the ground. The United Nations system and its international partners have deployed many efforts to ensure the success of the transition of the United Nations Mission in Liberia. Responsibilities in the area of security were transferred to the Government over a year ago and the country is currently experiencing calm while, at the same time, presidential and legislative elections are being prepared, which will be held in the coming months. Also, the Liberia peacebuilding configuration is doing a commendable job in the area of establishing long- term capacity and stability. For its part, UNMIL has adapted its mandate based on changes in the situation on the ground and has progressively reduced the number of people on the ground, thereby guaranteeing peace until now. As a counterpart, the Government of Liberia has progressively assumed its responsibilities as a sovereign country. We hope that this transition will be concluded successfully and that the United Nations can use this case as an example to follow in the future.

I would like to align myself with the statements to be delivered later this morning on behalf of the European Union and the Nordic countries. Maintaining international peace and security is at the core of the Organization’s mission. Peace operations have been the most visible — and by many measurements successful — means by which we have sought to deliver on this aim. The important work of reviewing the United Nations role in peace and security that has taken place over the past two years has underlined the need to improve our efforts to prevent conflict from emerging, in managing and ending conflicts when they do, and in preventing a slide back into conflict when peace is achieved. It is clear that peace operations are integral to this work of sustaining peace. I would like to thank the Egyptian presidency of the Council for scheduling today’s open debate, which creates the space for a frank and ambitious discussion in support of the Secretary-General’s efforts to create a United Nations system ready to meet the challenges of sustaining peace in the twenty-first century. I would also like to thank the Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed and their excellent and prominent briefers for their important contributions, which have helped frame today’s discussion. Let me make three points on how we believe the Council and the United Nations system can best organize itself to not only respond to conflict, but more importantly, prevent it. First, neither conflict nor peace emerges from a vacuum. The drivers of conflict and the enablers of peace are essentially political. For this reason, we must recognize the primacy of politics in our strategies for the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts. Long-term political strategies that aim to prevent conflict and sustain peace by addressing root causes are essential. Effective political strategies should tie together all the international community’s efforts in an integrated and mutually reinforcing way. Our work, including peace operations, needs to be people centred and results oriented. Improving the daily lives of people is paramount, including through core tasks such as protection of civilians’ physical safety and their human rights. Peacebuilding should be truly inclusive, involving Governments and societies, and take into account local and national perspectives, which are crucial to enable informed decision-making. Lasting peace requires the involvement of the entire population, meaning that the full, equal and effective participation of women should be hardwired into all of our efforts towards sustaining peace. Building political strategies requires high-quality, context-sensitive and inclusive analysis across the whole of the conflict cycle. That should be prepared jointly by the whole of the United Nations system. Let me also mention here the role of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) to contributing meaningfully to the Council’s efforts to adopt a sustaining peace approach in peacekeeping operations. Unlocking the full potential of the Peacebuilding Commission, not least during mandate discussions and transitions of peace operations, will require more informal and frequent interactions between the Council and the PBC on a wider range of issues. The Commission is uniquely placed to convene international actors for the kind of coordinated and strategic response for sustaining peace that we know full-well is needed. Secondly, as part of an integrated response aimed at building long-term peace, the peace and security instruments of the United Nations must work in tandem with development, human rights and humanitarian efforts from the start of every mission. Human rights violations can be drivers of conflict, and restoring respect for human rights will often contribute to addressing root causes and to sustaining peace. From the outset, the United Nations system must simultaneously promote development, including social service delivery, and aim to build the national capacities needed to address those challenges. As members of the Council, we have a responsibility to ensure that mandates are realistic, context-tailored and flexible. Within mandates, tasks need to be prioritized, sequenced and adjusted over time. Effective implementation of mandates also requires well-trained and well-equipped peacekeepers. A clear vision of a sustainable end state should guide integrated mission planning and leadership from the outset. How the United Nations system is working together to that end should be an everyday question in a conflict setting — not only a question of an exit strategy. Thirdly, when it comes to sustaining peace, we must never leave the job half done. Putting in place the essential building blocks I have mentioned today will allow the United Nations to better sustain peace before and during transitions and the drawdown of peace operations. Early and integrated work across the United Nations system can ensure the sustainability of gains and that transitions are transformative and forward- looking processes. In Mali, the Council has sought to achieve that by requesting a mission-wide strategy with a view to — among other things — handing over relevant tasks to the United Nations country team as part of a long-term exit strategy. In times of transition, national Governments and partners need to be fully engaged to ensure their ownership of the process. In Liberia, for example, we can draw useful lessons from the recent peacebuilding plan — a process that engaged both the wider United Nations system and the Liberian Government, with the full support of the PBC. When the Council asks United Nations country teams to step up, which we often do, we have a joint responsibility to ensure that they have sufficient capacity and, not least, the resources to do the job. We must find ways to avoid the financial cliff seen in many transitions, most recently in Côte d’Ivoire, Darfur, Liberia and Haiti. For instance, strengthening rule-of- law institutions is often a focus of missions in transition. The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti is one such example. Ample resources are needed to continue to underpin that focus, in which consideration of the full chain of rule-of-law institutions is important. The landmark resolution 2282 (2016) on sustaining peace provides us with a foundation for our work. We look forward to the Secretary-General’s report on the steps taken so far to implement the sustaining peace approach across the United Nations system, as well as next steps. That includes concrete options for more predictable financing for conflict prevention and sustaining peace, including from assessed contributions. We will continue this discussion with our partners in the African Union during our visit next week, as well as during the high-level event during the General Assembly, organized by Ethiopia. Those discussions will help us as we prepare to take stock together at the high-level meeting next spring. The range and nature of threats to international peace and security are evolving and multiplying. They now include terrorism and violent extremism, the effects of climate change and the actions of transnational organized crime, to name but a few. Such challenges beg the question of whether existing reform ideas go far enough to bring the United Nations conflict management machinery into the twenty-first century. Our focus should not only be to adapt to today’s challenges, but also to anticipate how conflicts will evolve. Prevention must be the new watchword. That means understanding and getting ahead of events, ahead of the curve, rather than merely reacting to them.

I would like to thank the Deputy Secretary-General and the briefers that we have had today on this very important topic. My time as United States Ambassador to the United Nations has coincided by just a matter of weeks with the Secretary-General’s leadership of this institution. It was a nice coincidence. I share the Secretary-General’s vision of reform for the work of the United Nations, particularly in peacekeeping. At the heart of that vision for reform are the civilians we are meant to serve. Our near-term goal must be their security and their safety, but our long- term goal must be their independence. In peacekeeping, the United Nations must strive to ensure the ability of people to live in peace and security without a United Nations presence. The idea of sustaining piece tracks very closely with the goal of lifting up civilians. It recognizes that peacekeeping missions alone cannot produce lasting peace. They can help create space for peace to take hold, but they must be a part of a larger strategy of coordinating the resources of the United Nations to prevent conflict in the first place and to address its causes. Critically, sustainable peace recognizes that Governments must also hold up their end of the deal. There can be no sustained long-term peace without political solutions on the ground. I welcome this opportunity to consider our peacekeeping operations in the larger context of a sustaining peace. I am a former accountant — alarms go off when I hear ambiguous terms like synergize or holistic. We need to see things we can measure; we need to see accountability. We all need to make it a priority to find value in what the United Nations does, not simply financial value but value for the people that the United Nations serves and value for the people who pay the bills. That means true reform must be more than the reshuffling of entities and departments. It must be more than generating jargon-filled reports. It must be about solving the problems that prevent the United Nations from achieving sustainable political solutions. The United Nations has many tools with which to maintain peace and security. Are we using these tools cooperatively and cohesively? Are all of them necessary to achieve a political solution? Are we creating independence or dependence? When we fail to use all the tools in the United Nations toolbox or fail to use them correctly we risk creating United Nations missions like the one in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Democratic Republic of the Congo Mission has existed for years with no end in sight — one of the reasons is that the Mission has lost its way. The Security Council has piled on new responsibilities over the years, diverting resources and attention from its core mission of civilian protection and stabilization. To make matters worse, the Mission must work with an uncooperative and, sometimes, hostile Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Further complicating matters is the fact that it is clear that credible elections will not be possible in the Democratic Republic of the Congo without the Mission’s logistical and technical support. To help clarify the Mission’s role, earlier this year the Security Council made some changes to its mandate. First, we established clear metrics for mission effectiveness, and secondly, we specifically outlined support for the political process as a strategic priority. These were good positive changes that will bring us closer to the goal of a sustainable peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In that same spirit, I welcome Egypt’s focus in today’s meeting on making sure that there is a clear exit strategy for our peacekeeping missions. This is one of the United States’s principles for reform. Security Council mandates must include plans for a viable transition from peacekeeping to peacebuilding. The Security Council did this when it mandated that the United Nations devise a peacebuilding plan in Liberia in preparation for the withdrawal of the United Nations Mission there early next year. The United Nations devised that plan in close coordination with the Government and with the participation of civil society. The result was something that all of the different parties could buy into. The Liberian Government has committed to working with the peacekeeping mission, the United Nations country team, local stakeholders and international partners to implement the steps laid out in this first-of-its-kind plan to sustain peace in years to come. This is the model for plans in similar transition situations in future. Every situation is different, but just as Liberia represents a potential peacebuilding success, South Sudan represents a significant peacebuilding challenge. When South Sudan started as a country, we sent a mission to help build peace. But when conflict started a few years later, the peacekeeping mission justifiably needed to change its focus. The United Nations has many necessary components there to get the country back on its feet: a United Nations special envoy helping mediate a solution to the conflict, a peacekeeping mission mandated to protect civilians, a United Nations country team and various non-governmental organizations all working on different parts of the puzzle. One challenge is to put together the pieces of the puzzle to make sure they all fit. The goal is the integration of United Nations resources into a plan focused on supporting a political solution. The second and bigger challenge is that the United Nations efforts will only be successful if the South Sudanese parties have the political will to engage in regional processes and end the violence. The Secretary-General’s reform agenda gives us a historic opportunity to institute long-overdue changes at the United Nations. The United States shares his commitment to using the considerable resources of the United Nations to achieve lasting sustainable peace.

I thank Egypt for convening today’s timely debate on United Nations peacekeeping. I also thank Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Ambassador Gert Rosenthal and Mr. Youssef Mahmoud for their briefings. At the outset, Japan commends all troop-contributing countries, police-contributing countries and certainly mission personnel themselves for their commitment to maintaining peace and security. Situations that require United Nations peacekeeping operations are becoming ever more complex. The review of the United Nations peace and security architecture is also under way. It is clear that improvements are needed in United Nations peacekeeping. Our question should be: how can we fundamentally strengthen the impact of peacekeeping on the ground? It is the responsibility of the Security Council to ensure that peacekeeping contributes to durable peace. The Council should assess how to achieve more efficient and better-performing missions as well as better- defined mandates and appropriate mandate reviews. Today’s peacekeepers must be sufficiently prepared to respond to today’s challenges. How can we achieve this? I would like to touch upon several priority areas. The first is capacity-building. Troop-contributing countries have the obligation to send personnel with the training and ability to meet United Nations standards and effectively do their jobs. But the reality is that we continue to see gaps and capacity shortfalls. These gaps have implications for the Security Council’s credibility in enforcing its mandates and for the ability of missions to succeed. They also directly affect populations that depend on the United Nations to restore peace and stability. Force generation and capacity-building are therefore crucial and interlinked. During the April briefing on peacekeeping organized by the United States (see S/PV.7918), the Secretary-General encouraged trilateral arrangements under which countries provide additional training and support to peacekeeping personnel under the auspices of the United Nations. Japan strongly encourages expanded discussion in the Council on trilateral capacity-building efforts between the United Nations, troop-contributing countries and third countries. Even capable and well-prepared troops cannot perform without realistic mandates that meet current needs. The role of the Council in this context is of vital importance. During the briefing in April, Japan noted that we must engage in more serious discussions on concise and strategically prioritized mandates that give missions the tools to succeed. Recycled language and ballooning resolution lengths cannot substitute for frank assessments of what is needed on the ground today. Clearer benchmarks will go a long way towards meeting and adapting both short- and longer-term mission tasks. Peacebuilding and local reconciliation efforts should also receive increasing attention as part of a comprehensive effort to sustain peace. Within missions, this requires closer collaboration between civil and political affairs teams to ensure that localized conflicts do not spread or derail nationwide reform efforts and also that local reconciliation efforts be positively linked to the overall political process. There is room for enhanced mission support to local reconciliation work, in close cooperation with United Nations agencies and programmes, including through the Peacebuilding Fund. Japan supports developing the practice of regularly drawing upon the advice of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) throughout the mission life cycle, including during mission formation, review and drawdown. At the drawdown stage, the advice of the PBC could support smoother transitions between missions and the United Nations country team. Nearly 70 years since the deployment of its first operation, United Nations peacekeeping remains more important than ever. Conflicts have become more complex, and sustaining peace is a persistent challenge. Peacekeepers require both the capacity and mandates to undertake their difficult and expanding work. The Council has the responsibility to regularly and more thoroughly discuss these matters to make sure that every mandate authorization and renewal counts.

First of all, I would like to thank you, Mr. President, for organizing today’s very timely debate. I would also like to thank the Deputy Secretary-General, Ambassador Gert Rosenthal and Mr. Youssef Mahmoud for their analyses, which enable us to better understand this particularly complicated issue. I will address three main points on the action of the Security Council. First of all, we have to continue place sustaining peace at the heart of the goals of peacekeeping operations. The goal of sustainable peace is one of the major reasons for the development of peacekeeping. It requires that we deal with immediate and vital priorities, such as protection of the civilians and human rights, as well as with long-term goals, such as supporting political processes, security sector reform and many others. The emergence of integrated multidimensional operations meets this need and shows how the United Nations is adapting to this complex challenge. Today, in many cases, peacekeeping operations — the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic and the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, for example — support the development of local capacity, in particular in such areas as disarmament and security-sector reform. In such areas as justice, the restoration of State authority, weapons management and the fight against impunity, peacekeeping operations provide valuable support for the long term. The Council has to fully play its role in that constant adaptation. That means that operations have to have mandates that are clearer but ambitious and realistic at the same time, as well as comprehensive and targeted, in order to enable missions to deal with emergencies and prepare a peaceful future. We welcome the efforts made by the Secretary-General to provide the Council with comprehensive and operational analyses in order to inform our decisions. We must collectively continue our efforts aimed at prioritizing mandates and sequencing their implementation in order to ensure that we are as close as possible to the realities on the ground. We must also, as stated by the Deputy Secretary-General, work with the troop-contributing countries so as to make sure that there are women in peacekeeping operations. That is essential in order to enable us to make as great an impact as possible on the ground. Peacekeeping operations can therefore play a decisive role for peace, but — and this is my second point — they cannot do so by themselves. Peacekeeping operations do not operate in a bubble. In order to be successful they must be supported, complemented and strengthened by peace partners. That applies first and foremost to the host country. Its full cooperation with the peacekeeping operation is a precondition for the peacekeeping operation’s success. Above and beyond the emergency situation, the host country has to invest in a relationship with the peacekeeping operation in order to create the foundation for a long- term partnership that will ultimately result in the exit of the peacekeeping operation. Such a partnership must be based on the will to initiate the necessary reforms in areas such as governance, security and others. It is through such reforms that Governments will be able to take ownership of a sustainable peace. Such support to peacekeeping operations must also involve the political arena. Above and beyond the specificities of each conflict, one thing we know for sure is that a lasting settlement of a conflict cannot be of a military nature alone. It must be political in nature. The synergy of the political initiatives of the Council with the neighbouring countries, regional organizations and ad hoc mediators is key in order to end up with a peace agreement that will put an end to the crisis. A crucial area for long-term stability that is frequently overlooked is the area of economic development. The economic fragility of a country is very frequently compounded by the conflict and feeds it. We can see how in South Sudan, for example, the collapse of the economy feeds the spiral of violence. Working together in the country team, agencies, funds and programmes contribute to the effort to deal with the challenges. But there are other essential actors, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, regional banks and organizations, bilateral donors and the private sector. In that area, which is far from the mandate of the peacekeeping operations, the international community must find the tools that can enable it to coordinate its activities. As the Deputy Secretary-General said, we have to invest in the 2030 Agenda for Development and the system of Resident Coordinators if we want to make sure that the Sustainable Development Goals become a reality for one and all. In that context — and this is the third point I would like to make — the transition towards peacebuilding serves as a pivot to ensure that sustainable peace takes root. Such a transition will only be successful if we promote the ownership by the host countries of the political and security challenges they face, as well as the social and economic challenges relating to the exit of the peacekeeping operation. That was the case in Côte d’Ivoire in 2014, for example. The United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivore (UNOCI) changed the paradigm there. It switched from a security mandate to a mandate to support the capacities of Côte d’Ivoire. The drawdown in UNOCI personnel was carried out in such a way as to ensure that the transition was orderly and responsible. The transition plan was developed jointly by the United Nations, the Government and major partners, and in that way it was carried out successfully. Today, in Liberia and in Haiti, similar developments are under way. The international community, not only through the country teams but also through the regional organizations and bilateral donors, must accompany the process, but there must also be full mobilization on the part of the host countries. The authority of the State can be restored only if it is based on real political will, effective governance and the respect for human rights, with a clear economic policy. On all of those points, the international community, in particular the United Nations, must remain mobilized after the departure of the peacekeeping operation, in particular through the Peacebuilding Commission, whose activities we fully support. Sustained peace is a hard long journey with frequent pitfalls. Such a complex undertaking will be successful only if it relies on a convergence of actors. Among them, peacekeeping operations, of course, play a unique, but not isolated, role. In order to be sustainable, peace has to be the outcome of the mobilization of one and all.

I thank the Egyptian presidency for organizing this open debate on the theme “United Nations peacekeeping operations: their potential contribution to the overarching goal of sustaining peace”. That is a very important theme that has not been seriously explored, and we express our appreciation to Egypt for taking this initiative. We thank Deputy Secretary-General Ms. Amina Mohammed, for her comprehensive briefing. We also appreciate the remarks made by Mr. Youssef Mahmoud and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal. The briefings of all three speakers were very rich and, frankly, very comprehensive. What I am going to say might therefore sound rather superfluous after their words. I must thank all three speakers again for their masterful performance. Peacekeeping is indeed one of the most important tools of the United Nations for the promotion and the maintenance of international peace and security. However, peacekeeping missions can have a meaningful impact only if they are guided by a clear political strategy attuned to the specific conflict situations that the missions are designed to address. They should also have, as we all agree now, an exit strategy. We should be guided by the specific context in which such missions are operating and have a specific strategic end in mind, so as to allow for a proper transition from conflict to sustainable peace. That has been made abundantly clear by the three major peace-and-security reviews conducted in 2015. It is only through the entire continuum of peace-oriented activities, ranging from prevention and resolution to peacekeeping and peacebuilding, that conflicts can be effectively addressed and sustainable peace ultimately achieved. Implementing that in practice may not be easy, but that does not make the approach less valid. It has a lot of implications for the work that we do here in the Council in terms of mandate design, the implementation and review of peacekeeping operations and the development of an exit strategy with the goal of enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of peacekeeping operations and realizing the overarching goal of sustaining peace. That means that peacekeeping operations must have clear, realistic and up-to-date mandates from the Council, with well-identified priorities, adequate sequencing and flexibility, so that they can evolve over time, as the Secretary-General indicated to us last April. Of course, the peacekeeping reviews have stressed that very point. This new approach to peacekeeping and sustaining peace has certainly introduced a paradigm shift in the manner in which the United Nations deals with the difficult and complex peace and security challenges of our time. That has been widely recognized by Member States and enshrined in the concurrent resolutions adopted by the Security Council and the General Assembly (Security Council resolution 2282 (2016) and General Assembly resolution 70/262). What matters at this stage is the need for a change in the mindset of the entire United Nations system with a view to reforming United Nations peacekeeping and reorienting it towards the goal of sustaining peace. That requires better and more coordinated planning, leadership, better strategies, as well as better coordination among the various departments and agencies. We are well aware of what the Secretary-General is trying to do in seeking to advance the reform of the peace and security architecture. We look forward to engaging with him on that issue next month as he embarks on consultations with the Council and the wider United Nations membership. Finally, we wish to highlight, in the areas of peacekeeping and sustaining peace, the significance of global and regional partnerships in enhancing the effectiveness of the international response as part of the entire peace continuum, including peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Regional organizations such as the African Union have demonstrated their capacity to immediately respond to conflicts and crises, as they arise, by deploying forces on the ground to stabilize the situation, while the United Nations and its agencies are in a better position to help consolidate peace at a later stage. Therefore, if that kind of division of labour is properly sequenced and employed, we will have a better chance of achieving the desired result. In that context, we want to see greater cooperation and partnership between the United Nations and the African Union. We very much hope that the eleventh joint annual consultation between the United Nations Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council will afford us the opportunity to explore possibilities for further enhancing cooperation in peacekeeping and sustaining peace.

China wishes to thank Egypt for its initiative in convening this open debate. We also wish to thank Deputy Secretary-General Mohammed, Mr. Youssef Mahmoud and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal for their respective briefings. The current international security situation is grave. Factors giving rise to conflicts in various parts of the world have become increasingly complex, with the interweaving of traditional and non-traditional security threats. Countries are closely interdependent, including with regard to their interactive, indivisible security interests. The fundamental way to maintain lasting peace and common security is to abide by the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, work together on building a community towards a shared future for humankind, promote a governance system featuring broad consultations, relying on joint efforts and shared benefits, and practice a new security concept that is common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable. The United Nations is the central mechanism for the maintenance of common security. At different stages — including conflict-prevention, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and sustainable peace — the Organization has different priorities and focuses concerning those four aspects. However, efforts to achieve the overarching goal are interconnected and must be managed holistically. First, conflict prevention must be aimed at maintaining peace and security, while targeted measures, based on the type of conflict and its root causes, must be taken. The most important consideration in resolving disputes between States is to adhere to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the basic norms governing international relations, while safeguarding the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of nations. The Council’s work must reflect those principles and include urgiing the parties concerned not to engage in words or deeds that may escalate tensions. Many issues on the Security Council’s agenda concern countries’ internal conflicts. In addressing such internal issues, the Council must observe the principle that all countries are sovereign and equal, and that there must be no interference in a country’s internal affairs. The Council must also respect the will and leadership role of the countries concerned, provide them with constructive assistance to assist them in advancing the political process, and facilitate reconciliation based on the specific national conditions. In areas plagued by protracted armed conflict, one finds a proliferation of terrorist activities, often with spillover effects. Conflict prevention and de-escalation are closely linked to efforts to counter terrorism. The international community must guard against potential terrorist attacks against the weak links in national or regional security mechanisms. In fighting terrorism, uniform standards must be used. The relevant Security Council resolutions must be strictly implemented and international cooperation in countering terrorism strengthened. In particular, the terrorists’ mobility networks and financing channels must be blocked. Efforts must be directed at preventing terrorist organizations from acquiring weapons and keeping violent extremist ideologies from propagating. The United Nations should support synergies forged among regional countries in their fight against terrorism, provide capacity-building assistance to developing countries through bilateral and multilateral channels and eradicate the root causes of conflict and terrorism. Secondly, United Nations peacekeeping operations must strictly comply with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and the three principles governing peacekeeping operations, and formulate explicit, viable and focused mandates in keeping with the specific conditions of the countries concerned, while taking into full account the myriad factors affecting the needs and security environments of the host countries. In order to improve the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations a periodic review mechanism should be established in order to ensure the continuing role that peacekeeping operations are expected to play with a view to ensuring the progress and ultimate fulfilment of their mandates. Peacekeeping operations should adjust dynamically in keeping with evolving needs, prioritize support in stages and focus on the central task of peacekeeping in an attempt to lend targeted assistance to efforts to resolve the most urgent and prominent problems facing the host countries. Once peacekeeping operations are decided upon, the role that peacekeeping forces will play is key to executing the peacekeeping mandates. The United Nations must seriously consider the role of troop-contributing countries (TCCs), strengthen communications with them, support their capacity-building, improve the quality and equipment of peacekeeping personnel and enhance the ability of peacekeeping troops to fulfil their mandates and effectively deal with security threats. Thirdly, peacebuilding must set an overall goal of strengthening political security and development capacity in order to promote the transition from a conflict situation to development and reconstruction. While countries differ in their specific conditions and development stages, many countries mired in conflict share a praiseworthy tradition of resolving differences and achieving consensus through consultations. Peacebuilding work should respect the ownership of the countries concerned, advocate seeking common ground while resolving differences and the concept of democratic consultation, adapt to the prevailing conditions in host countries, optimize the tradition of cooperation among countries of the same region, promote social integration and consolidate the fruits of peace. The relevant United Nations agencies should strictly observe their respective mandates in carrying out peacekeeping activities and focus on strengthening the host countries’ ability to generate revenues, while concentrating on assisting them in resolving the most urgent problems. Fourthly, sustainable peace and sustainable development are mutually reinforcing and dependent. Peace is not a castle in the sky, as it relies on development for its foundation. Only by giving equal attention to development and peace and by resolving conflict in terms of both symptoms and root causes will successful peace be assured. The United Nations must intensify its input in the field of development, comprehensively advance the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, vigorously help developing countries improve livelihoods and reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, while paying attention to the advantages of regional initiatives and regional organizations in efforts to form the synergies needed to lay the foundation for attaining sustainable peace by promoting sustainable development. In supporting the economic development of countries, the United Nations should respect the social systems and development paths chosen by countries on their own, put itself in the shoes of host countries, understand their essential needs, solve their key problems, offer them substantial help in their concerted efforts to attain the goals of their domestic programmes, and enable their people to effectively enjoy the dividends of peace. In recent years, the African Union (AU) has vigorously promoted solidarity and unity among African countries in their quest for peace and development, and has made substantive progress in that regard. China hopes that the United Nations and the AU will fully implement the joint UN-AU Framework on Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security so as to enhance cooperation in such areas as conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict reconstruction. China supports the positive consideration of the African proposal for financing AU-led peace operations, effectively helping Africans to secure sustained, stable and predictable funding. China looks forward to the alignment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with the AU Agenda 2063, in support of accelerated economic development, to address the root causes of conflict in Africa. China has always pursued an Africa policy characterized by sincerity, practicality, affinity, good faith, justice and shared interests. It supports African countries in seeking African solutions to African problems, and encourages the AU and other regional and subregional organizations to play an active role in finding solutions to regional problems. China is firmly committed to United Nations peacekeeping operations. As the second-largest contributor to the United Nations peacekeeping budget, China has a total of 2,514 peacekeepers on active duty in nine mission areas. We are working at full capacity to fulfil the commitments made by Chinese leaders in support of United Nations peacekeeping operations and to advance the peace and security track of the 10 major China-Africa cooperation plans to enhance capacity-building for African-led peace operations. China will further enhance the effectiveness of the United Nations-China Peace and Development Trust Fund, giving momentum to the peace and development of developing countries, in particular those in Africa. China stands ready to cooperate closely with African countries within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, supporting their social and economic development and helping them to achieve peace, stability and development at an early date. China looks forward to working with the international community to forge a new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation and to promote a new security vision of universal security and common prosperity, thereby making positive contributions to the sustainable peace and development of the world community.

I thank the briefers for their insightful contributions. Let me also today, through the Deputy Secretary-General, thank the women and men of the United Nations around the world for their service and courage. The United Kingdom aligns itself with the upcoming statement of the European Union. Conflicts rarely follow a predictable path. We must move beyond the idea of a set of sequential responses, which is why the United Kingdom supports the Secretary-General’s vision for a more holistic and inclusive approach to conflict prevention, management and resolution. Sustaining peace requires that all of the United Nations system be aligned in every context and able to carry out multiple tasks simultaneously. I would like to focus on two issues today related to sustaining peace. The first is how peacekeeping missions should be situated within wider United Nations efforts. At the most basic level, the starting point for any peacekeeping mission should be from all of the information gathered by the United Nations family over the years, including what the United Nations has already achieved in the field. It should be clear what and how peacekeeping missions will deliver with United Nations partners during their deployment, and how they will hand over to other United Nations actors when they leave. For example, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan may be the second-largest in the world, but it is also only one of 20 United Nations bodies and agencies represented in the country. We in the Council must reflect on these questions during mission mandating and planning. We need to take in clear views and understand ground truth from the field. The Council must be more disciplined in setting out strategic goals that can be translated through mandates into prioritized objectives, benchmarks for success and plans for mission drawdown once these have been achieved. On the ground, the whole of the United Nations should have a joint analysis of the situation, common objectives and clarity over roles and responsibilities towards meeting them. In the context of Liberia’s transition, a shared peacebuilding plan has gone some way towards achieving that. Moreover, a better balance of responsibilities between missions and country teams needs to be struck. Not every conflict driver can be addressed within the lifetime of a peacekeeping mission. Long-term change is best supported by United Nations country teams. They should be taking on responsibilities much earlier, not waiting until a mission drawdown looms. Important lessons will soon emerge from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Darfur — contexts where more may be asked of country teams. Support from the top is needed for an integrated approach. The coordinating role of the Strategic Planning and Monitoring Unit in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General is a welcome start. It will enable more integrated analysis and a more coherent cross-United Nations review of activity in-country. We would like to see the Unit regularly reviewing peace operations and look forward to its contribution to the review of the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Peacekeeping missions cannot create the conditions for their own exit without a sustainable political solution to conflict. As such, the second issue I should like to focus on is the primacy of politics. Special Representatives of the Secretary-General need to be politically active, using their good offices and leveraging support from their missions and the wider United Nations system. We must accept that missions are political tools in themselves, both representative of the will of the Council and in their actions on the ground. The tasks of peace operations are never merely technical. For example, the re-establishment of effective States often situations at the centre of mission exit plans, but missions cannot improve the functioning of State institutions without an understanding of how these institutions will be used and by whom. Politically blind capacity-building efforts risk worsening the situation. United Nations country teams integrated into the wider effort also have a role to play in promoting sustainable political solutions. Greater understanding of who does and does not benefit from development programming and how this is linked to political dynamics is critical. Let us face the facts — where political regimes are unaccountable, unresponsive to their own people and unrepresentative, including of women, appeals to national ownership will ring hollow. Finally, we in the Council must be politically engaged and ready to speak. A Council united around a shared political strategy to de-escalate tensions could have a powerful effect, but even in the face of flagrant violations of its resolutions the Council too often finds itself deadlocked and unable to act. Gert Rosenthal notes that the Security Council rarely acts to prevent conflict. My own short experience here has shown that we are not willing to act even when, as in South Sudan, there has been conflict for five out of the six years of the country’s existence, a third of the population is displaced, half are living in food insecurity, and United Nations resolutions and promises made have been repeatedly broken. Peacekeeping is one tool in the sustaining piece toolbox. It cannot be used in isolation, and we are seeing progress towards more integrated approaches. Even the most coherent United Nations response will still be blunt without attention to the primacy of politics. In that regard, we have further to go.

I thank the Egyptian presidency for convening today’s open debate, which is in line with the strategic discussion taking place in the Security Council about how the United Nations and its peacekeeping missions can contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security. At the outset, allow me to thank the Deputy Secretary-General, Ambassador Gert Rosenthal and Mr. Youssef Mahmoud for their insights, which serve as a source of inspiration for our discussion today. Italy aligns itself with the statement to be delivered later by the delegation of the European Union. We would like to make some additional remarks in our national capacity. Thanks to parallel Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on sustaining peace, the concept of the peace continuum is embedded in our daily narrative. It must now be implemented. In that regard, we encourage the Secretary-General to move forward with his vision and review of the Secretariat’s structure, including through a new distribution of roles and responsibilities. We commend the reforms already undertaken and look forward to further recommendations, which will focus on peace and security. The pursuit of political settlements should be the overall aim of the United Nations when it intervenes to restore peace and security. In our opinion, preventive diplomacy and working towards a negotiated, inclusive political solution before a crisis erupts is the yardstick for our work. Once a crisis erupts despite such efforts and after the United Nations has failed to prevent escalation, it may become essential to avoid a relapse into conflict. I should like to make a few points on that issue. First, with regard to mandates, a core objective of the mandates of peacekeeping missions should be to contribute to creating the conditions for inclusive political processes aimed at national dialogue and reconciliation by defusing domestic tension and violence. It is therefore key to define an entry strategy, clear and achievable objectives and measurable benchmarks, as well as a responsible at coordinated strategy to prevent mission creep and a potential relapse into conflict. Such benchmarks must take into full consideration the longer-term objective of a peace continuum. As a result, mandates should not be seen as set in stone. They should be flexible in order to evolve, not only as the situation in a country or region evolves but also as new challenges and threats to peace and security emerge. In that context, regular mission reviews are also key. Secondly, with regard to capacity to implement mandates, we should not refrain, when possible and appropriate, from phasing out a military mission towards a more agile and lighter footprint operation based on specialized police and civilian units. Such a step would help us to better focus on the so- called bridging tasks between peacekeeping and peacebuilding, such as stabilization, the rule of law, justice and the protection of civilians. Such tasks are essential to anchor the initial progress made and to contribute to truly sustainable peace. In that regard, we should also take into consideration tasks that can enhance the effectiveness of peacekeeping missions, thereby helping to pave the way towards sustaining peace at the end of the transition — to include the protection of cultural heritage, which is part of the mandate of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali, and enhancing vigilance with regard to the environmental footprint of a peacekeeping mission, such as in the United Nations Organizational Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Equally, institutional consolidation is key to bridging peacekeeping and sustaining peace efforts. In that connection, the transition from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti to the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti is a model case and test of the United Nations ability to shore up national authority in the critical shift from crisis management to a durable peace, while envisaging a responsible exit strategy from peacekeeping towards strengthened development assistance. It is also key to ensure that peacekeepers are reliable points of reference. It is essential to adopt a zero-tolerance policy against those Blue Helmets who have committed sexual exploitation or abuse. Of course, it is a matter of full respect for fundamental human rights, but also a matter for the United Nations. In that context, training, in particular mandatory predeployment training, is key. Allow me to recall Italy’s role via its training and logistics hub facility in Vicenza — the Center of Excellence for Stability Police Units — and the Brindisi Global Service Center and the Turin Staff College. Thirdly, with regard to partnerships, the United Nations should work in close partnership as an enabler for peace with entities and individuals that can contribute to our common objective. The involvement regional organizations, in implementation of Chapter VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, is crucial to addressing international crises and finding sustainable solutions. In that regard, the Council’s visit to Addis Ababa to meet its African Union counterpart is an important step to furthering strengthening cooperation between the two organizations. I would also like to recall the initiative of the countries of the Group of Five for the Sahel and the role of the European Union, both of which can have a major role in complementing United Nations efforts on the ground. There is clear evidence that civil society’s active involvement in peace processes is essential, in particular by women. The full and sustained implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) and subsequent such resolutions, in particular resolution 2242 (2015), is therefore key. The United Nations and its States Members should redouble their efforts to that end. Making greater use of women’s capacities as agents of change when it comes to conflict prevention, mediation and preventive diplomacy will lead to greater peace dividends in dispute settlement. That is at the core of the initiative promoted by my country to establish a network of women mediators in the Mediterranean region in order to reduce the existing capacity gap in this area. Fourthly, with regard to better use of the tools at our disposal, I will limit my remarks to the role of the Peacebuilding Commission and the need for the Council to constantly improve the use of that advisory body to break the silos between our pillars of action and between Headquarters and the field. The overall objective must be strengthened United Nations capacity to deliver as one. Finally, on resources, we all know that they are limited and should be used in a cost-effective way. Nonetheless, savings cannot be an objective in themselves, but a means, when appropriate, to enhance the efficiency of peacekeeping operations and of United Nations activities. That includes the need to progressively close the gap between the resources that the Organization spends on peacekeeping and the budget for mediation and special political missions. As for peacekeeping missions themselves, the different options for providing financial support envisaged in the report of 2 January can be chosen on a case-by-case basis. Already by 2008, almost 10 years ago, the report prepared by the panel of experts chaired by former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi (see S/2008/813) called for predictable and sustainable financial support to United Nations- approved African Union peacekeeping missions. We are therefore in favour of exploring the use of assessed contributions, provided, of course, that the appropriate set of requirements in terms of troop quality, training, equipment and high accountability standards are met, especially when it comes to effectively countering exploitation and abuse cases. This new approach requires strong collective efforts and political commitment. Italy will work to build consensus together with the Secretary-General, the Secretariat, our partners in the Council and the broader membership.

First of all, Sir, I would like to thank the Egyptian presidency of the Security Council for taking the initiative to organize this open debate on the theme of peacekeeping operations and their potential contribution to the overarching goal of sustaining peacekeeping. I would also like to thank our briefers of today — Mr. Youssef Mahmoud, Principal Adviser to the International Institute for Peace and a distinguished member of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture — whose statements certainly help inform our debate. In resolution 2086 (2013), the Security Council welcomed the decisive role of United Nations peacekeeping operations when it comes to maintaining international peace and security, preventing and controlling conflicts, upholding international standards, implementing the Council’s decisions and consolidating peace following conflict. It also reaffirmed the Council’s commitment to improving the efficiency of United Nations efforts at all stages of conflicts, from prevention to resolution to peacebuilding. The Council also hopes for continued, and even greater, efforts to adopt a comprehensive, coherent and integrated peacekeeping approach to international peace and security. That approach must be based on conflict prevention, the prevention of the resumption of conflict, the establishment of sustained peace through effective preventive diplomacy strategies, and addressing the root causes of conflict in order to restore peace and foster peacekeeping and peacebuilding. That was precisely what occurred when the recommendations of the three reviews conducted in 2015 and 2016 on United Nations action in the areas of peace and security were looked at together. The Security Council adopted resolution 2282 (2016) and the General Assembly adopted resolution 70/262 — the same resolution, one that put the challenge of sustaining peace in context, along the continuum of conflict prevention, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and sustaining peace. Meanwhile, in its rich diversity and under the auspices of the United Nations, the international community negotiated and, in 2015, adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which calls for everyone — States and international organizations, local and regional authorities and the private sector, civil society and non-governmental organizations — to do their utmost to ensure that no one is left behind. Since then, the challenges that the United Nations continues to face are being addressed through its willingness and ability to reposition itself so as to ensure that no one is left behind. That includes States, communities, individuals, companies and so on. We all know that exclusion, poverty, the lack of education and injustice fuel conflict at the national and international levels. That is why the reform of the United Nations system, as a whole, through its three pillars of peace and security, development and human rights, is of particular importance. The Secretary-General plays an important and smart role in drafting and implementing reform programmes, with the support of the Deputy Secretary-General and her team. It is up to the States Members of the United Nations to participate and assist in that endeavour. We are all aware that it is up to the Member States to implement many of the United Nations reforms. As outlined today by our briefers, we must end the fragmentation of the activities of the main United Nations organs, which would allow for enhanced cooperation and coordination with, for instance, the Peacebuilding Commission, which is the principal platform for our collective efforts in certain areas, with clearly identified and defined goals and targets. We are faced with a new paradigm, which has the potential to strengthen preventive efforts and enhance the effectiveness of current peacekeeping missions. Through an increasingly comprehensive approach that encompasses the entire continuum of peace, conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding, the concept of sustaining peace encourages us to rectify the problems caused by the fragmented efforts of the United Nations and other stakeholders in the area of peace and security. It is important to note the role of peacekeeping operations, which, when they have clear, realistic and attainable mandates with the necessary political support, remain one of the Organization’s most important tools in its efforts to address the challenges of international peace and security, in particular in an environment in which there is an ever-increasing number of asymmetrical challenges and, regrettably, ever-decreasing resources. United Nations peacekeeping operations face many challenges, including constraints imposed by States and by State and non-State organizations, which prevent the operations from fully discharging their mandates. United Nations peacekeeping missions must, therefore, be provided with the capacity and resources required to fulfil their mandates effectively. Mandates should be aligned as far as possible with the situation on the ground so that they can be carried out. Before missions are deployed, mandates should be defined on the basis of analyses and information that are as objective and comprehensive as possible. It bears repeating that the action carried out by United Nations missions must be based on a specific and viable political strategy that has the support needed to resolve the conflict once and for all. There is no doubt that, as political tools, peacekeeping operations can help to achieve the fundamental goals of conflict prevention, mediation, the protection of civilians and peacekeeping. The experience of the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the United Nations Mission in Liberia and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Mission in the Gambia, among others, provides a clear illustration of that assertion. The Security Council should strengthen cooperation with neighbouring States and regional and subregional organizations, because, in Senegal’s view, ECOWAS and the African Union have been able to achieve sustained peace through transition processes and conflict resolution strategies. Lessons learned reveal that it is a very demanding endeavour that requires early planning and takes local conditions into consideration, and clear objectives with the goal of bringing a peacekeeping operation to an end, meeting the needs of the population, establishing a peacebuilding office or making other provisions, as the situation requires. As soon as missions are established, peacebuilding activities must also be developed by steering efforts towards national capacity-building, addressing the deep-seated structural socioeconomic challenges that such countries often face and fostering ongoing political dialogue and effective coordination among the various stakeholders. In conclusion, we believe that the Security Council should give serious thought to the relevant observations and recommendations made by our briefers today.

We thank the delegation of Egypt for convening today’s debate, which serves to highlight the direct influence of peacekeeping operations on the achievement of the overall goal of maintaining peace, especially in situations where security is fragile or countries are being rebuilt after conflict. Conflicts have become increasingly complex and ever-more fractious and difficult to predict. The old and new drivers of conflict have serious implications for efforts to move international, regional and national processes beyond conflict prevention and conflict resolution. Our success depends, therefore, on pooling our efforts in the main areas of United Nations action, which are peace and security and human rights. Mandate development should be accompanied by the Council’s strategic vision of the desired outcome, with adequate time allotted and possibilities for consultations with experts on a wide range of issues. Sustaining peace requires engagement and coordination among the General Assembly, Security Council and the Economic and Social Council, in close cooperation with the United Nations country teams and the Peacebuilding Commission. The Commission must serve as an advisory and coordination bridge among all actors and assist in the mobilization of resources. It is therefore important to strengthen the Peacebuilding Support Office and the Peacebuilding Fund with long-term, predictable funding from donors, the World Bank and regional financial institutions. Success also depends on having realistic timelines for United Nations peace operations and development assistance. Sustaining peace after conflict is a particularly lengthy and costly challenge. Thus, conflict prevention and resolution, recovery, development, together with disarmament, demobilization and reintegration programmes are important components of sustaining peace. Peacebuilding requires the increased participation of women in the prevention and resolution of conflict. Also important is the inclusive engagement of youth, together with parliamentarians, religious leaders, civil society and grassroots organizations. National reconciliation and peace processes must be inclusive, bearing in mind that conflict and peace impact every person in a society. We also need to strengthen the peacebuilding capability of the United Nations system and to pay more attention to the timeline and the management of transitions and smooth handovers to the Government and the United Nations country team. If we are focused only on conflict prevention without addressing the root causes of conflict, we run the risk of seeing the conflict re-emerge. Therefore, we need to resolve the drivers of conflict, the economic and environmental issues, and ensure that we fight mismanagement. Peace agreements need to guarantee legal land rights and introduce effective land registration and administration. Investments must be made in preventing deterioration in the quantity and quality of water resources due to climate change, pollution, privatization and inequities in resource distribution. Transboundary water disputes are widely prevalent and should be regulated politically, as well as the mass migration of people caused by climate change. That means the Security Council needs to be climate sensitive as well. Since the majority of peacekeeping operations are in Africa, Kazakhstan supports the focus on Africa’s peace, security, governance and development. (spoke in English) Africa needs peace and stability — the bedrock for development. Kazakhstan has therefore proposed a new approach to eliminate the threat of war: the establishment of the 2045 Global Strategic Initiative Plan by the United Nations centenary, as presented last year to the General Assembly by our President, Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev (see A/70/PV.13, p. 46). The aim is to create global development based on fair conditions and a situation in which all nations would have equal access to accountable world infrastructure, resources and markets. Finally, Kazakhstan is committed to sustainable peace as the fundamental premise for all efforts to achieve regional and global stability.

I would like to thank Egypt for bringing a very important issue to the forefront of discussion in the Council. The interest of the wider United Nations membership in today’s debate is a testament to the importance and the relevance of this subject. I also extend my gratitude to all three briefers for their highly useful and important briefings. Ukraine aligns itself with the statement to be delivered by the observer of the European Union later. In my national capacity, I would like to add the following. It is obvious that peacekeeping in its current state faces challenges that did not exist a decade ago, to say nothing of the days when the concept of peacekeeping was in its inception. Nevertheless, United Nations peace operations have proved to be a highly adaptive instrument that contributes much to the resolution of numerous conflicts. In recent years, the Council and the General Assembly have thoroughly considered and passed several important decisions on United Nations activities aimed at upholding and sustaining peace. The imultaneous resolutions on sustaining peace (Security Council resolution 2282 (2016) and General Assembly resolution 70/262) have become a significant step forward in the implementation of a conflict-prevention approach. The conclusions and recommendations of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations made us take a fresh look at the nature and challenges of peacekeeping operations. In today’s highly volatile world there is a lot of demand for greater United Nations engagement in the area of peace and security. In most cases, sustainable de-escalation and progress in peaceful settlements and peacebuilding require a robust international security presence. We fully recognize the critical importance of peacebuilding architecture in finding effective ways to support countries emerging from conflict. To be successful in this endeavour, the United Nations approach must be based on coherence among the political, security and development pillars. Enabling countries to put in place effective and inclusive national mechanisms and institutions that can address socioeconomic and political root causes of conflict must become a priority for the whole United Nations system. Those include issues that are related to the promotion and the protection of human rights and to ensuring that women play an active role at all stages of peace consolidation. Incorporating human rights- related tasks into peacekeeping operation mandates and human rights components into peace operations are also essential to prevent conflict, as doing so would contribute to the de-escalation of and reduced potential for conflict re-emergence. When we consider the transition from peacekeeping to peacebuilding activities, the following elements are equally important. First, national ownership is an indispensable condition for the establishment of both effective and efficient core State capacities, leading to a more stable and viable State. The purpose of institution-building is to reduce the dependence of post- conflict Governments on the international community and to promote self-reliance. Yet, the fact that many post-conflict countries relapse into violence leaves no doubt about the need for extreme prudence in planning the transition of responsibilities from the international community to national authorities, especially in the security sector. Secondly, consensus between domestic and international stakeholders on a broad peacebuilding agenda is important for the success of institution-building and peacebuilding endeavours as a whole. If there is a lack of understanding on either side, there will be little tangible progress in securing a lasting peace. Thirdly, given the crucial significance of post- conflict institution-building to the success of the overall peacebuilding efforts, my delegation supports the approach of integrating the institution-building perspective, tailored to each country and situation, into the mandates of respective United Nations missions from their early stages. Fourthly, we believe in the transformative power of relevant regional and subregional organizations in connection with peacebuilding. Over the past decade, the role of the African Union in promoting peace and sustainable development among African States has increased exponentially. The African Union has demonstrated its ability to take the lead in the effective resolution of conflicts, and its views and policies on this matter are of particular value to the United Nations. Finally, the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is ideally placed to bring together external State and non-State actors with the aim of securing the creation of credible, legitimate, accountable and resilient institutions in countries emerging from conflict. Therefore, the PBC should play a leading role in enabling the United Nations system to establish an integrated approach to institution-building. As an advisory body, the Commission has a crucial convening role to bridge security, development and human rights engagements. The Council should consider it a viable tool at its disposal when situations are no longer in a “crisis” stage but are still considered fragile and deserving of more dedicated, targeted and sustained attention. That relates also to the consideration of peacebuilding-related mandates of peacekeeping and special political missions, as well as to debates on possible drawdown and termination of missions. For instance, the idea of inviting representatives of the Peacebuilding Commission country-specific configurations to take part in the Council’s respective field visits deserves thorough consideration. Such a practice could contribute to better coordination of the work done in New York and activities in the field.

We would like to thank Egypt for organizing today’s discussion. We hope it will promote an understanding of the subtleties of Security Council mandates in the areas of peacekeeping and peacebuilding, as well as defining the boundaries between those two important focuses of international support. We are grateful to Deputy Secretary-General Mohammed, to Mr. Gert Rosenthal, Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture, and to Mr. Youssef Mahmoud of the Independent High-level Panel on Peace Operations for their detailed briefings, which serve as an excellent basis for discussion. Since the publication of the reports of those two groups (see S/2015/490 and S/2015/446), Member States have come a long way in developing specific, consensus decisions that are embodied in the annual reports of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations of the General Assembly and in resolution 2282 (2016). While that resolution, on reform of the peacebuilding architecture, did not change the fundamentals of the work involved, it outlined the specifics of its various tasks. It affirmed host Governments’ primary responsibility for identifying and implementing peacebuilding strategies and clearly established that sustaining peace is a shared task and responsibility that needs to be fulfilled by the Government and all other national stakeholders. The approach to sustaining peace today is often a very broad one. First and foremost, it is inextricably linked to post-conflict reconstruction and the prevention of relapses into conflict. But before that can happen, it is essential that existing conflicts be settled and a robust peace assured. For that we need to understand a conflict’s root causes, each of which has its own genesis and individual specifics. We believe in establishing clear tasks for missions aimed at eliminating the causes that are particular to a conflict. Loading up mandates with generic functions not only does not improve the peacekeeping operations’ effectiveness, it increases their financial cost. As far as we are concerned, there are specialized United Nations bodies and international mechanisms for dealing with such issues. We do not support the policy of expanding the right of Blue Helmets to use force. While preventive action is important, excessive interest in it is dangerous, as is involving peacekeepers in offensive and counter- terrorism operations. We do not want peacekeepers themselves to be dragged into conflicts. Sustaining peace is impossible without a political process and national reconciliation, and should unquestionably be seen as key to peacekeeping operations. Today we were pleased to hear many delegations, including the People’s Republic of China, the United States, France, Sweden and many others, say that peacekeeping missions’ main goal is helping to achieve a political settlement. In some cases, there may be reasons for directing peacekeepers to assist in addressing issues such as disarmament, demobilization and integration, security sector reform and so forth. We cannot support tying tasks that belong to sustaining peace, peacebuilding and peacekeeping directly to issues of sustainable development and achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. They are connected, of course, but not always in a straight line. Peace by itself does not guarantee development, or vice versa. In general, we base our understanding of the concept of sustaining peace, as enshrined in identical Security Council and General Assembly resolutions on the peacebuilding architecture, as a way to eradicate the root causes of conflicts and bring about national reconciliation and reconstruction.

Bolivia would like to thank the Deputy Secretary-General for her report on the contribution of peacekeeping missions to achieving sustainable peace. We are also grateful to to Mr. Youssef Mahmoud and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal for their informative briefings and to the Egyptian presidency for convening a debate today that has enabled us to explore the effectiveness, significance and relevance of the current mandates of United Nations peace operations. The challenge for peacekeeping operations has to do with their ability to use the tools they need, tools whose use must be facilitated through measurable, clear, coherent and achievable mandates, as is laid out in the report (S/2015/446) of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations, without forgetting that the tools of first resort are preventive diplomacy, strategic alliances with regional bodies and post-conflict peacebuilding. Preventive diplomacy is vital and should be strengthened through mediation, dialogue, good offices, confidence-building measures and the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations itself regarding State sovereignty, and should not be used as an instrument for intervention. Such measures, along with strict regard for civilian populations’ human rights and dignity, should govern the conduct of peacekeeping missions, creating ways to achieve connection and cohesion that can ensure coordination with and the participation of local communities and civil society in general. There should be no military option in conflict resolution. In that regard, we believe that a mission’s success depends in part on preventive diplomacy based on an active political process, and with goals that are commensurate with its capabilities and resources, that correspond to the purposes for which they were conceived, and that are framed by the principles governing them — above all the consent of the parties — with a comprehensive strategy capable of tackling the situation and progressing systematically towards its primary goal, through a consensus political process that facilitates peacebuilding and in particular promotes national ownership. Success also depends on establishing realistic deadlines both for peacekeeping operations and other peacebuilding activities, and on their ability to adapt to the realities of a particular situation, all of which should be clearly defined in their mandates, while working with the communities involved — including women and young people — to help to build their confidence in political processes, and with zero tolerance for sexual violence. The more than 60 years of experience that the United Nations has accumulated in peacekeeping operations have given it invaluable knowledge and experience that no other body possesses, which is why we know that it is impossible to fulfil a mandate without a Government’s trust and active participation. Independence, neutrality and respect for States and their peoples’ rights must be observed at all times, because that is how the United Nations becomes a valid stakeholder in promoting political processes, coordinating alliances between States and facilitating the work of staff deployed on the ground. We should make greater analytical use of strategic reviews and the other tools that we possess in order to monitor, evaluate and verify not only whether a mission is achieving its goals but also if it has adequate numbers of troops and, if necessary, whether the civilian population’s human rights and the purposes and principles of the Charter are being respected, since a mission can often end up in a vicious circle of self- propagating bureaucracies that distort its mandates. In that regard, it is crucial to ensure that when a peace operation’s mandate is about to expire, a serious effort is made to reformulate it and enable its peacebuilding tasks to be achieved. Similarly, it is important to work to strengthen closer strategic alliances with regional and subregional bodies. We should prioritize developing and deepening links that incorporate innovative working methods based on predictable funding, for they are vital to sustaining peace. One such clear example is the strategic partnership between the Security Council and the African Union Peace and Security Council, both committed to developing a structured, equitable relationship and to strengthening their partnership with mutual support and continued technical assistance on the political, security, cross-border and preventive diplomacy fronts, including the management of transboundary waters, through mediation and the exercise of good offices. We are looking forward to the visit to the African Union headquarters in the coming days in order to strengthen our partnership and the joint work of both organizations. Restoring a post-conflict society requires a great deal of effort planning and implementing the experience gained on the ground, working together with Governments to implement agreements between the parties, demobilization, reintegration, disarmament, the removal of anti-personnel landmines, economic development and addressing the causes of the conflict. All of these are issues that need to be taken into account in order to promote and consolidate sustainable peace. The inclusion of society in the peace processes is key to promoting confidence, given that it can take years to make this happen. Its inclusion can play an important role in the prevention and resolution of conflicts and in peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts and in building peaceful and resilient societies. A clear example of this is the peace process in Colombia, whose Final Agreement established measures for the reintegration of former combatants in civil society, along with the support of regional organizations and the international community in general, in order to establish lasting and sustainable peace. Finally, Bolivia reaffirms its support to the work and commitment of peacekeeping operations and thanks United Nations staff and peacekeeping personnel, as well as the staff of the troop- and police-contributing counties, for their sacrifices and hard work. They are men and women who risk their lives on a daily basis to build a lasting and sustainable peace in order to fulfil the principles and objectives of the Charter of the United Nations.

I shall now make a statement in my capacity as the representative of Egypt. I would like to thank Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed; Mr. Youssef Mahmoud, Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute and member of the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations; and Ambassador Rosenthal, Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture, for their participation and for their very useful briefings. Over the past decade, we have seen the Security Council address the unrealistic burdens of peacekeeping operations without taking into account challenges that are beyond its capacity or the political situation on the ground. Therefore, the deployment of some peacekeeping operations has been merely a symbol of the inability of the United Nations and the Security Council to achieve a definitive settlement to conflicts that have lasted for decades. Although we are all aware that the reform of peacekeeping operations mandates is unavoidable, reform efforts have attempted to address technical and operational deficiencies by guaranteeing units and equipment, ensuring discipline and proper behaviour of troops and the physical protection of civilians as the only criteria of operational efficiency. While these aspects are very important in promoting the credibility and efficiency of peacekeeping operations, they are not enough, in and of themselves, to achieve our goals. Without a comprehensive vision of how to improve the situation or a review of the peacekeeping mandate so it can meet the host country’s needs and the priorities and deal with the local specificities and without a broad concept of protection that focuses on State capacity- building, we are jeopardizing significant humanitarian and material resources in peacekeeping operations and peacebuilding efforts. These efforts will diminish and might even collapse under national and even regional social, political and economic pressures. Therefore, guaranteeing the means, the resources and the necessary troops for United Nations operations creates a secure political environment in which it is possible to promote national ownership and efforts aimed at peacebuilding and achieving a political settlement to disputes. Such efforts should carried out through programmes aimed at building State institutions, especially those that provide services, such as security, justice, education and health care. Those are the services that make it possible to preserve the social fabric of society and relaunch the economy while improving access to work opportunities, resources and markets. In that regard, I would like to highlight a number of elements that we believe are important to that end. First, it is essential to guarantee a political framework and solution to a conflict with international and regional support. Despite the pressures and the criticisms levied at the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur, it goes without saying that its presence has directly contributed to shedding light on the degree of humanitarian suffering in Darfur and it has laid the foundations for national and regional political efforts to put an end to conflict in the region. With a view to drawing down the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur, it is important to coordinate efforts with the Sudanese Government with regard to the length and size of the United Nations mandate during the transition period, with a focus on the specificities of the situation in Darfur. That will require us to address the root causes of the conflict, promote national reconciliation by encouraging development and restoring citizens’ hope with regard to their future security and stability. We must take note of the lessons learned and best practices of past missions, be they in Sierra Leone, Timor-Leste or, most recently, in Côte d’Ivoire. Secondly, a strategic partnership with the host country that focuses on national ownership and emphasizes national dialogue, reconciliation and mutual confidence-building is essential. We must underscore the importance of national capacity- building based on national and local priorities, while guaranteeing cooperation with national authorities and building their confidence in United Nations missions. This is fundamental to the success of the mission. The success of the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire in laying the groundwork for the Ivorian forces to agree on a national framework for the settlement of disputes is a good example of the role of United Nations missions in preserving such frameworks through coordination with different regional partners and international stakeholders. Contrarily, the United Nations Mission in South Sudan has experienced real difficulties in achieving a strategic partnership as it lacks a common vision that could bring Council members and regional forces together in order to define the Mission’s mandate based on the specificities of the political and security situation in South Sudan. Thirdly, exit strategies for the mission must be laid out when the mandate is being established and benchmarks and timelines must be clearly defined and regularly reviewed. That would allow the Council to control and improve mandates based on the situation on the ground and depending on emerging needs and the political situation. In that regard, I note the experience of the United Nations Mission in Liberia and that of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti. The mandates of both of these Missions extended perhaps longer than necessary because of a lack of a clear vision at the outset, when their mandates were being defined and troops were being deployed, with regard to the Missions’ role in peacebuilding and sustaining peace. If we want to achieve our goals, we need to coordinate with our partners within United Nations programmes and other agencies, and work with international institutions and bilateral partners. It is key to develop peacebuilding programmes in order to improve national mechanisms that would then make it possible to attack the root causes of conflict and prevent their recurrence. In that context, we appreciate the increasingly important role of the Peacebuilding Fund. Fourthly, we should study the role of peacekeeping operations in providing a continuum of responses to conflict situations. That role is important in the context of ongoing and full coordination with agencies, entities and programmes of the United Nations system. We call for a review of missions the in the Central African Republic, South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in order to better take into account the political and operational approach that would be most comprehensive. That review must be considered in context and based on each mission’s defined framework. We must promote harmony in developing and implementing the mandates of peacekeeping operations in parallel to regional policies, as well as in keep with the relevant sanctions regimes. Taken together, those measures constitute a complete mechanism for the promotion of peacebuilding and sustaining peace. I will stop here as it relates to the consultative role of the Peacebuilding Commission, one that has been increasingly bolstered in order to promote the Security Council’s capacity to adapt peacekeeping operations to a comprehensive vision of providing sustaining peace. It also enables us to address the root causes of conflict. As a coordinator of that role, Egypt will endeavour to make the role evolve in order to better meet the needs of the Council in the upcoming period — especially with regard to reviewing peacekeeping operations. Finally, based on our responsibilities as one of the main troop-contributing countries to peacekeeping operations, Egypt has proposed to host a ministerial-level meeting of all troop-contributing countries in 2018. We would like to work with the Security Council, the Secretariat and troop-contributing countries so that the meeting can be successful in promoting our efforts in the area of peacekeeping operations and an important turning point. In the context of the African Union, Egypt proposed setting up and hosting a centre on reconstruction and development in post-conflict situation — based on our conviction in the importance of development in sustaining peace. I now resume my functions as President of the Security Council. I wish to remind all speakers to limit their statements to no more than four minutes in order to enable the Council to carry out its work expeditiously. Delegations with lengthy statements are kindly requested to circulate the text in writing and to deliver a condensed version when speaking in the Chamber. I also wish to inform all participants that this open debate will continue through the lunch hour, as we have a large number of speakers. I now give the floor to the representative of Peru.

At the outset, my delegation would like to thank Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Mr. Youssef Mahmoud and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal for their critical and thought-provoking briefings. We also thank the Egyptian delegation for having organized this open debate, which enables us to continue the dialogue on the various dimensions of sustaining peace. Today we analyse the contribution of peacekeeping operations. Peru believes that such operations can and must contribute to reaching the general goal of sustainable peace. The United Nations, including the Security Council, is called upon to support transitions in conflict and post-conflict situations and to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, with access to justice for all and effective and responsible institutions — in line with the Charter of the United Nations and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goal 16, which have universal scope. From the traditional perspective of international peace and security, we strive for peacekeeping operations to address and overcome the root causes of conflict. For example, efforts to create basic infrastructure on the ground, as conducted by a Peruvian engineering firm in the Central African Republic, leaves a legacy that transcends the work of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic. The institutionalization of those concrete goals must be systematized starting at the planning stage of peacekeeping operations, which, in turn, requires renewed cooperation and coordination among the numerous players called upon to reach said goals within and outside of the United Nations. In that regard, the contribution of peacekeeping operations to sustaining peace must go hand in hand with the multidimensional processes on the ground — including military and security aspects, which, incidentally, must be adequately financed and supported — but must transcend them to tackle new and complex challenges. The Peacebuilding Commission is called upon to play an advisory role and, within its sphere of competence, to contribute to more comprehensive, effective and efficient approaches. My delegation stresses the importance of developing a common political vision to enable integrated action by all agencies linked to peacekeeping operations, inter alia troop-contributing countries and regional and subregional organizations. Above all, the Governments concerned need to participate in the transition process, as do other relevant national actors, including women and youth, as they are the ones who are ultimately called upon to maintain peace in their countries. The principles of responsibility and national ownership and inclusion cannot be ignored. When the Security Council establishes the mandate for a peacekeeping operation, it must specifically take that political perspective into account and define realistic, concrete and measurable goals for the mission. The terms of its mandate must be set in accordance with the general goal of sustainable peace. The ensuing monitoring should allow the Council to reassess the information in the light of updated information and relevant indicators as it relates to the fulfilment of said goal, which, without a doubt, will enhance the process and promote pragmatism, integration and flexibility within the missions, and will empower the actors that actually deploy on the ground. In conclusion, Peru, a country that contributes to peacekeeping operations and that is ready to serve the international community as a non-permanent member of the Council, renews — in the current context of redefining new collective security paradigms — its commitment to efforts under way to develop more sound and effective United Nations responses, in line with the purposes and principles enshrined in the founding Charter of the United Nations.

I now give the floor to the representative of Norway.

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the five Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and my own country, Norway. Let me add that it is with some degree of humility that I address the Chamber today, as one of my first official actions as Norway’s Ambassador to the United Nations. I look forward to getting to know everyone in the coming weeks and months. The Nordic countries would like to commend Egypt for initiating this debate, which leads up to the high-level open debate on peace operations to be held during Ethiopia’s presidency next month. The concept of sustaining peace marks a paradigm shift in our approach to prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. It requires more holistic strategies, while drawing seamlessly on all the tools at the disposal of the United Nations along the continuum between conflict and peace. It is consistent with the reviews conducted over the past few years and is at the core of Secretary-General’s vision for reform of the United Nations — a vision to which the Nordic countries fully subscribe. I would like to focus on three areas in particular where the Nordic countries believe the Security Council can contribute to sustainable peace. First, we believe that the Security Council should include a long-term perspective in its mission mandates. Mandates should be based on a joint United Nations analysis that considers the root causes of a conflict in order to lay the foundations for lasting peace. In our view, the recent mandates for the transitions of the United Nations Missions in Liberia and Haiti provide interesting lessons that may inspire other mandate processes. In Liberia, the mandate charged the Secretariat with developing a peacebuilding plan in close coordination with the Government and the United Nations country team. It specifically emphasized the important convening role of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) in developing such a plan, a role that the PBC’s Liberia configuration has played and will continue to play. In Haiti, the Council has decided to establish a follow-on peacekeeping mission — the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti — to ease the transition as the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti winds down, thereby enabling Haiti to consolidate the gains it has made towards sustainable peace. Those two examples offer different lessons that could be included in a catalogue of best practices for transitions. We propose that Member States and the Secretariat develop a catalogue of this kind, which could guide the Secretariat in drawing up future reports to the Council and form the basis for well-informed mandate discussions in the future. Secondly, United Nations peace operations should be made more people-centred and inclusive and should engage more actively with local communities. That was one of the key recommendations of the High- level Independent Panel on Peace Operations. In our view, more attention should be paid to this aspect when mandating and designing peace operations. Missions should be enabled to engage more actively with local Governments and communities, including women and young people. The participation of women must be ensured at all levels. A more people-centred approach requires close coordination with United Nations country teams in order to avoid duplication and maximize results on the ground. Thirdly, ensuring predictable and sustained financing for peacebuilding is crucial. Peacebuilding should not be dependent on voluntary contributions alone. When large missions wind down and withdraw, a large amount of funding and a considerable source of revenues and economic activity are lost. That may result in severe economic challenges for the country concerned, which in turn could undermine the transition process. Close consultation between the Council and the PBC is needed in order to reduce the negative economic consequences of transitions. We look forward to the Secretary-General’s forthcoming report on sustaining peace, which we hope will include guidance on how revenue gaps of this kind can be prevented and bridged in future.

I now give the floor to the representative of Morocco.

I would like to thank Egypt for organizing today’s debate on such a topical issue and for its dynamic and successful presidency of the Security Council in the month of August. I also thank Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, Mr. Youssef Mahmoud and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal for their informative briefings. For more than two years now, the United Nations has been at a turning point in its existence: exciting discussions are taking place everywhere, new concepts are emerging and focusing the attention of the Member States, and innovative initiatives aimed at streamlining, optimizing and improving the performance of the Organization are increasingly taking shape. Those lively debates show that Member States are aware of the urgent need to reform the work of the Organization in order to make sure that it is at the level of addressing the complex and inextricable challenges that we see proliferating day in and day out. In fact, we can say that, after decades of effort and sacrifice on the part of the international community to bring peace to the four corners of the globe, it is obvious now that a major challenge for peace is precisely that it has a very short- lived resilience to tensions and destabilizing trends in still-fragile countries. That was confirmed by the three recent reviews on peacekeeping, peacebuilding and resolution 1325 (2000), on women and peace and security. This conclusion is therefore clear and obvious: the efforts made by the United Nations to establish, maintain and consolidate peace will be in vain if the sought-after peace is not sustained. And the share of responsibility assumed by United Nations actors in cases of lack of peace resilience is very real, as reflected in the report on the review of the peacebuilding architecture (see S/2015/490). The fragmentation that exists among various United Nations organs involved in the pursuit of peace and the narrow prism through which peacebuilding has been viewed so far are examples of this, to name but two forms of dysfunction. We therefore welcome the Secretary-General’s efforts to rectify the lack of interaction among United Nations bodies. In that regard, there is no need to recall that sustaining peace, which includes conflict prevention, gives new impetus to the work of the United Nations peacebuilding architecture. The threats to peace are increasingly multidimensional and constantly changing. Therefore, United Nations organs are constantly being called upon to adapt in order to better respond to new challenges to peace in a timely manner. The spearhead of United Nations efforts to restore peace in fragile and conflict-ridden countries are the peacekeeping operations, which, over the years and through the efforts and sacrifices of their members, embody the irreversible commitment of the international community to protecting suffering populations. When they have clear, realistic and achievable mandates and the necessary political support, peacekeeping operations are one of the most flexible and best-adapted tools that the United Nations has for meeting the challenges to the maintenance of international peace and security. The reverse is also true, however. When mandates are not adapted to situations on the ground, they can have mixed results and endanger both the populations to be protected and the contingents in the field. As the main weak link in this broad continuum of peace that runs from prevention, conflict resolution and peacekeeping to peacebuilding and long-term development, peacekeeping missions are the main interested parties in the new global strategy promoted by the Secretary-General to achieve the desired goal of sustaining peace. In that regard, I would like to make the following remarks. It is key to make sure that the capabilities of peacekeeping missions are in line with the mandate and needs of the theatre of operations. Assuming that there is no standard or pre-established formula for every situation, each mission has to be considered in its particular political and security context. Changing criteria, such as the geographical diversity of a mission and its development over time, can provide it with a certain margin of manoeuvre without incurring additional costs. Putting together an operation is not an end in and of itself, nor is it the only solution possible. It is important to make sure that efforts to stabilize and peacefully settle conflicts are undertaken at the same time as military operations deployed to protect civilians. We have to recall that, even if their cost does not reach even the level of 0.5 per cent of world military expenditure, the crucial role played by peacebuilding operations in the establishment of lasting peace is undeniable. We therefore have to pay greater attention to peacebuilding not only in countries emerging from conflict but also in countries that are still fragile. We need to make sure that efforts be brought together in order to restore peace, build peace and ultimately sustain peace.

I now give the floor to the representative of Australia.

I am honoured to speak on behalf of Canada, New Zealand and Australia (the CANZ group). We are committed to implementing the sustaining peace resolutions (Security Council resolution 2282 (2016) and General Assembly resolution 70/262) and believe that peacekeeping operations make a key contribution to sustainable peace. The resolutions emphasize that sustaining peace must become a shared task and responsibility. Better reflecting the primacy of politics was highlighted by the report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (S/2015/446) as one of the four essential shifts for peace operations reform. Advancing these goals requires the continued leadership of the Security Council, the Secretariat and Member States, and includes a commitment to improving in three areas on which we will focus today: managing transitions, integrating sustaining peace with ongoing reform processes, and financing for peacebuilding. The time for engagement is now. Failed transitions out of peacekeeping missions increase the risk of relapse into conflict. Improving transitions was a key motivator for the sustaining peace resolutions. The issue is now urgent, particularly given the scheduled closure in Liberia, the downsizing in Darfur and the transition in Haiti. Effective transitions require broad consultation and access to financing to ensure that resourcing and policy approaches are appropriate. In the spirit of more inclusive working methods, the Council should engage closely with the Secretariat and the Peacebuilding Commission, which should in turn engage across the United Nations system and outside it, with the international financial institutions, civil society and others. We commend the assessment and planning for ongoing peacebuilding needs in Liberia, noting that capacity-mapping efforts reveal a troubling capacity cliff in the United Nations country teams’ ability to take on key tasks. That needs to be addressed. Secondly, increasing predictable, sustained financing for peacebuilding must be a high priority if we want the pivot to prevention to achieve its potential. Better coordination with other peacebuilding contributors — including United Nations agencies, the international financial institutions, regional and bilateral partners, and donors — is crucial. This is especially the case when operating environments are fluid. Donors also have a key role to play in addressing the fragmentation of United Nations peacebuilding financing. By requesting joint analysis and contributing to pooled and unearmarked funds, donors can powerfully incentivise coordinated and coherent United Nations peacebuilding efforts. We reiterate our call for ambitious options to be put forward for predictable and sustained financing, including on assessed and voluntary contributions. In addition to rationalizing existing resources for peacebuilding, we must further empower the United Nations peacebuilding architecture to coordinate and engage more broadly in order to access funding and conduct joint analyses. We must also focus on increasing women’s participation in peacebuilding. We commend the Peacebuilding Fund for allocating 20 per cent to women’s empowerment projects in 2016, and call for continued efforts and increased financing to support women in actively participating. Thirdly, we urge continued efforts to align reform processes with the sustaining peace perspective. It is essential that the current range of reform processes contribute to improving the ability of the United Nations system as a whole, including peacekeeping operations specifically, to build and sustain peace. Those responsible for reform processes should fully absorb and apply the sustaining peace resolutions in their work. We urge the Council, the Secretariat, funds and programmes and all Member States to support reforms and retain the focus on why the reforms are being pursued. The Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial Conference, to be held in Vancouver, Canada, in November, will be a good opportunity to advance this perspective. In closing, CANZ strongly supports implementation of sustaining peace and recognizes the vital role of United Nations peacekeeping missions in achieving this. We are committed to reform efforts that are coherent, coordinated and lead to effective United Nations action, including on peacebuilding.

I now give the floor to the representative of Guatemala.

Let me begin by thanking you, Sir, and the delegation of the Arab Republic of Egypt for convening this open debate on the potential contribution of United Nations peacekeeping operations to the overarching goal of sustaining peace, and for our concept paper (S/2017/692, annex). My delegation would like to take this opportunity to thank the Deputy Secretary-General, Ms. Amina Mohammed; Mr. Yousef Mahmoud, as a member of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations; and in particular my friend and compatriot Ambassador Gert Rosenthal. Peacekeeping is one of the pre-eminent responsibilities of the United Nations. The Blue Helmets are the hope of civilian populations that face and suffer the serious consequences of conflicts. Peace missions have mandates of a unique character, the essential purpose of which is to protect civilians and to ensure peace according to the specific context of each country. We therefore welcome any initiative that encourages and strengthens the relationship of the Council with the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms. Taking into account the fact that peacekeeping operations do not always address the root causes of conflict, we believe that their design must comprehensively and coherently address conditions on the ground and the specific characteristics of the population in order to better plan and efficiently coordinate all efforts to use political, social and development tools based on successful experiences and lessons learned. Every effort to that end requires a deep and authentic knowledge of the situation on the ground — as well noted this morning by Mr. Mahmoud — particularly national ownership and respect for national sovereignty, as reflected in the preambular paragraphs of resolution 2282 (2016). My delegation is convinced that peacekeeping operations focused on fostering sustainable peace and conflict prevention will allow us to move systematically towards a comprehensive reconstruction of both the social fabric and the elements that are conducive to the integral development of the population in question in order to achieve true and lasting peace, which is not only the absence of conflict but also the opportunity to build the conditions of an inclusive national agenda, focused on development and respect for human rights. It is appropriate to recall the important role the United Nations peacebuilding architecture can and should play in providing sufficient assistance and knowledge to allow the Security Council to determine the conditions required by the country hosting a peacekeeping operation in order to avoid unnecessary prolongation of the mission’s mandate or the stagnation of the peace process. Experience has shown that without a well-planned integration, implementation and finalization strategy, the risks of relapse or prolongation in a conflict situation can be high as well as costly. It is therefore important that, in planning for the transition of a mission, it be carried out in consultation with and with the support of the host country, including taking into consideration ways of minimizing potential collateral effects of the mission. We advocate and recognize the importance of the allocation of sufficient resources for peacebuilding components within peacekeeping operations, including during the transition and downsizing phases, so as to support the stability and continuity of peacebuilding activities. Lastly, the Security Council has the responsibility to determine the existence of any threat to peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression and to make recommendations for the maintenance of international peace and security. Guatemala hopes that the new budget cuts that some members of the Council are promoting will not affect the implementation of sustainable peace in the host countries of missions where a transition is under way. In view of its powers, or rather its responsibilities, we urge the Security Council to include the concept of sustainable peace and to focus on implementing its recommendations for the maintenance of international peace and security.

I now give the floor to the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

It is an honour for the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to take the floor on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) at this open debate on a matter to which we attach great importance, taking into account the fact that 88 per cent of peacekeeping personnel deployed in the field come from non-aligned countries. At the outset, we would like to convey, on behalf of the States members of the Movement, our best wishes to the delegation of the Arab Republic of Egypt for a successful month in the conduct of the work of the Council, as well as our appreciation for its efforts in preparing the concept paper (S/2017/692, annex) for this meeting. We would also like to acknowledge the diligence with which the delegation of the People’s Republic of China carried out the work of this organ in July. Likewise, we should like to thank Her Excellency Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed; Mr. Youssef Mahmoud, Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute; and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, former Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture, for their valuable briefings. The States members of the Movement reiterate their commitment to the promotion of the peaceful settlement of disputes, in accordance with Article 2 and Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, as well as with relevant United Nations resolutions and international law as a whole, in order to contribute to strengthening international peace and security and to save future generations from the scourge of war, including by strengthening the role of the United Nations in the peaceful settlement of disputes, conflict prevention and resolution, confidence-building, national reconciliation, post-conflict peacebuilding, rehabilitation, reconstruction and development. In that regard, we stress that, in the context of a comprehensive approach and the objective of a lasting peace and security, the implementation of all tasks mandated to peacekeeping operations should be supported and accompanied by a parallel, comprehensive and inclusive peace process that is well planned and carefully designed and based on national ownership and the support of the international community, as well as the consent and compliance of the parties concerned. In that respect, I would refer to resolution 2086 (2013), which was welcomed by the Movement, with its particular focus on multidimensional peacekeeping as an important contribution to pursuing a comprehensive, coherent and integrated approach to multidimensional peacekeeping and post-conflict peacebuilding. At the seventeenth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, held in September 2016 on Margarita island, Venezuela, the Heads of State and Government stressed that United Nations peacekeeping operations must not be used as a substitute for addressing the root causes of conflict, which should be addressed in a coherent, well-planned, coordinated and comprehensive manner, together with other political, social, economic and developmental instruments. They further stressed that due consideration should be given by the United Nations to the manner in which those efforts can be carried out from the early stage of United Nations engagement in post-conflict situations and continue without interruption after the departure of peacekeeping operations, so as to ensure a smooth transition to lasting peace and security and sustainable development. In that context, they stressed the need to improve synergies between peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities so as to attain the overall objective of sustainable peace. Our position is of great relevance, taking into account that, in most cases, the structural causes of conflicts include, among others, poverty, hunger, inequalities — including those related to gender — violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, injustice, lack of jobs and access to education, poor accountability and mismanagement of natural resources, all of which are core elements of a comprehensive approach specifically to achieving sustainable peace. On that occasion, the Heads of State and Government also reaffirmed the Movement’s principled position on peacekeeping operations, which must be carried out with strict adherence to the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. They also emphasized that respect for the principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence of States, as well as non-intervention in internal affairs, are key elements of joint efforts in the promotion of international peace and security. In that regard, they reiterated that respect for the basic principles of peacekeeping — namely, the consent of the parties, impartiality and non-use of force except in self-defence — is essential to the success of peacekeeping operations. Preserving, promoting, achieving and maintaining international peace and security should remain key priorities of the United Nations agenda, which is why the international community must spare no effort in the fields of conflict prevention and sustaining peace. Therefore, preventing the outbreak, continuation or recurrence of conflict is a collective responsibility. Most important of all, however, it is a national responsibility that could at times benefit from the objective, impartial and supportive assistance that the United Nations is able to provide, upon request and in partnership with regional and subregional organizations and other relevant actors, as appropriate. Moreover, while recognizing that there are various tools available to the international community and the United Nations for ensuring the maintenance of international peace and security, including preventive diplomacy, the Non-Aligned Movement stresses the importance of using such tools in good faith, and not as a tool for interfering in the internal affairs of Member States, in strict compliance with the principles of international law concerning friendly relations and cooperation among States, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations. We also emphasize the need to include and involve all sectors of society in peace processes, including women and youth, who can play an important role in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, as well as in peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts and in building peaceful and resilient societies. The Non-Aligned Movement has taken note of the Secretary-General’s peace and security architecture reform initiative, which has a particular focus on enhancing the meaningful interface between United Nations political efforts and peacekeeping operations on the ground. The need to change compartmentalized thinking within the Organization must not be minimized, including in order for peacekeeping mandates and operations to be well calibrated with the broader political and development objectives necessary for sustaining peace. In that connection, the States members of the Movement reiterate the importance they attach to the deliberations and report of the annual substantive session of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations, which is the only United Nations forum mandated to comprehensively review the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects, and refer to the observations and recommendations reached through consensus in this year’s report on the potential contribution of peacekeeping operations to peacebuilding and sustaining peace. In that regard, we recognize the need for further awareness-raising of personnel deployed in peacekeeping missions about the evolving policy discussions and approaches regarding the field. The Movement also stresses the need for a structural and predictable approach to the triangular consultations among the Security Council, the troop- and police-contributing countries and the Secretariat, with a view to leveraging the potential of peacekeeping mandates and operations for sustaining peace. To conclude, the Non-Aligned Movement looks forward to the Secretary-General’s report on sustaining peace with specific recommendations on, inter alia, how peacekeeping operations can better serve the comprehensive approach of sustaining peace, including during transitions. The Movement wishes to see creative and forward-looking recommendations, particularly on increased, sustainable and predictable resources for sustaining peace, including by enhancing the efficiency of peacekeeping operations, as part of the broad-based framework for sustaining peace in response to the shifting realities on the ground.

I now give the floor to the representative of Brazil.

I thank Egypt for convening today’s important open debate on peacekeeping and sustaining peace. I also thank the Deputy Secretary-General, Ms. Amina Mohammed, Mr. Mahmoud and Ambassador Rosenthal for their informative briefings and leadership in those two relevant areas. The role of United Nations peacekeeping operations has evolved dramatically over the years. Their new tasks include addressing the political, security, humanitarian and development dimensions of complex crises, as well as ensuring the implementation of comprehensive peace agreements. Brazil supports a strategy that takes into account the entire peace continuum, from prevention, conflict resolution and peacekeeping to peacebuilding and long-term development. Today’s operations have moved from the traditional military models of ceasefire observation to become multidimensional, combining military, civilian and political aspects that strive to promote stability in the aftermath of conflict. The Security Council must ensure that peacekeeping operations are fully resourced and entrusted with the appropriate mandate for the specific environment in which they are deployed. It must also ensure that they are adequately equipped to protect themselves and discharge their mandates. The link between policy formulation and implementation on the ground, as well as consultations among the Security Council, the Secretariat and the troop- and police-contributing countries, is also paramount to achieving success. Development, peace and security and human rights are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. Therefore, sustaining peace should flow through the three pillars of United Nations engagement at all stages of conflict. In all its dimensions, sustaining peace needs continued international attention and assistance. Peacekeeping operations have a clear and relevant role in that regard. Preventing the relapse into conflict is also fundamental to peacekeeping. As the Secretary-General’s vision on prevention states, prevention should permeate everything we do and sustaining peace is essential to long-term prevention. Peacekeeping operations are situated within the process of sustaining peace across the conflict cycle. The High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO), which carried out a review of peacekeeping operations and special political missions, made a number of convergent conclusions with the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture. They agreed on the primacy of politics, which recognized that peace operations are a tool to support a political process that must be conceived and planned in support of the broader objective of obtaining political solutions. The Panel also addressed lessons from past peacekeeping operations in sustaining peace and recommended that mission budgets should include the pragmatic resources necessary for mandated tasks to support the sustaining of peace. Programmatic peacebuilding activities in peacekeeping operations mandates should not depend solely on voluntary funds. Community violence reduction activities and quick impact projects are tangible examples of how peacekeeping actions can address issues, such as poverty, the exclusion of young people from the labour market, gender inequality, institutional weaknesses and disputes over land and natural resources. The report of the HIPPO (S/2015/446) recommends that peacebuilding objectives be incorporated into mission mandates at the earliest possible stage of a peacekeeping operation. Brazil has been supporting the United Nations peacebuilding architecture, the framework that birthed the concept of sustaining peace, since the creation of the Peacebuilding Commission, in particular as Chair of the Guinea-Bissau configuration of the Peacebuilding Commission since 2007, and Chair of the Organizational Committee of the Commission from 2014 to 2015. We have been promoting, both bilaterally and multilaterally, sustaining peace initiatives, such as community violence reduction and quick impact projects in different ways during the past decade, including through the implementation of projects on the ground, such as through the scope of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Guinea-Bissau, support via the allocation of resources in the Fifth Committee and the synergies between peacebuilding and peacekeeping in the work of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations. The sustaining peace approach adds considerable value to peacekeeping missions, providing tools for peacekeepers to act as early peacebuilders, beyond overcoming the misconception of sequencing between peacekeeping and peacebuilding. Brazil hopes that sustaining peace will be duly considered in as many United Nations peacekeeping missions as possible, supported by an adequate allocation of resources and strengthened coordination with the peacebuilding architecture, in particular the Peacebuilding Commission, while allowing for the continued implementation of strategic activities, which are crucial to sustaining peace and to ensuring a smooth transition from a traditional peacekeeping operation to either a special political mission or United Nations Country Team. Brazil remains fully committed to those efforts.

I give the floor to the representative of Colombia.

I thank you, Sir, for inviting us to today’s open debate, and for the concept paper (S/2017/692, annex), which provides the background for today’s important discussion. My country shares the vision surrounding the need to adjust the structure of peacekeeping missions to ensure that they are effective and can provide an appropriate response to the current dynamics of armed conflicts. The majority of conflicts are no longer international; they now have diverse origins and connotations, as outlined by resolution 2282 (2016). Like those who spoke before me, in particular Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, I would like to reiterate our belief that we are moving in the right direction in the crucial task of pooling our efforts to contribute to international peacebuilding and security. In a very different and specific context and with the support of the Security Council and of the entire Organization, my country has focused all of the Government’s political will on achieving sustainable and lasting peace. The lessons learned in brokering the peace agreement and from its first special political mission, now nearing completion, which the Security Council approved in January 2016, allow us to categorically state that the success of such a major undertaking depends on a mission whose concept, structure and development consistently responds to the political and social situation on the ground, and not on predetermined formulas to which everyone must conform. We also believe that, in our case, national ownership has been a determining factor in achieving success, which today’s concept paper deems to be essential. As mentioned on other occasions at the Security Council and in other forums, the process conducted in Colombia, through a new tripartite mechanism with regional support from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, the United Nations, the guerrilla armed forces and the Government, along with participation of communities, victims, young people and women, provides lessons that we believe can be analysed and considered in other contexts with complexities that require bold structures, which are underpinned by greater national capacities, possess a clear exit strategy, involve all stakeholders concerned and demand that a more relevant and effective role be played by the Peacebuilding Commission, which requires the tools necessary to carry out such a critical mission. Only in this way will their design not be reduced to the containment of conflicts but to the prevention of their recurrence. As Secretary-General António Guterres has repeatedly said, conflict prevention must be one of the fundamental pillars of the work of the United Nations, and it is essential to incorporate aspects of economic development, social cohesion, gender equality and human rights, among others, in such a way that they translate into a culture of conflict prevention, based on risk management, to achieve sustainable peace. In conclusion, the work of prevention and sustainable peace, which are two principles that we have been able to take from the three reports; the joint Security Council resolution 2282 (2016) and General Assembly resolution 70/262; as well as the Secretary- General’s proposals for reform should result in a strengthened budget that provides the necessary tools to execute this task to which we are all committed.

I now give the floor to the representative of India.

I thank you, Mr. President, for convening this open debate. It has been acknowledged for a long time now that the flagship activity of the United Nations — its peacekeeping operations — is facing severe challenges and is not able to achieve the desired result of bringing sustainable peace to the areas of its deployment. A series of studies, including the report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (S/2015/446), have pointed out the primacy of politics; the need for regular consultations between the Council, the troop-contributing nations and the Secretariat; improved mandate design and implementation; meeting capability requirements for hostile, asymmetric environments; as well as addressing important elements for sustaining peace for better results in peacekeeping operations. This is because the nature of peacekeeping has changed substantially, with modern armed conflicts taking place within a State and involving non-State actors and international terrorist networks. The sheer number of briefings and open debates that continue to be held on this issue in the Security Council indicate that we are grappling with the complexity of issues involved. Operational and logistic issues aside, there is an obvious lack of appropriate investment in political dialogue and a huge mismatch between resource allocation for peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The numerous long-standing chronic armed conflict situations have led to serious deliberations here at the United Nations, especially over the past couple of years, on clarifying the concept of sustaining peace, culminating in the adoption of the landmark identical General Assembly resolution 70/262 and Security Council resolution 2282 (2016). However, it is still not clear how this is to be aligned. The United Nations agencies that have a major role in implementing the sustaining peace agenda are outside the Security Council and have little funding support. We all are aware that fewer than 1 per cent of the funds allocated to peacekeeping are available for peacebuilding efforts. While the normative acknowledgement of the challenges and possible solutions exist, that appears to be mere lip service when it comes to providing the required resources. The long, extended peacekeeping missions that go on for decades and elusive political solutions remind us of the need to focus on long-term investment in sustainable development, institution-building and inclusive political processes. The ongoing transitions in Haiti and Liberia are useful cases for the ongoing discussions on sustaining peace at the United Nations. The ability of the United Nations to invest long term in institution-building and sustainable development in these countries would turn them into examples of how to successfully sustain peace. The current peacekeeping mandates include some elements to restore and rebuild the legitimacy of the State authority in order to prevent the relapse into the conflict and lay the foundations for achieving sustainable peace. However, the challenges in this process include a lack of genuine effort to understand the priorities of the host State and properly incorporate the same into the mandate; and a huge difference between ambitions, capacities and resources. We may consider whether allocation of an appropriate percentage of funds from the peacekeeping budget to activities related to peacebuilding and sustaining peace in those situations, could be an option that would allow us to move forward efforts to achieve sustainable peace in the various intra-State conflicts we are facing. This is in the context of the pressure on the already meagre resources available for the United Nations development system. There is a broad and clear agreement on the need for reform. We appreciate the focus of the Secretary- General on greater collaboration across the three pillars of United Nations work so that resources can be reoriented to build capacity to prevent relapses into conflict. We have noted the intention to co-locate the departments of political affairs and peacekeeping operations for closer coordination. We also look forward to receiving the Secretary-General’s reform proposals in the area of peace and security. We hope that our discussions can move forward our collectively efforts to contribute to the goal of sustaining peace.

I now give the floor to the representative of Turkey.

We thank you, Mr. President, for organizing this open debate. Turkey aligns itself with the statement to be delivered by the observer of the European Union. I now would like to add the following remarks in my national capacity. Since the 2015 review processes on the United Nations peace operations and peacebuilding architecture, there have been renewed efforts to strengthen the Organization’s capacity to respond to international crises in a more effective way. Turkey will continue to support these efforts. Turkey values and contributes to the peaceful settlement of disputes at the regional and international levels. We see great merit and necessity in making political solutions a priority for both conflict prevention and resolution. We also play an active role in international peacekeeping under both the blue banner of the United Nations and the umbrella of different international security institutions. We consider mediation to be a key tool that is worthy of greater investment and that should be more widely utilized in order to bring a peaceful political end to conflicts, as well as to address the root causes thereof. We agree that there is a need for a more coherent and integrated strategy that will ultimately enable the United Nations to be more effective at conflict prevention. Mediation should play a central role in this strategy, in line with the Secretary-General’s surge in peace diplomacy initiative. Turkey, as a friend of sustaining peace, adheres to the overarching objective of the United Nations towards genuine peace, which can only be accomplished through a strong sense of ownership by its Member States. In fact, “sustaining peace” encompasses a wide array of activities and different stages, which the United Nations is already engaged in regarding ongoing conflict prevention and management initiatives. Sustainable development goals, the protection and the promotion of human rights and the rule of law are among those pathways where collective endeavours can pave the way towards sustaining peace. The real potential of sustaining peace lies with the comprehensive approach, coherence and coordination among relevant actors, as well as acting as one. In order to increase the effectiveness of efforts to sustain peace, the United Nations should develop more integrated missions on the ground that are able to build capacity for the host nations and to develop partnerships with relevant regional and international organizations. The United Nations peacebuilding architecture, with its broader scope, should play a more active role in conflict prevention. Turkey is pleased to see the Peacebuilding Commission taking on many files in addition to its traditional configurations with a particular focus on prevention, and we will continue to support the Commission through its voluntary contributions to the Peacebuilding Fund. On the other hand, the United Nations peacekeeping operations, as well as special political missions, are perhaps the most influential assets currently available in the field. We acknowledge that peacekeeping operations have been continuously evolving as a result of the changing character and dimensions of the challenges and the threats on the ground. We also acknowledge that there are growing needs for these missions for peacebuilding purposes — in particular when it comes to mission transitions. Finally, we concur that the United Nations should be able to respond to all current challenges and deliver with respect to the increasing demands. That, however, should start with crafting clear and unambiguous mandates. Those mandates should be, in the first place, achievable and in full conformity with the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

I now give the floor to the representative of Belgium.

I thank Egypt for organizing today’s debate. Belgium associates itself with the statement to be delivered by the observer of the European Union. I will focus on three aspects: first, integrating a long-term vision for a mission from its start; secondly, the importance of ensuring that all support is inclusive, especially with regard to the central role of women and young people; and, lastly, the importance of keeping the root causes of conflicts in view at every stage of action. A lasting peace requires an overall vision. The objectives to be attained should be defined at the very beginning of an intervention in a country so as to enable peace operations to withdraw as soon as those objectives have been met. In that context, as soon as a mission is launched it must begin to provide the tools that will later enable the country to manage its security alone. A reliable security sector is an important aspect of sustaining peace. In many situations on the Security Council’s agenda, the security sector must be reformed in order to strengthen a country’s capacity to respond to challenges to peace. At the beginning of next year, based on its experiences in this area, including in Mali, the Central African Republic and Somalia, Belgium plans to launch an analysis drawn from the lessons it has learned. Where it is possible, we welcome and encourage more regular use by peacekeepers of joint patrols with the local armed forces. My second point concerns the role of women and young people in creating lasting peace, which demands everyone’s participation in the decision-making process, women as well as men. Too often, important decisions in peace processes are still made by groups of men alone. If we are to ensure that women’s specific needs and aspirations are taken into consideration, we must enable them to participate in making decisions about issues that are likely to have an impact on their lives. Resolution 1325 (2000) paved the way in this area, and Belgium is pleased to be launching its third action plan on women and peace and security. Resolution 2250 (2015), on youth and peace and security, complements it, underlining the importance of young people in efforts to promote peace and security. In that regard, equal access to an inclusive education and to decent jobs, for example, are decisive factors. As the Peacebuilding Commission’s youth focal point, Belgium ensures that the youth dimension is positively integrated into the Commission’s activities. I would also like to stress the importance of the link between mediation, including at the local level, and peacekeeping operations. Belgium supports the Secretary-General’s efforts to increase mediation expertise in missions and strengthen partnerships with local and national mediation actors. The use of mixed military, police and civilian teams, including for human rights, is an important tool in that regard. It enables missions to increase their contact with local authorities, traditional and religious leaders and other relevant actors on the ground, in order to prevent local tensions from fomenting conflict and to consolidate peace more positively through local reconciliation. My third point is that we believe it is important to pay particular attention to the root causes that give rise to conflicts. Peacekeeping operations’ mediation and reconciliation activities, as I have said, are a key element. Humanitarian and development interventions, programmatic spending and rapid-impact projects should be organized simultaneously with a view to making the peace dividend for the population a tangible thing while targeting those root causes as far as possible. The aim is to support the authorities in recreating a strong social contract through which the State can provide basic services. Apart from that, the various trafficking activities of armed groups often end up becoming a conflict’s raison d’être. Peacekeeping operations could play a more significant and proactive role in combating such trafficking. Lastly, cooperation with the country teams is crucial. Their work on fundamental issues such as governance, the judicial system, elections and transitional justice is essential to sustaining peace and complements the peacekeeping operations’ efforts. In conclusion, I would like to thank the Secretary- General for his efforts to improve the work of the Departments of Political Affairs and Peacekeeping Operations and to translate the approach of resolution 2282 (2016) into concrete action. My delegation looks forward with interest to the report on peace and security reform and the new proposals it will make to go even further in implementing the recommendations of the reports of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (S/2015/446) and the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the United Nations Peacebuilding Architecture (S/2015/490) in order to achieve lasting peace.

I now give the floor to the representative of Mexico.

We thank Egypt for convening today’s timely debate. Faced with the evolution of armed conflicts and the changing nature of new challenges to peace and development, the United Nations has become increasingly aware of the urgent need to change the focus on the achievement of its ultimate raison d’être and purpose, maintaining international peace and security. Unfortunately, the United Nations has devoted much of its human and financial resources to managing conflicts rather than preventing them. We therefore urge the Security Council to devote this and other meetings to the consideration of prevention as central to action in the United Nations system and to sustainable peace as a goal and process. There can be no peace without development or respect for human rights. And it is difficult to have development without peace. The Security Council and General Assembly’s adoption of their historic resolutions 2282 (2016) and 70/262 demonstrate that both the Assembly and the Council are already committed to guiding the Organization’s responses through the concept of sustaining peace, which the Secretary-General’s programme of reform also addresses. As Chair of the Group of Friends for Sustainable Peace, Mexico would like to continue working with the Secretary-General and the members of the United Nations towards a greater understanding of the potential of this systemic and conceptual challenge to the fragmentation of the work of the Organization, which calls for the active and coherent participation of the principal organs of the United Nations, as well as the Secretariat and its specialized agencies, funds, programmes and operations on the ground. The wide range of tools available to the United Nations in order to implement this concept includes efforts that range from preventive diplomacy to peacebuilding, along with the design of peacekeeping operations and special political missions.However, we must take greater advantage of the involvement of the Secretary-General, directly or through the country teams in the field, the Special Representatives, and exploit the possibility represented by the Secretary- General’s request for advisory opinions to the International Court of Justice as valuable instruments within the framework of the purposes of the Charter. The Security Council must also continue to ensure that the mandates of peacekeeping operations and special political missions are sufficiently flexible and tailored to the reality and the needs on the ground and that they address all post-conflict phases and contribute to sustainable peace in a consistent and multisectoral way. It is essential to strengthen the interrelation and coordination between the Security Council, troop- contributing countries, financial contributors, host States, regional organizations, relevant United Nations system agencies, national authorities and civil society. We hope that the Secretary-General’s reform proposal, which he is currently working on, will be translated into a sustainable peace architecture that improves its effectiveness in preventing, maintaining and consolidating international peace and security. To do this, it must have the logistical, political, financial and staff resources to fulfil ever more robust and multidimensional mandates. We advocate a genuine institutional change that rests on the pillars of transparency, inclusiveness, accountability and greater political, financial and logistical support for United Nations peace operations. Sustainable peace has provided peacekeeping operations and special political missions with a new narrative and clearer legitimacy, since the close relationship between prevention, mediation and peacebuilding is intimately linked to development and compliance with the 2030 Agenda. We therefore urge the Security Council to continue to ensure that its actions to achieve peace are anchored in the major United Nations agreements. We are facing a paradigm shift in the Organization more than 70 years after its founding. We must address the crises at the root and look at their root causes. We must invest in communities and in prevention and not simply in managing conflicts.

I now give the floor to the observer of the European Union. Ms. Adamson: I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union (EU) and its member States. Turkey, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova and Georgia, align themselves with this statement. The Council has clearly defined that sustaining peace involves all stages of the conflict cycle and should flow through all three pillars of the United Nations engagement. Today, we are faced with a rising number of violent conflicts around the world. Crisis situations tend to last longer, are driving human insecurity on a vast scale, have become increasingly complex and volatile, and most of them take place in contexts that have experienced conflict before. The failure to sustain peace is at the heart of the question calling for unprecedented international cooperation and action. Tackling rising global insecurity is a pressing imperative. How do we craft a more coherent and more effective response across the conflict continuum? How do we mainstream sustaining peace across the United Nations action, including its peacekeeping operations? First, our priority should be to pursue political solutions. The peace and security reviews of 2015 have underlined that conflict prevention and resolution is an inherently political and comprehensive process in which preventive foreign policy plays a pivotal role. Peace can be sustained only through locally owned comprehensive agreements rooted in broad, deep and durable regional and international partnerships. The EU reiterates the need to invest in upstream conflict prevention while also planning for sustaining peace beyond peacekeeping engagement, recognizing that peacekeeping and special political missions remain at the core of the United Nations mandate. The right policy mix of conflict prevention, mediation, building and strengthening resilience, peacekeeping, stabilization, peacebuilding and humanitarian assistance must serve the objective of sustaining peace. Peacekeeping operations must be and must be seen as a key ingredient of the policy mix available to the United Nations. Peacekeeping is a unique and invaluable feature of the United Nations. Peacekeeping mandates must evolve consistently in line with the context and changing needs on the ground. Operations and special political missions must remain flexible and open to adaptation throughout their life cycle to best deliver stabilization and peacebuilding. Secondly, the Council’s ambition for sustaining peace and the Secretary-General’s broad vision on conflict prevention fully resonate with the European approach to security, and in particular with the Global Strategy for the European Union’s Foreign and Security Policy. Our Global Strategy emphasizes the importance of acting promptly on prevention, while also responding responsibly and decisively to crises, investing in the resilience of States and societies, and avoiding premature disengagement when a new crisis erupts. The Global Strategy also promises that the EU will engage in a practical and principled way in sustaining peace, taking an integrated approach to conflict and crises. As conflicts have multiple dimensions — from security to gender, from governance to the economy — it remains essential, both for the European Union and the United Nations, to take a multidimensional approach to their prevention or resolution through the use of all available policies and instruments. The Council and the General Assembly have both agreed that sustaining peace is the joint responsibility of Governments and societies and should be supported by the international community. With the EU’s integrated approach and resilience policy, we will become a more effective actor in our own right and partner in international action, including with the United Nations and its peacekeeping operations. Peacekeeping operations must form an organic part of a coherent and integrated United Nations response. In this context, the Council should ensure that longer-term peacebuilding is included in mission mandates, along with reflections on how to design transitions and strengthen the advisory role of the Peacebuilding Commission. Better integration and collaboration between peace operations, sustainable development policies and United Nations country teams is also an absolute priority. Thirdly, the EU reconfirms its support to the Secretary-General’s ambition to create a well- coordinated institutional structure to provide a holistic United Nations Headquarters approach to crisis management and sustaining peace. The Secretariat must act as one, building upon the lessons of the past years and past reforms, while taking into account the specificities of all the facets of its work on the ground. We also advocate that field deployments and decision-making on the ground should correspond to operational objectives. Lastly, let me address today’s topic from the perspective of the ever closer partnership between the EU and the United Nations in crisis management. This partnership is highlighted explicitly in our Global Strategy. The EU has been very active in the field of peace and security, and it has been engaged in an ever deepening collaboration between our two organizations to continue to ensure an efficient strategic cooperation and coherent action on the ground, and also to ensure that scarce resources are used in the most effective way. Our joint EU-United Nations conflict prevention dialogue is helping strengthen our joint approach, and the EU continues to be a major supporter of United Nations mediation capacities. Operational cooperation between the United Nations and the EU is reaching new heights in Mali, in the Central African Republic and in other situations. Whenever the EU and the United Nations are both present on the ground, cooperation between our respective missions is established from the outset. In addition to joint analysis and information-sharing between our two organizations, we increasingly associate each other to the strategic reviews of our respective missions and operations to ensure that we work coherently. The imperative of sustaining peace runs across the complete cycle of our engagement. Peacekeeping represents a crucial lynchpin. What we need most is to translate this recognition into action. For its part, the EU will continue to strive towards a strong and continuously evolving partnership with the United Nations in promoting peacekeeping in the overall context of sustaining peace.

I now give the floor to the representative of Estonia.

I thank you, Mr. President, for convening today’s debate on a topic that not only addresses United Nations peacekeeping operations, but also focuses on the broader shift of the United Nations towards the goal of preventing conflicts and sustaining peace. Estonia aligns itself with the statement just delivered by the observer of the European Union. United Nations peacekeeping operations play an essential role in securing peace and stability globally and the Blue Helmets who have served and are serving across the world deserve our highest appreciation. There is no doubt that peacekeeping missions have made real difference on the ground. As research shows, compared to the predeployment period, peacekeeping reduces the number of civilians killed by more than 90 per cent. However, as we witness more complex, volatile and longer-lasting crises each passing year, there is a real need to look at the ways of tackling the instabilities in the world both before they have turned into a full blown armed conflict and also after the weapons have been put down. Preventive measures and striving for political solutions are key, and we fully support the Secretary- General’s efforts in that regard. Equally important is giving attention to the post-conflict transition so as to enable sustainable peace. The mandates of United Nations peacekeeping operations should therefore become more concrete and robust, especially by including tangible targets and an exit strategy, while bearing in mind the need to protect civilians and assure the sustainability of the rule of law, as well as the respect for human rights and international law. To achieve sustainable peace, it is important that all actors work together to resolve the conflict. Sustainable peace can be achieved only if we have a thorough and broad understanding of the conflicts, the different actors and the key players. That includes adding specialized units to United Nations peacekeeping missions where necessary. Sometimes a small specialized unit, such as an intelligence-gathering unit, can make a huge difference in terms of the mission’s size or duration on the ground. Participating in United Nations peacekeeping has always been important for Estonia. In recent years, we have significantly increased our participation in peacekeeping operations and are currently contributing to three missions — the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali and the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization. Furthermore, Estonia is currently a member of the Peacebuilding Commission, and we fully support a broader focus for the Commission, which must take a regional approach, address cross-cutting issues and serve as a bridge between the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council. In conclusion, we see more robust and adaptive mandates, firm and decisive actions, less duplication and fragmentation, more innovative solutions and emphasis on the partnerships at the regional and international levels as essential to achieving lasting peace. Also, let me emphasize once more the importance of prevention when it comes to sustaining peace. Estonia is fully committed to that cause and sees that as one of the key issues in our endeavour to become an elected member of the Council for the period 2020-2021.

I now give the floor to the representative of Israel.

I would like to thank the delegation of Egypt for convening this meeting. For decades, the Security Council has deployed peacekeeping missions to help countries navigate the difficult path from conflict to peace. From the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on our borders, to peacekeeping operations across Africa and around the world, Israel has first- hand experience with peacekeeping operations and fully supports their efforts. Israel has learned, however, that such support is worthwhile only if those forces are effective. That will be accomplished only if the international community insists on the full implementation of peacekeeping mandates. As the Council is currently discussing the renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate, which was updated in the wake of Hizbullah’s attack on Israel and the second Lebanon war of 2006, now is an appropriate time to review the situation in southern Lebanon. In adopting resolution 1701 (2006), 11 years ago, the Security Council wisely decided to significantly enhance UNIFIL’s mandate — with the goal of preventing the recurrence of conflict. That resolution authorizes UNIFIL to take all necessary actions to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities. That, however, is not the case. Despite UNIFIL’s presence on the ground, we have noticed a disturbing trend. Hizbullah, the internationally designated terrorist organization, supported and funded by Iran, has increased its arsenal of missiles and rockets tenfold and stockpiled sophisticated weapons. It deliberately installs those weapons in villages and towns, exploiting Lebanese civilians as human shields. It has even attempted to disguise its military activities under the banner of the so-called non-governmental organization Green Without Borders. The head of that terrorist organization, Hassan Nasrallah, boasted again just a few weeks ago, “Ever since 2006, Hizbullah has been growing stronger ... [and] much more sophisticated in every aspect — capabilities, military strategies and in numbers”. The evidence of those activities shows the recurrence of Hizbullah’s blatant violations of resolution 1701 (2006). Hizbullah’s military build-up threatens the entire region. While Israel strongly supports UNIFIL, it is UNIFIL’s utmost responsibility to address the unlawful activities taking place in southern Lebanon and assist the Lebanese Government in finally extending its control over its entire territory. The Security Council must guarantee the complete fulfilment of UNIFIL’s mandate and should remain fully informed on the real situation on the ground, including obstructions and challenges to the implementation of the mandate. Those provisions are in the interests of Israel, Lebanon and the region as a whole. We would also like to take this opportunity to affirm Israel’s support for UNDOF, whose forces are gradually returning to United Nations positions in the area of separation. Israel appreciates UNDOF’s important contribution to maintaining stability in the region and will continue to support and assist its mission. Israel understands both the importance and the challenges of peacekeeping. Peacekeeping missions have experienced more than 100 fatalities almost every year for the past 14 years, due in part to the absence of basic needs and supplies. If we expect peacekeeping missions to execute their mandates properly, we must provide them with the necessary equipment, training and medical-response capabilities. We are proud to work with the United Nations to improve the Organization’s ability to protect peacekeepers. Israel supports the United Nations Medical Services Division’s reforms on the standardization of medical care, field hospitals and lifesaving first-aid training for peacekeeping troops. Those steps will minimize casualties. Through our partnerships with the United Nations, we will continue providing the innovative technologies required to confront the challenges of peacekeeping. But we must remember that the technologies themselves are not enough. Without both operational and conceptual training, peacekeepers cannot use those technologies to their fullest potential or maximize their capabilities. We therefore support United Nations efforts to improve training, such as the United Nations Signals Academy in Entebbe, and we look forward to lending our knowledge and contributing from our expertise to assist peacekeepers’ training. Let me conclude by reiterating Israel’s commitment to continuing to support peacekeeping operations worldwide and improving their capabilities on the ground. However, we must also hold them accountable to their mandates. Israel is encouraged by Secretary-General Guterres’ comments during his official visit to Israel this week, where he stated that he would do everything in his capacity to make sure that UNIFIL fully meets its mandate. I call on the Security Council members to do the same.

I now give the floor to the representative of Pakistan.

Let me start by conveying Pakistan’s appreciation to Egypt for arranging this open debate today. This discussion is both timely and relevant. It comes as we review and consider the reform of the peace and security architecture of the United Nations and examine ways of enhancing the efficacy and effectiveness of tools of sustainable peace. United Nations peacekeeping has always been the most cost- effective tool for the maintenance of international peace and security. As we all know, the fundamental purpose of peacekeeping is to keep the peace, help resolve conflicts and restore order. Sustaining peace envisages conflict prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping, post-conflict peacebuilding and development as essential components of one seamless process and as stages along a continuum. Pakistan has always believed that and been an advocate of that approach. It is no coincidence that 12 of the 22 paragraphs of resolution 2086 (2013), on multidimensional peacekeeping, adopted during Pakistan’s presidency of the Council, refer to those concepts. Peacekeeping is the pivot on which we build on the dividends of preventive diplomacy and promote post- conflict peace and nationbuilding. As one of the world’s top troop contributors to United Nations peacekeeping over the past six decades, Pakistan can say from its experience and the expertise it has acquired that the realization of that objective requires mandates with realistic tasks, the flexibility to adapt to changes on the ground and a clear exit strategy. We need to ensure that peacekeeping missions are effectively deployed and that their operations are relevant to the realities on ground, with clearly identified priorities, adequate sequencing and, of course, well-equipped human and material resources. When lives are at risk — of peacekeepers as well as those they are responsible for protecting — actual requirements should drive peacekeeping, not narrow cost considerations. A lack of adequate resources results inevitably in non-implementation of the very mandates that we fashion for our Blue Helmets. We should be talking about enhancing capabilities, not across-the-board cuts in peacekeeping budgets. We believe in the full implementation of mandates, but they require communication between those who conceive and write mandates and those who implement them on the ground. To achieve that we need to, first, reinforce interaction among key stakeholders; secondly, enhance information flow and exchange in all directions and at all stages; and, thirdly, improve capacities to generate accurate and objective analysis and assessments and then channel them into the decision-making processes. Obviously, consultation with troop-contributing countries is essential for all three tasks. Effective partnership with troop contributors, which are the Security Council’s eyes and ears on the ground, should extend from deployment and operational aspects to a role in decision-making and policy formulation. The Council itself must drive that partnership. Dialogue is critical. It must take place on a sustained and continuing basis. A one-off meeting at the time of the renewal of a mandate does not really serve that purpose. There is need for a fuller interface between peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities through the early engagement of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) as part of exit and transition strategies. The PBC should promote coherent peacebuilding activities along with the provision of timely, adequate and sustained financing. Greater convergence between the perspectives of development partners and host countries, based primarily on the priorities of the latter, is also essential. The objective should be the development — and not the replacement — of national capacities. An ominous gap in peacebuilding strategies is often the failure to comprehend and address the root causes of conflicts. Eradicating poverty and unemployment, ensuring socioeconomic development and justice, addressing inter-State and intra-State issues and resolving political disputes all require more focused attention. Finally, let me say that, if we are really serious about making United Nations peacekeeping a catalyst for peace and wish to empower it to respond effectively to the conflicts of today and contribute to the overarching goal of sustaining peace, then realities on the ground rather than political expediency should guide the Council’s decisions. Sustaining peace requires investing in peace. Assessing mandates is welcome, but such assessments should be intended to analyse the impact of missions in order to improve the results. Saving lives, restoring order and maintaning international peace and security should remain our overarching objective.

I now give the floor to the representative of Germany.

Germany thanks Egypt for convening today’s important and timely debate and fully aligns itself with the statement delivered by the Deputy Head of the Delegation of the European Union (EU). The concept of sustaining peace presents a tremendous opportunity, and we are encouraged that it is gaining traction. Much more needs to be done, however: we need to focus on the entire peace continuum and adapt our instruments, including United Nations peacekeeping, accordingly. We strongly support the Secretary-General’s preventive approach and concur with his demand for a strategic shift. As a complement to the EU statement, I would like to focus on two main points. First, the Security Council must find better ways to promote sustainable political solutions to crises from the outset. Drivers of conflict are multidimensional, and so are the solutions. That implies that peace missions alone cannot bring about peace; they can, however, play their part in the broader context. Lessons drawn from the past have shown that sound conflict analysis is critically important for developing a political strategy and for conflict resolution. While addressing structural causes and underlying grievances we must also look at the true drivers of entire conflict cycles, not only at fragmented snapshots. In that context, Germany would very much like to see the Council draw on existing information from within the United Nations system, namely, its field presences, its mechanisms and procedures. Such integrated analysis would enable the Council to better define strategic objectives for conflict resolution and to design smart mandates in order to more effectively use the different instruments. Secondly, well-coordinated and sequenced international engagement is crucial for sustaining peace. Countries have relapsed into conflict due to the premature withdrawal of international attention. We have failed to recognize that the withdrawal of peacekeeping troops cannot mark the end of engagement by the United Nations and the international community. Therefore, United Nations engagement, of which peace operations are an organic part, requires detailed planning, benchmarks and monitoring mechanisms. What it needs is a truly integrated approach — in thinking and structure — and adequate and flexible resources. That has to be recognized from the outset. Let us take the example of Mali, where the United Nations is present with a peacekeeping force, supports mediation, advances stabilization, promotes human rights and facilitates peacebuilding, in close collaboration with regional organizations and Member States. The peacekeeping mission in the country — the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) — is charged with activities contributing towards longer-term sustaining peace objectives, not just fulfilling necessary and immediate security needs. Germany supports such an integrated, holistic approach and has aligned its engagement in Mali accordingly: German troops and police serve in MINUSMA and German police are active in the European Union Training Mission, laying the groundwork for Malian troops to be able to reassume full responsibility for security. Our national stabilization measures, including civilian measures, amount to a €32 million commitment and fund a wide variety of projects. Effective United Nations coordination in all areas that promote sustaining peace — not just with regard to peacekeeping — including with donors and regional and subregional organizations, such as the EU and the Group of Five for the Sahel, remains crucial to achieving our political objectives. Making the transition from a military to a police presence, from peacekeeping to peacebuilding and from crisis to stability requires careful attention from the Council and the international community. After the conclusion of peacekeeping missions in Liberia and Haiti, for example, effective peacebuilding is now key to a successful transition phase. Let me note briefly that Germany is the largest contributor to the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund and the Department of Political Affairs trust fund, and we have made significant contributions to a host of United Nations Development Programme stabilization facilities in conflict settings — for example, in Iraq. With regard to the Peacebuilding Commission, we would like to see its advisory function to the Security Council strengthened. For the United Nations system, coordination between the field, the Special Representatives of the Secretary-General, the head of the development team and the relevant Headquarters entities is important for ensuring that the strategic objectives and the instruments deployed are fully aligned. The future position and role of Resident Coordinators should also be designed to fully support the sustaining peace agenda. Finally, I would like to reiterate Germany’s support for the Secretary-General’s reform agenda, which is paving the way to make the United Nations fit for sustaining peace. As States Members of the United Nations, we must support him in that endeavour and play our own part in contributing to sustaining peace. Germany certainly stands ready to do so.

I now give the floor to the representative of Liechtenstein.

Liechtenstein welcomes this opportunity to discuss the role of peacekeeping in the context of the broader United Nations efforts to sustain peace. We support the initiatives of the Secretary-General to strengthen the focus of the United Nations on prevention and its ability to sustain peace. Peacekeeping operations under the authority of the Security Council can make a vital contribution to those efforts. Today’s debate should therefore feed into the broader agenda of making the United Nations fit for purpose in order to achieve our jointly agreed goals, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Liechtenstein supports General Assembly resolution 70/262 and Security Council resolution 2282 (2016), as they provide a basis for a more comprehensive approach to sustaining peace, spanning the entire conflict cycle and encompassing all three pillars of the United Nations, including human rights and development. Peacekeeping operations can make an important contribution to the achievement of the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular SDG 16. Acting through its peacekeeping operations, the United Nations should place stronger emphasis on enabling and strengthening the rule of law and its institutions at the national and regional levels. In the framework of the review of the peacebuilding architecture, both the Council and the General Assembly committed to a comprehensive approach to transitional justice as an important prerequisite for consolidating peace and preventing conflicts and relapse into violence. A thorough translation of that commitment into peacekeeping mandates should therefore be a matter of priority for the Council. Deterrence is a key preventive tool and among the main achievements of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the central criminal justice institution. The ICC remains a court of last resort, while the primary responsibility to investigate and prosecute atrocity crimes remains with States. Fighting impunity is essential to strengthening the rule of law and its institutions, as set out in SDG 16. Joining and cooperating with the ICC is therefore a practical example of implementing SDG 16. It is therefore particularly important that the Security Council, acting through its peacekeeping mandates, supports the work of the Court by ensuring full cooperation and coherence of action, including by sharing information and assisting States in protecting witnesses and executing arrest warrants. The Council has a responsibility to take action to end and prevent mass atrocity crimes. The code of conduct of the Accountability, Coherence and Transparency Group, which to date has the support of 113 States, is a strong expression of the willingness of the United Nations membership to hold the Council accountable with regard to that responsibility. The potential for early and preventive action by the United Nations is particularly acute in situations in which peacekeeping operations are already on the ground. Accordingly, there is an expectation within the international community that the Security Council will consistently equip peacekeeping mandates with the necessary means and flexibility to act decisively in such situations. At the same time, there is also a growing sense of responsibility in the General Assembly should the Security Council fail to prevent or end mass atrocities in a timely manner. The establishment of the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism to Assist in the Investigation and Prosecution of Persons Responsible for the Most Serious Crimes under International Law Committed in the Syrian Arab Republic since March 2011 is a manifestation of that responsibility. Liechtenstein congratulates the newly appointed Head of the Mechanism, Ms. Marchi-Uhel, and calls on States to support the Mechanism’s work both politically and financially. The 2015 report (see S/2015/446) by the High- Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations called for renewed resolve on the part of United Nations peace operations personnel to engage with, serve and protect the people whom they have been mandated to assist. That call applies in particular to the full implementation of the women and peace and security agenda, both in its protection and participation pillars, as well as to a vigorous mainstreaming of human rights and gender equality throughout the peacekeeping architecture. Liechtenstein is encouraged by the Secretary-General’s commitment to that cause and expects the Security Council to implement its own standards in that area more consistently. We also call on the Security Council to ensure stricter accountability in cases of sexual exploitation and abuse by members of United Nations peacekeeping missions, whether civilian or military. The United Nations cannot tolerate, or be perceived as tolerating, any form of such misconduct or criminal behaviour among its ranks without proportionate consequences. While we acknowledge existing efforts in that regard, we continue to see both the need and potential for the United Nations to take a qualitative step forward.

I now give the floor to the representative of Indonesia.

Indonesia thanks the Egyptian presidency for convening this open debate on a highly important topic, and thanks the Deputy Secretary-General, Ms. Amina Mohammed, and Mr. Youssef Mahmoud for their respective briefings. We associate ourselves with the statement made by the representative of Venezuela on behalf of Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. The seminal joint resolutions by the Security Council and General Assembly on the United Nations peacebuilding architecture, adopted last year, outlined sustaining peace as among the activities that, among others, prevent the outbreak, escalation and recurrence of conflict, end hostilities and help move towards recovery, reconstruction and development. Achieving sustainable peace critically requires the support and participation from all the relevant stakeholders. It is therefore vital that there first be no ambiguity: United Nations peacekeeping is part and parcel of the essential tools and activities aimed at achieving sustainable peace. From deterrence against hostilities and ensuring that peace processes are supported and civilians safeguarded to enabling elections, Statebuilding and reform, the role of Blue Helmets is indispensable. All United Nations entities should ensure that nothing — even inadvertently — detracts from support for peacekeeping. Secondly, following the 2015 reviews, as the United Nations increases the focus on prevention, political diplomacy and mediation, there is a profound need to better integrate those functions with United Nations peacekeeping. The 2015 reviews pointed to some gaps in that regard. As such, we hope that the recommendations in the reports of the Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations will be addressed effectively. Thirdly, cooperation and partnerships between the United Nations and Member States, as well as regional and subregional organizations, is also crucial. Indonesia encourages regional solutions to conflicts and supports the strengthening of partnerships both at the strategic and operational levels. Fourthly, even with the best of intentions to integrate, success will be elusive if peacekeeping mandates are not clear, realistic and supported adequately. As one of the largest troop- and police-contributing countries, Indonesia is strongly convinced that the Council has a very important responsibility to work collaboratively with the troop- and police-contributing countries, host countries and the Secretariat so that such mandates are actualized with the required synergy and ownership. That entails that, throughout the various mission stages, the Council should consult meaningfully and regularly with all the relevant peacekeeping stakeholders. Fifthly, all that I have mentioned cannot happen if the Secretariat shies away from changing the status quo. Indonesia supports the recommendation of the report (see S/2015/446) by the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations requiring that the Secretary- General develop options for restructuring the Secretariat peace and security architecture so as to strengthen leadership and management. We also strongly support doing away with the silo mindset, which can impede the United Nations. At the same time, we underline synergy-building among the Security Council, the General Assembly, the main Committees, the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) and the Economic and Social Council, as well as the relevant United Nations agencies and departments. A system-wide, coordinated approach that eschews unnecessary duplication and wasteful competition must be promoted. Peace is best ensured on the ground when various activities take place in a seamless manner. That should be reflected by the United Nations entities. Sixthly, on a related point, the PBC, with more than a decade of rich experience, is well suited to provide advice to the Security Council as well as the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, especially as new peace challenges emerge and during the review and development of exit strategies. In that regard, the PBC’s advice is very useful, particularly with regard to the integrated strategies for post-conflict peacebuilding and recovery. Last but not least, to enable sustaining peace and sustainable development, it is very important that the peacebuilding component in peacekeeping missions, as well as the special political missions, are well supported financially and politically. We also need to provide options for the adequate resourcing of peacebuilding activities by the United Nations country teams. Moreover, enhanced financial and material support with regard to training must be afforded to conflict-affected countries to help them undertake their national peacebuilding and development programmes in a sustained manner. In the context of peacekeeping, Indonesia’s position remains unwavering. The basic principles of United Nations peacekeeping remain relevant, vital and applicable. Despite the changing context of peacekeeping, those principles are indispensable for the success and credibility of all peacekeeping operations. Peacekeeping mandates should adapt to current realities and be well-calibrated without impinging on the basic principles, as I said previously. Indonesia ranks today as one of the largest contributors among the 127 troop- and police-contributing countries, with a robust number of 2,715 peacekeepers deployed in nine United Nations peacekeeping missions. In line with its road map vision of providing 4,000 peacekeepers between 2015-2019, Indonesia will continue its steadfast commitment to strengthen its contribution to United Nations peacekeeping. As of yesterday, I received an update that an additional battalion of peacekeepers is being prepared to support United Nations peacekeeping efforts and will be deployed appropriately. Lastly, we will continue to lend a hand to making the world a much safer place in our own humble way.

I now give the floor to the representative of South Africa. Mr. Mminele (South Africa) My delegation would like to congratulate you, Mr. President, and the Arabic Republic of Egypt for your leadership of the Security Council during the past month. The debate on the theme “United Nations peacekeeping operations: their potential contribution to the overarching goal of sustaining peace” is important and timely. My delegation aligns itself with the statement made by the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. In April 2016, the Security Council and the General Assembly adopted ground-breaking parallel resolutions on the review of the peacebuilding architecture. Those parallel resolutions on sustaining peace are regarded as a comprehensive statement on the role of the United Nations in peacebuilding and prevention, and are directly linked to efforts towards peace and security, human rights and sustainable development. Furthermore, the resolutions stress the fact that there is a conceptual shift from peacebuilding to sustaining peace, which is both transformative and forward thinking. In practical terms, peacebuilding is no longer restricted to post-conflict situations, but applies to all phases — before the conflict, during the conflict and at the cessation of a conflict. In essence, the resolutions are the first to explicitly link peacebuilding and prevention, and they underscore the essential role that sustaining peace plays. More emphasis on conflict prevention means recognizing the primacy of politics in the pacific settlement of disputes. The relevance of investing in structures such as early-warning systems, instead of reacting to outbreaks of violence, is pertinent. The full implementation of the resolutions will result in less emphasis on militarized responses to conflicts in Africa and elsewhere. Instead, it will promote more political engagement, which we believe will result in effective peacebuilding. Together with the Slovak Republic, South Africa co-chairs the United Nations Group of Friends on Security Sector Reform. It is within the milieu of sustaining peace that we have experienced how relevant and complimentary such reform has become, taking into consideration the Secretary-General’s emphasis on preventative approaches to sustaining peace. The promotion of a culture of prevention to stop conflicts before they occur complements the objective of the African Union (AU) to elevate the critical importance of preventive diplomacy. Given the excessive cost and limited success of conflict management, a shift is required to focus more on pre-emptive action that will allow for sustainable peace and an environment within which reconciliation and institution-building can thrive. In essence, the United Nations must move away from managing conflict towards laying the necessary groundwork for an inclusive dialogue, peaceful transition and long-term sustainable peace. The African Union’s Peace and Security Architecture focuses on conflict prevention, conflict management and peacebuilding, which are all fundamental to the AU’s aspiration of silencing the guns by 2020. The African Union and the continent’s subregional organizations have deployed a great deal of effort to develop and operationalize the African Standby Force and its rapid deployment capacity, which will impact directly on the process of peacebuilding and sustainable peace. The recent implementation of the joint United Nations-AU Framework for Enhanced Partnerships in Peace and Security reflects the AU’s commitment to the framework’s four key action areas, namely, first, prevention and mediating conflict and sustaining peace; secondly, responding to conflict; thirdly, addressing root causes; and, fourthly, the continuous review and enhancement of the partnership. At the same time, my delegation reiterates its call for the use of United Nations-assessed contributions to secure predictable, sustainable and flexible financing for AU-led peace-support operations authorized by the Security Council. Adequate gender representation within the United Nations peacekeeping structures should continue to be an important objective in our search for more effective and efficient peacebuilding processes. The need for women peacekeepers is more urgent than ever, as women are often better placed to carry out a number of crucial peacekeeping tasks, especially with regard to allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation and providing safe environments for women to voice their safety and security concerns. In that regard, South Africa welcomes the appointment by Secretary-General António Guterres of the first United Nations Victims’ Rights Advocate, which aims at addressing accusations of sexual exploitation by international peacekeepers. In conclusion, the idea of peacebuilding is strongly based on the understanding that peace cannot exist without development and that development cannot thrive without peace and stability. We believe that notion should underpin the approach of the United Nations to fulfilling its central mandate of the maintenance of international peace and security, which is strongly dependent upon a prosperous and peaceful Africa.

I now give the floor to the representative of Ireland.

I thank you, Mr. President, for convening today’s debate. Ireland aligns itself with the statement delivered on behalf of the European Union. The challenges to our peace and security have never been greater or more complex. Our responses need to match those challenges. The people we serve expect us to take the lead in dealing with the violent conflicts, humanitarian crises, migration flows and climate-related emergencies they face on a day-to-day basis. We simply must be up to the task. Sustaining peace is a core responsibility. It is part of what we are. I represent a country for which peacekeeping is a part of our DNA. Having participated continuously in peace-support operations since 1958, Ireland addresses the members of the Security Council as a dedicated and committed contributor of troops to important United Nations missions. Today, we have deployments to six United Nations missions across the Middle East, Africa and Europe, with substantial contributions to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force. Our experience has taught us that mandates and missions do not lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all approach. The challenges are complex and evolving; our responses must also be. We believe that the landmark adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offers us a unique opportunity. We need to seize it in order to realize the ambition of the United Nations to improve core mandates and responses. The long-term vision for sustaining peace rests on developing a capacity to build inclusive and resilient States. We need effective institutions capable of engaging with their people. We have a responsibility to deliver long-term leadership, ownership and accountability. We need to keep faith with the task. We commend Secretary-General Guterres for putting conflict prevention at the core of his mandate. We simply cannot succeed unless we address the root causes. Ireland shares the view that believing in the United Nations means investing in it, notably in its peacekeeping, mediation, peacebuilding and humanitarian functions. The European Union’s Global Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy and its Common Security and Defence Policy can and will enhance United Nations peacekeeping and peacebuilding efforts, particularly through capacity-building missions in fragile settings. Ireland will be an active contributor. We know there is no easy fix. Every conflict has unique characteristics. As a peacekeeping contributor, Ireland believes that mandates should be designed to reflect the multiplicity of factors that drive conflict and fragility. Our operations must be responsive to the changing situations on the ground. It is crucial that our peacekeepers in the field engage meaningfully and in an inclusive manner with local communities. Mandates should also factor in the political, humanitarian and developmental contexts. We are learning that humanitarian and development assistance programming, in their turn, must be tailored to situations of conflict, especially where crises are protracted. We must all work to support common outcomes from our interventions. We know that people are less likely to turn to violence when their rights are being respected. Taking a human rights perspective across the nexus of development, humanitarian and peacebuilding efforts will therefore increase our chances of success and be instrumental in addressing drivers of conflict. Mandates must recognize and respond to the links among conflict, peace and gender equality. We also know that cannot succeed unless we address the specific needs of women and children. Time and again, we have seen that the full participation and representation of women in decision-making serves to improve prospects for success in our peacebuilding and peacekeeping. Sustainable development in conflict-affected countries and regions means that we must also accept risk. We must prepare for long-term time frames and be committed to sustained engagement. The drawdown of the United Nations Mission in Liberia and the transition of the United Nations presence in that country represent a test case for the United Nations system in applying the sustaining peace approach. Ireland has long supported the people of Liberia, and we are committed to working with Government, United Nations and civil partners there. In conclusion, even as a newcomer here today, I know that debates in the Chamber increasingly recognize that our complex world demands a United Nations that equips itself to face that complexity. In the past, the walls dividing the three pillars of the United Nations cast shadows on our efforts to build sustainable peace. Let us resolve today that we have an overarching responsibility to the people whom we represent to be more effective and coherent — or, in other words, to overcome those barriers to sustain peace. We have no greater challenge.

I now give the floor to the representative of Bangladesh.

We convey our appreciation to the Egyptian presidency for convening this open debate. Bangladesh aligns itself with the statement made by the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. We thank the Deputy Secretary-General and the other briefers for their valuable insights and recommendations. Bangladesh attaches importance to its value-driven contribution to United Nations peacekeeping operations. We underscore the need for pursing peacekeeping mandates within a broader political process for resolving conflicts and seeking lasting peace. We therefore subscribe to the comprehensive and coordinated response to the entire continuum of conflicts through the engagement of all three pillars of the United Nations. From that perspective, United Nations peacekeeping missions have a critical role to play in the broader goal and process of sustaining peace. Against that policy approach, we wish to underscore the five following points. First, it is amply supported by evidence that United Nations peacekeeping operations serve a critical purpose in maintaining international peace and security, including by protecting civilians, in most cases. It is therefore crucial that peacekeeping mandates focus on areas where the missions concerned can realistically achieve the desired results with the resources at their disposal. It may often prove counterproductive to keep increasing the length of Security Council resolutions without giving a clear, focused and strategic direction to the missions with regard to their potential contributions to the overarching aim of sustaining peace. Secondly, as a troop- and police-contributing country, we often find ourselves in constrained circumstances to keep our personnel deployed on the ground and apprised about conflict analysis and the broader political processes at play, owing to a lack of timely information and coordination. We remain seized of the issue of developing a regular and systematic approach to triangular consultations among the Security Council, troop- and police-contributing countries and the Secretariat so as to address those gaps. We believe that such an institutional mechanism would lead to qualitative change in mandate design and review. Thirdly, peacekeeping missions need to be sensitized to the fact that it is not only their traditional peacebuilding tasks that relate to sustaining peace. Peacekeeping missions can effectively establish the basis — in tandem with the national authorities and the communities that they serve — for contributing to the broader objective of sustaining peace and development through an integrated and sequential approach to mandate delivery. Seamless country coordination with the United Nations entities engaged on the ground remains critical for transitions during mission drawdown and exit. The advisory role of the Peacebuilding Commission for complementing the Security Council’s work in that regard also need not be overly emphasized. Fourthly, the design and implementation of peacekeeping mandates are underpinned by a set of principles pursuant to the Charter of the United Nations. It is fundamental for the perceived integrity and credibility of peacekeeping missions that their mandates align with those principles. Furthermore, peacekeeping mandates need to be achievable in consideration of the expertise and resources available to peacekeeping missions. We suggest that challenges beyond the capacity of peacekeeping missions be addressed through other competent means, without risking the credibility and security of peacekeeping personnel. Fifthly, the issue of predictable and sustainable resources for peacekeeping missions remains a priority for their continued efficiency and effectiveness. We acknowledge the potential merit of the Secretary- General’s nine-point reform agenda in streamlining resource deployment with clear and achievable mandates. We look forward to bold, ambitious and forward-looking recommendations on financing for sustaining peace in the Secretary-General’s report, which should also take into consideration the potential contributions of peacekeeping missions to that effect. This open debate has been a good opportunity for the Security Council, along with the broader membership, to revisit the possibilities for further enhancing the performance and contribution of peacekeeping operations in the broader context of the reform of the United Nations peace and security architecture. The overarching recognition of the primacy of politics in sustaining peace makes it evident that a coherent and coordinated application of the various tools available to the United Nations can also help enhance the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations in specific situations.

I now give the floor to the representative of the Netherlands.

I thank you, Sir, for organizing this timely and important debate. In honour of Egypt’s presidency of the Security Council, let me try to say this in Arabic: (spoke in Arabic) I thank you very much, Mr. President. (spoke in English) The Kingdom of the Netherlands aligns itself with the statement made by the observer of the European Union and welcomes, Sir, your excellent concept paper (S/2017/692, annex) for this debate. Furthermore, in the context of the split-term with Italy in the Council, let me also endorse the statement made by my Italian colleague earlier today. I shall address three topics today: first, the need to get the mandate right; secondly, the need for benchmarks to measure progress; and, thirdly, the need to strengthen force generation. With regard to the subject of the right mandate, I should like to draw an analogy between medical treatment, on the one hand, and peacekeeping operations, on the other. Prevention is always better than needing a cure, but once somebody falls ill, the right prescription is required. Mandates need to be crafted with equal surgical precision. There is no one remedy for all ills. A United Nations mission must be based upon a careful diagnosis of the situation at hand, whether a small and focused political mission or a full-fledged peace operation. As stated in the first paragraph of the concept note, current security challenges “necessitate a more robust, coherent and comprehensive United Nations approach”. Once a mission has begun, adaptations to the mandate may be necessary, depending on changing needs on the ground. The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali is a good case in point illustrating the United Nations flexibility, which it showed, by changing the geographical focus the moment at which the security situation in central part of Mali worsened. In that context, let me highlight that the Government of Mali should do more to bring security, stability and development to the northern part of the country. My second point concerns benchmarks. To an important extent, in continuing with my metaphor, the responsibility for one’s health lies with the patient, and the responsibility for sustaining peace equally lies with the host nation. Furthermore, United Nations missions have an important role to play in enabling host nations to recover and prevent relapse. We therefore need an integrated approach, as was mentioned in the concept note, entailing a coherent United Nations with comprehensive delivery by all pillars of the United Nations system. In our view, the Council should enable a well-managed exit and help prevent relapse. Therefore, mandates must include clearly defined political and governance benchmarks against which the success of a mandate can be measured. Such benchmarks could include inclusive institutions, human rights, the status of women, the protection of civilians and countering human trafficking, where appropriate. In our view, the Security Council should be firm with host nations that are not cooperating with the United Nations, and even firmer with those that attack their own citizens and deliberately obstruct the work of the United Nations. That is simply unacceptable. Host nations must be held accountable. A case in point is South Sudan, where that problem is persistent. In continuing with my metaphor, I will address my third topic — force generation. Just like a medical doctor, the peacekeeper needs the right instruments. Peace operations must be as robust as needed to fulfil their mandate. We therefore must modernize United Nations peace operations. Our missions now often lack the means, the quality and the capacity to carry out their jobs effectively. We send out Blue Helmets without proper protection, while knowing full well that they run a high risk of being attacked. Medical transportation and facilities and force protection are not always up to standard. One of our most important priorities should be to strengthen force generation and to encourage more countries to pledge more troops and capacity. The Council should also intensify action with the troop- contributing countries (TCCs), which our colleague from Bangladesh just pointed out. We underline that point. Furthermore, we call on those TCCs that have not done so to subscribe to the Kigali Principles for peacekeeping. We pay tribute to Rwanda’s leadership in that regard. We are one of the hosts of the United Nations peacekeeping defence ministerial meeting to be held in Vancouver in November, to which we look forward. We hope that it will give this process an extra boost. Furthermore, we support the United Nations and the development of rotation schemes. That should make it possible for TCCs to provide missions with high- end capabilities for a predetermined period. We pay tribute to the work of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in that respect, for instance on helicopter rotation in the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Peace operations need to have enablers and state-of- the-art equipment in order to conduct some of today’s most difficult operations. In that regard, let me highlight the enhanced use of information sources in MINUSMA initiated by the Netherlands, among others. In conclusion, sustaining peace requires our continued efforts, politically and financially, from the start of a mission to its very end and beyond — from preventive care to daily care and after care. The Kingdom of the Netherlands wholeheartedly supports efforts to modernize United Nations peacekeeping. We stand ready to join the Council in doing its part as of 1 January 2018.

I now give the floor to the representative of Cyprus.

I would like to start by congratulating the Egyptian presidency of the Security Council for organizing today’s important and timely debate. Cyprus aligns itself with the statement made on behalf of the European Union and would like to add the following remarks in its national capacity. For more than 70 years, the United Nations has responded to evolving peace and security challenges by developing and adopting a wide range of tools and instruments. Today it continues to contribute greatly to the consolidation of peace and conflict prevention. The 2015 reviews, which were focused on peacekeeping operations and the peacebuilding architecture, were all inspired by the urgent need to strengthen the coherence of the United Nations system as part of renewed efforts to effectively address new threats and challenges to international peace and security. Cyprus agrees with the common patterns that emerged from the different reviews and supports the call of the Secretary-General for a comprehensive, modern and effective operational peace architecture that encompasses prevention, conflict resolution, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and long-term development — the peace continuum, adapted to the unique circumstances of each conflict or country. Since the 1960s, Cyprus has continuously benefited from United Nations involvement, with the aim of achieving peace and the reunification of the island, through the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and the good offices mission of the Secretary-General. UNFICYP is an example of an effective peacekeeping operation. Its continuation is indispensable for as long as a settlement to the Cyprus problem has not been found. First, based on Cyprus’ long-standing experience, the most important priority is to stop the conflict and to ensure it does not erupt again. However, bringing about sustainable peace and preventing conflict are equally important. Secondly, addressing the root causes of the conflict should serve as the basis for United Nations involvement. Thirdly, any review of peacekeeping operations should be guided by the situation on the ground. Fourthly, objectivity and impartiality are key principles in ensuring the credibility and efficiency of the United Nations. It is certain that the situation in Cyprus and prospects for peace would now be much worse had it not been for UNFICYP’s continued presence and the United Nations involvement throughout the years. As long as Cyprus remains under illegal military occupation, with the presence of thousands of heavily armed troops rendering the occupied area one of the most densely militarized areas of the world, it is clear that UNFICYP’s presence will be absolutely necessary. At the same time, the United Nations remains the forum through which a settlement can be achieved, and it should be at the forefront of all efforts. Cyprus remains committed to reunification, as any alternative to that does not serve the interests of the people of Cyprus, Greek-Cypriots and Turkish- Cypriots alike. We are ready to do our utmost in order to overcome the deadlock and pave the way to a comprehensive settlement that will at last reunify Cyprus as a viable, functional State, in line with Security Council resolutions, international law and the European Union acquis. We are most grateful to the Secretary-General for his tireless efforts and his personal involvement, and for the Security Council’s strong signal of unity and support. Recognizing the need to review peacekeeping operations on a regular basis in order to optimize their effectiveness and efficiency, the Government of Cyprus gave its consent to resolution 2369 (2017), adopted in July, which provides for a strategic review of UNFICYP within its existing mandate. Preserving the mandate is a prerequisite acknowledged by the Security Council in that resolution, since the situation on the ground remains unchanged. In that regard, we expect that the strategic review will take place in close cooperation with the host country, the Republic of Cyprus. In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm Cyprus’ commitment to work with all States Members of the United Nations for an enhanced peace architecture that will ensure increased effectiveness with optimal use of all available tools and resources.

I now give the floor to the representative of Malaysia.

Allow me to express our gratitude to you, Sir, for convening today’s open debate on United Nations peacekeeping operations and their potential contribution to the overarching goal of sustaining peace, which is indeed timely. I wish to take this opportunity to thank Her Excellency Ms. Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary- General; Mr. Youssef Mahmoud, Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute; and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal, former Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the 2015 review of the United Nations peacebuilding architecture, for their briefings and invaluable insights on today’s topic. Malaysia associates itself with the statement delivered by the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on behalf the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. I would also like to reaffirm Malaysia’s support for the central role played by the United Nations, particularly by the Security Council, in the maintenance of international peace and security. We are very mindful of the daunting responsibilities and expectations placed on the United Nations, in particular on the Council. My delegation views that positively, as it demonstrates the desire of the international community for the United Nations and the Council to do more, ultimately, to secure durable and sustainable peace in conflict- affected countries. My delegation believes that there is no one-size-fits- all approach in peacekeeping because each mission is unique. Therefore, in our collective efforts to enhance and improve the situation in the various peacekeeping missions, we need to take into account the different missions’ components, situation, environment and challenges, including the relevant coordination among the various stakeholders in the field. Indeed, the active participation of host countries is an important component when it comes to the success of any mission. Therefore, in our view, it is timely for the Security Council and the relevant host countries to shift from the concept of a Government approach to a citizens approach. Security and development are not mutually exclusive; they always go hand in hand. Without peace and security, countries will not be able to focus their resources on their socioeconomic development programmes for the well-being of their people. Therefore, continuous efforts are needed to develop peacekeeping operations with a more holistic and comprehensive strategic approach that involves the community. In that regard, Malaysia is willing to share its experience, in particular in peacekeeping training with a focus on winning the hearts and minds of the local population. My delegation supports the efforts of the Council and the United Nations in their engagement with all stakeholders, including youth and women, with a view to achieving equal access to quality education and leadership training programmes. We also support the roles of youth and women as mediators in sustaining peace. We remain mindful that it is the responsibility of all Member States to ensure the development of their own socioeconomic development plans in our joint efforts to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Peacekeepers in the field can provide relevant assistance and, wherever possible, facilitate the host country’s process of achieving peace and sustainability. Finally, Malaysia would like to pay tribute to the sacrifices made by peacekeepers — to the devoted men and women who have served and to those who are now serving with unwavering dedication and distinction in our joint endeavours to maintain international peace and security. Some paid with their lives towards such noble efforts.

I now give the floor to the representative of Azerbaijan.

I thank you, Mr. President, for having convened this important open debate and for submitting a concept note (S/2017/692, annex) on the topic under discussion. Azerbaijan associates itself with the statement delivered earlier today on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. I would like to make some remarks in our national capacity. Peacekeeping is a unique mechanism and an indispensable tool for our collective actions to maintain international peace and security. Despite shortcomings, it is evident that peacekeeping and peacekeepers have delivered results, contributed to reducing tensions and ensured that peacebuilding processes in different parts of the world moved forward. Coherence among peacemaking, peacekeeping, peacebuilding and development is important. That interconnection was explicitly acknowledged by the Security Council in resolution 2086 (2013), as well as in the 2030 Agenda and, most recently, in the resolutions on the review of the peacebuilding architecture. By preventing the recurrence of violence, supporting and enabling critical tasks in certain areas and assisting host countries in developing their post- conflict reconstruction strategies, multidimensional peacekeeping operations establish necessary foundations for successful peacebuilding processes. The effectiveness of peacekeeping, its role in the prevention, management and resolution of conflicts and its contribution to an orderly transition to reconstruction and development in an inclusive manner require further reinforcement of the centrality of underlying elements that form the basis of peacekeeping. I would like to focus on some of them. First, the mandates of peacekeeping operations must be clear, realistic and achievable, and must be tailored and constantly adapted to the realities on the ground. Secondly, the principles of the consent of the parties, impartiality and the non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate must be observed at all times. Further efforts are needed towards overcoming uncertainties about the legal basis for the use of force in peacekeeping. Thirdly, the Governments of countries emerging from conflict bear primary responsibility for identifying their needs and implementing post-conflict development agendas. Therefore, multidimensional peacekeeping operations should support the efforts of host countries to that end. Peacekeeping is a partnership, and its success depends on the continued cooperation, goodwill and commitment of Member States to strengthen the Organization and improve its efficiency so that it can better deliver on the universally shared principles and ideals and respond to the needs of those affected by armed conflicts. International law requires not just an outcome in preventing or resolving conflicts, but that such an outcome be accompanied by a process that is consistent with particular norms. It is critical that the mandate of any peacekeeping operation explicitly uphold the principles of political independence, sovereign equality, territorial integrity and non-intervention in matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of States. Peacekeeping must not be used to sustain the status quo created as a result of a violation of those fundamental norms and principles of international law. Nor can it be used to consolidate unlawful situations extant at the moment when hostilities were suspended. That understanding must be ensured throughout the whole cycle of peacekeeping operations. Particular attention should be paid to the issues of international humanitarian law and human rights law. The protection of civilians must remain a priority. In some situations of armed conflict, the restoration of the demographic composition of the population affected as a result of large-scale ethnic expulsion is a prerequisite for the legitimacy and sustainability of peace. It is therefore important that in such situations peacekeepers create the necessary conditions for, and serve as the guarantors of, the full, safe and dignified return of refugees and internally displaced persons to their homes and properties. As a country suffering from the scourge of war and being situated in proximity to other conflicts, Azerbaijan will continue its efforts towards establishing lasting peace and stability in the region of South Caucasus and beyond, on the basis of the generally accepted norms and principles of international law and the relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions. In conclusion, I would like once again to commend Egypt for its timely initiative of convening this open debate.

I now give the floor to the representative of Nigeria.

Let me begin by commending the delegation of Egypt for convening this open debate on a very important subject. My appreciation also goes to the Deputy Secretary-General and the other briefers for their insightful expositions on the topic of our discussion. Nigeria aligns itself with the statement delivered by the representative of Venezuela on behalf on the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. United Nations peacekeeping operations constitute one of the veritable tools at the disposal of the Organization for performing one of its three critical founding objectives, namely, maintaining peace and security and promoting human rights and development. It has become imperative to note that those three objectives are mutually dependent and reinforcing. In that regard, resolution 2282 (2016) rightly states, inter alia, that sustaining peace encompasses activities aimed at preventing the outbreak, escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict, addressing root causes, assisting parties to conflict to end hostilities, ensuring national reconciliation and moving towards recovery, reconstruction and development. The doctrine of sustaining peace is becoming a new paradigm in conflict management, so that even peacekeeping operations are adapting to many of its precepts. The High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations identified four strategic shifts required for the United Nations to successfully adapt to the changing nature of conflict. Those consist of the following: a political approach, a continuum of options ranging from the deployment of Special Envoys to the deployment of peacekeeping operations, partnerships with regional organizations in order to fully exploit the comparative advantages of each organization and a field-focused and people-centred approach to peacekeeping. The doctrine of prevention in peacekeeping operations is not just about stopping conflicts from happening or escalating, it is about continued engagement from the early signs of conflict to the post-recovery phase. Peacekeeping and peacebuilding have therefore become so interwoven that they may be considered simultaneously at each conflict phase. Even where there is yet no need for the deployment of force, the threat of force as a deterrent may dissuade parties from abandoning an existing peace process. There is need to recognize that no two conflicts are the same, and therefore a one-size-fits-all approach will always be misleading. In that regard, the analytical framework for a peacekeeping mandate needs to be exclusively unique to the conflict and to its environment. Effective collaboration with regional arrangements in the drafting of peacekeeping mandates is invaluable, considering the obvious advantages that such regional bodies have, including deeper insight on the conflict. The environment, the people and their culture and sensitivities; as well as the history of similar situations also play their parts. A phased mandate process would also be beneficial, as it has the potential of making room for an assessment of the phase of the conflict and what needs to be done in the next phase. It is also useful to understand the dynamics of the conflict in order to determine what new mandate elements would bring improved results, and so on. The complexity of contemporary conflicts also informs the need for improved situational awareness; and for the protection of civilians under imminent threat of violence. A critical element in sustaining peace is the opportunity for reconciliation. Peace initiatives that allow stakeholders to freely initiate and conclude negotiations based on give-and-take concessions, are most likely to attain enduring levels of compromise and stability. A situation where parties are encouraged to sign peace agreements drafted in foreign capitals, with presumed knowledge of the issues, and of solutions that are presumably suitable and acceptable to the parties, may not achieve the desired results. A very important component of the sustaining peace agenda is the engagement of civil society. In the past, the restriction of peace negotiations to armed parties has proven to be fatally flawed, as those parties may have limited, short-sighted political objectives that do not lead to a sustained peace. The involvement of young people, women, religious and community leaders has intrinsic value that supports peace on a continued basis. In that regard, the implementation of resolution 1325 (2000) would be very helpful to sustaining peace. At this juncture, I need to stress the need to respect the sovereignty of States, which is a fundamental principle under the Charter of the United Nations. Host States must buy into the peace process before they can have a meaningful chance of success. Achieving that buy-in requires great tact on the part of the international community. On the part of host States, statesmanship will be the key to embracing processes that would yield peace, stability, development and justice on a sustainable basis. A successful peacekeeping mandate must therefore consider the following factors: effective collaboration with host States, civil society, conflicting parties and community leaders; the insight and support of regional arrangements; the goal of genuine reconciliation; the conflict dynamics; and respect for State sovereignty reciprocated by State support for the peace process. In conclusion, we wish to reiterate that, in view of the significant role of peacekeepers, it is imperative for all concerned to make efforts to ensure the safety of all peacekeepers.

I now give the floor to the representative of Slovakia.

I wish to thank you, Mr. President, for organizing this important debate, continuing the series of open debates in the Security Council over the past few months, addressing different aspects of sustaining peace. I would also like to state that Slovakia fully aligns itself with the statement delivered earlier by the observer of the European Union. The United Nations is embarking on a process of major reform that is bound to revitalize the Organization in all three pillars of its work. The maintenance of international peace and security stands at the very core of the United Nations. It is not a coincidence that it has been anchored in the very first section of Article 1 of the Charter of the United Nations. Building on the spirit and upholding the principles of the Charter, we shall continue to aspire to high goals. Breaking the conflict cycles and arriving at sustainable solutions also mean that we need to continually evolve and adapt, in particular the ways and means that we have in our United Nations toolbox. Peacekeeping missions represent the flagship activity of the United Nations, but they should not be mistaken as a goal in itself. In each and every scenario, we need an overarching strategy that aims at achieving a sustainable solution grounded in a firm political agreement. Slovakia has been an active troop- and police-contributing country, having so far served in 19 United Nations missions with more than 7,500 men and women. Currently, our men and women in military and police uniforms wear the blue helmets in Cyprus, in the Golan Heights and in Haiti. We intend to continue in this endeavour and actively engage in peacekeeping operations in the years to come. Peacekeeping missions are a very valuable tool that needs to be employed with utmost attention and responsibility. We need to make sure that the peacekeeping operations will continue to restore the hope of the people and promote the credibility of the United Nations — not the opposite. We highly commend and subscribe to such initiatives as the Kigali Principles and the upcoming voluntary compact to eliminate sexual exploitation and abuse. Being a peacekeeper means being accountable and holding yourself to the highest standards. We need aspirational goals and sustainable solutions and, for that, we need adaptable mandates — that is using our tools in an effective way at a given moment and under specific circumstances. The mandates need to evolve and adapt so as to reflect operational and political realities on the ground. We shall always keep in mind the entire continuum of the conflict cycle, thinking one step ahead, but also looking one step back. That means that before we engage in a peacekeeping effort, we need to know why the conflict broke out, why the prevention endeavour did not work out, and also how we plan to arrive at a sustainable, long-term, durable solution. In other words, we need to ask questions such as the following: what are the benchmarks of progress? And, what is our exit strategy? Peacekeeping represents only one of the ingredients of the recipe for a sustainable solution. Maintaining peace and security is a complex endeavour, where various strands of United Nations assistance have their relevant place. We cannot overemphasize the importance of internal United Nations coordination. To do so, peace operations need to be part of an integrated approach. Missions must be linked to other available instruments for promoting peace, security and stability, including integrated planning, and implementation and assessment to ensure consistency and coherence. The High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations made important recommendations on reforming and strengthening United Nations peace operations through an effective political strategy, improved design and implementation of mandates and enhanced partnerships to make them much more effective, agile and responsive to the current realities. For over 10 years now, Slovakia has identified security sector reform as one of the key elements for effective conflict prevention and successful post- conflict rehabilitation and stabilization. The lessons learned from many peace operations and missions clearly show that a nationally led and inclusive security sector reform process can progressively deal with the root causes of insecurity and fragility and create an enabling environment for sustainable peace and development to prevail. In addition, security sector reform is directly linked to the protection of civilians and the rule of law — two other critical tasks that have become an integral part of almost every peace operation. There is also a close linkage with peacebuilding. In conclusion, let me say that it is clear that in the current security environment the United Nations can no longer solely rely on traditional methods to counter emerging threats and challenges. We need to continue being innovative, to adjust and remain flexible. We need to face the new challenges before spoilers disrupt delicate peace processes, before we risk losing even more Blue Helmets and, more importantly, before peace on the ground is endangered.

I now give the floor to the representative of the Republic of Korea.

At the outset, I would like to commend you, Mr. President, for convening today’s open debate on how peacekeeping operations can better contribute to sustaining peace. I would also like to thank all the briefers for their very informative and enlightening statements. United Nations peacekeeping operations are one of the most important political innovations we have in our collective efforts to maintain international peace and security. After decades of sweat and toil, the Blue Helmets have earned their place as a symbol of hope and freedom for millions of people across the globe. But as United Nations peacekeeping missions operate in increasingly complex and challenging environments, many have been questioning whether they are fit for purpose in effectively responding to that growing complexity. It is in that context that the report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) (see S/2015/446) highlighted the critical importance of conflict prevention and sustaining peace, while calling for four essential shifts in the design and delivery of United Nations peace operations — namely, the primacy of politics, responsive operations, stronger partnerships and field-focused and people-centred approaches. The Republic of Korea, as co-Chair of the Group of Friends of HIPPO, together with Norway and Ethiopia, is pleased to note that the recent debate on peace-operations reform continues to focus around the HIPPO recommendations. I sincerely hope that the ongoing peace-operations reforms, alongside those of the Organization’s management and development systems, will help peace operations deliver more effectively on the ground. They should focus not just on restructuring the Secretariat but, more importantly, on changing the culture, so that the United Nations system can overcome its silo problem and work more coherently and strategically. The reforms’ ultimate objective should be to focus on strengthening synergy among the three pillars of the United Nations, substantively and operationally. Against that backdrop, I would like to highlight the following four points. First, the Secretariat and Member States must significantly increase their investment in analysis, strategy and planning, which will lead to more effective design of missions. We welcome, in that regard, the Council’s increased efforts to establish sequenced and prioritized mandates. In particular, the Secretariat should improve the analysis it provides so that the Council can fully understand the dynamics on the ground when establishing and adjusting mission mandates. In close consultations with missions, the United Nations country teams and other relevant actors, it should undertake regular joint assessments with host Governments, focusing on every dimension of the three United Nations pillars, in order to build and sustain peace. Secondly, based on that enhanced analysis, a comprehensive political strategy or road map should be developed that takes into account the entire peace continuum from prevention and peacekeeping to peacebuilding and long-term development. Peacekeeping missions’ mandates should be designed to be part of that broader political strategy, laying out the bigger picture of the engagement of the United Nations in building and sustaining peace. That comprehensive strategy would also serve as a basis for the Council and the Secretariat to decide on a clear division of labour between the mission, the country team and the other relevant entities, from the mission’s launch until its drawdown. The Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is well placed to provide qualitative advice to the Council in following up on the implementation of the peacebuilding component of the comprehensive strategy. In that regard, it will be particularly important to ensure that the Council determines the extent of the peacebuilding activities that should be carried out by the peacekeeping mission as part of its mandate, which should take into consideration the calls we are hearing for less ambitious and more manageable mandates. Member States should also deliberate on ways to better secure programmatic funding for peacebuilding activities — including scaled-up support for the Peacebuilding Fund — whether those activities are implemented by missions, country teams or other relevant partners. Thirdly, the comprehensive strategy for sustaining peace should reflect on strategic partnerships with relevant stakeholders outside the United Nations. Given the complex, multifaceted nature of today’s challenges, and the continued insufficient funding and capacity of the United Nations, sustainable peace and development simply cannot be achieved by the United Nations system alone. With regard to peacekeeping missions, strategic partnerships with regional and subregional organizations, especially the African Union (AU), should be mapped out. Such organizations have a far better understanding of the situation on the ground, as well as greater political influence. In that regard, we look forward to the high-level debate on peacekeeping to be convened in the Council by Ethiopia next month with a view to exploring ways for the United Nations to enhance its support of AU-led peace-support operations. Where peacebuilding activities are concerned, the comprehensive strategy should address the issue of strengthening partnerships not only with regional and subregional organizations but also with international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the African Development Bank, as well as civil society and the private sector. The PBC could also play an increasingly important role in building partnerships with relevant stakeholders. It can use its unique convening power to mobilize relevant actors. In fact, as Chair of the PBC for this year, I have been focusing on strengthening the PBC’s partnerships with relevant stakeholders. A case in point is the agreement between the Commission and the World Bank to hold a dialogue on an annual basis, which was announced in June on the occasion of the PBC’s annual session. Later this year, in my capacity as PBC Chair, I also plan to visit the African Union and the African Development Bank with interested PBC members in order to explore ways to further strengthen our partnerships. Fourthly, it is critically important to respect a host Government’s national ownership and its priorities for building and sustaining peace at every stage of a mission, from planning to implementation and transition. At the same time, missions should work closely with host Governments and other relevant entities, including the PBC, to strengthen the capacity of State institutions with a long-term vision. In that regard, it should be noted that the mandates of peacekeeping operations often overlook the social mechanisms and informal institutions that are readily available to serve as a basis for sustainable peace, such as the role that can be played by elders and religious and traditional leaders, as well as by traditional justice systems. Efforts to sustain peace should build on such existing institutions and on the resilience and reconciliation processes of local communities. In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm that the Republic of Korea is committed to strengthening United Nations peacekeeping operations with a view to contributing to sustaining peace.

I now give the floor to the representative of Switzerland.

I would like to thank the Egyptian presidency of the Council for organizing today’s important debate. Our conceptual approach to preventing conflict and sustaining peace has evolved considerably over the past few years. In order to achieve conditions conducive to lasting peace, we should take a fresh look at how to get the best results from our peace operations. I will focus on two institutional issues that we believe are crucial to the Council’s efforts to maintain lasting peace. First, a single strategy bringing the various peace operations together is best suited to addressing the multidimensional complexity of current conflicts, which require a whole range of tools. The sequential approach to the conflict cycle, which is based on divisions between special political missions, peacekeeping and peacebuilding missions, followed by development, has too often resulted in failure. From the outset, and without any interruption, peace-operation mandates should include a full spectrum of appropriate responses, which will make for smoother transitions between the various phases of missions. Such an approach would also align better with the Secretary-General’s vision for prevention, integrating all the United Nations pillars — peace and security, sustainable development and human rights — on the same plane. In that regard, Switzerland welcomes the Peacebuilding Commission’s important role as an intergovernmental advisory body to the Council. Through its reporting and engagement, the Commission gives effective support to the Council’s efforts to prevent conflicts from breaking out or recurring. With regard to the issue of financing, if the Security Council is to fully take on its central role in preventing and peacefully resolving conflicts, it must be able to make full use of the various tools at its disposal. However, they cannot be really effective if they are underfunded or lack the necessary political and administrative support. Starting off with an inadequate budget frequently results in higher costs down the road. Switzerland therefore urges all Member States to support funding for the entire cycle of measures for dealing with conflict, especially conflict prevention and peacebuilding. I should like to conclude by presenting a concrete example of the positive impact that peacekeeping mandates can have on security in a specific context. The safe and secure management of ammunition is a crucial element in the context of various United Nations missions. The proliferation of ammunition from unsecured stockpiles can fuel other armed conflicts. Unsecured ammunition can be looted or misused. There are components in improvised explosive devices that threaten the lives of civilians and United Nations peacekeepers. There is a clear link between safely managing the life cycle of conventional ammunition and maintaining international security and sustaining peace. Switzerland is actively supporting the efforts of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali in assisting the Malian authorities with the management of their ammunition stockpiles. It encourages the Security Council to include, when appropriate, the principle of safe and secure ammunition management in future mandates.

I now give the floor to the representative of Thailand.

Today’s meeting and some of the points raised by today’s briefers highlight the diverse challenges across the peacekeeping realm and point to the need for a more robust, coherent and comprehensive approach. Determining how to improve our approach to peacekeeping will be particularly important for us in the immediate future in light of the currently proposed reform of the United Nations system. To ensure that peace is sustained, the following elements are crucial. First, we need a change in mindset from reactive to proactive. The concept of sustaining peace, adopted by the General Assembly and Security Council in April 2016, represents a fundamental shift in how we think about peace and how we address conflicts. It urges us to view peacebuilding more holistically as part of the peace continuum that spans from conflict prevention and resolution to laying down the foundations for sustainable peace. Achieving the goal of sustaining peace is therefore a long-term process and a comprehensive approach that covers the periods before, during and after the conflict. For peace to take root and grow in strength, efforts for sustaining peace cannot solely depend on peace and security operations but require an approach that ensures the well-being of the local population, as well as maintains and promotes their political and social rights. Therefore, sustaining peace is both an enabler and an outcome of sustainable development. Secondly, sustaining peace relies on national ownership. We believe that for any community to achieve the goal of sustaining peace, the journey must always be led by the people. Inclusive national ownership is therefore a prerequisite for successful peacebuilding and durable peace. This must begin with genuine dialogue and inclusive participation from the entire society in governance structures and the economy. In particular, mandates of peacekeeping operations must be realistic and tailored made to each local context. Their implementation must be conducted in a participatory manner that takes into account national and local perspectives. This is necessary to instil a sense of ownership in the local institutions and population, as well as to restore their legitimacy in the process of achieving and sustaining peace. Advancing, in the local context, the women and peace and security agenda is also crucial in strengthening national ownership and moving the international community towards the paradigm of sustaining peace. Women’s participation is politically indispensable and necessary also for the operational effectiveness of the whole process. Last but not least, it is the quality of peacekeeping operations that determines their effectiveness in achieving the goal of sustaining peace. In this regard, I wish to touch upon three particular aspects. First, identifying the right types of capabilities is crucial for delivering effective peace operations and achieving the goal of sustaining peace. We must ensure that peacekeepers are equipped with the exact knowledge, skills and attitudes that are required for the performance of their duties. Secondly, transition towards an exit strategy must be properly managed. For this purpose, careful mission transition planning and post-mission United Nations support should be in place from an early stage. It is also important that missions’ mandates are aligned with and supportive of national priorities. This can be achieved only by restoring what is in disrepair and needs fixing, and by analysing, understanding and utilizing existing mechanisms in society to build up positive resilience and drivers of peace. Finally, we must enhance regional and subregional organizations’ capacities, as they are essential both in the context of our collective response to international peace and security challenges, and in our efforts to achieve the goal of sustaining peace in the respective region. We must also encourage enhanced exchanges of views and dialogue between regional and subregional organizations and the Security Council, as well as other United Nations bodies, in order to ensure synergy and complementarity. The Kingdom of Thailand’s fundamental peacekeeping philosophy is that the issues of security, human rights and development are all linked together. We stand ready to continue and to increase our support to United Nations peacekeeping in a sustainable manner and closely aligned to the sustaining peace perspective. For these reasons, the Kingdom of Thailand appreciates the Secretary-General’s efforts in proposing and reconceptualizing a more comprehensive approach to preventive diplomacy and sustaining peace. We look forward to working closely with all stakeholders to implement these crucial concepts that we believe are complementary to the current peace and security architecture and the overall United Nations agenda. Let me conclude with a simple appeal. We all need to work better together. We need to adapt to changes and be open-minded. We have to calibrate our ambitions to our strengths and needs, to enhance and modernize our capacities, and to stay relevant in order to achieve the goal of sustaining peace more effectively.

I now give the floor to the representative of Armenia.

We thank the Egyptian presidency for organizing today’s open debate and for the concept paper (S/2017/692, annex). We also thank the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Senior Advisor at the International Peace Institute Mr. Youssef Mahmoud, and Ambassador Gert Rosenthal for their comprehensive presentations and for sharing their vision on how to make peacekeeping operations more effective and fit for the current challenges that we face in many parts of the world. Armenia highly values the contributions that peacekeepers and peacekeeping missions make towards sustaining peace and security worldwide. Over the years, Armenia has developed solid foundations for involvement in peacekeeping missions and our engagement in the area of international peacekeeping has gradually expanded. Currently, Armenia is an active contributor to international peace and security, and has accumulated considerable experience in the field. Since 2014, Armenia has contributed a platoon of 32 servicemen to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) and six shifts have already been rotated. Armenia’s contribution to international peace and security is also reflected by its long-standing participation in NATO-led operations in Kosovo and Afghanistan. We want to also highlight the importance of the United Nations support to regional organizations and arrangements. In this context, we welcome the expanding cooperation of the United Nations with the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). Within the CSTO, Armenia has been investing its experience in the strengthening of the preparedness for peacekeeping. During our presidency in the CSTO over the past year, we attached priority to the expansion of such cooperation between the Organization and the United Nations and we will continue supporting closer working interactions between the two secretariats. Armenia will maintain the current level of involvement in Lebanon and Mali and we are ready and have the capacity to increase the number of troops in UNIFIL and to provide additional staff at the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali. We stand by the commitment we undertook in that connection at the summit on United Nations peacekeeping in September 2015. Armenia is planning to register a role-2 field hospital and an engineering unit equipped to counter improvised explosive devices in the United Nations Peacekeeping Capability Readiness System and make them available to United Nations peacekeeping missions. We are working closely with the Department of Peacekeeping Operations in order to facilitate the process of preparedness and deployment. The peaceful resolution of conflicts on the basis of the norms and principles of international law and within internationally agreed mandates is of particular significance. Only through comprehensive and genuine dialogue between the parties to conflicts and adherence to previously reached agreements will it be possible to avoid any escalation of the situation on the ground and pave the way for a political solution and reconciliation between people. Prevention and early- warning mechanisms should be at the forefront of peace initiatives. Special attention should be paid to the early- warning signs emanating from the parties to conflicts. In conclusion, Armenia supports reform efforts that are aimed at enhancing the effectiveness and operational capabilities of peacekeeping operations and streamlining the United Nations peacekeeping architecture. We will continue to forge stronger cooperation with the United Nations so as to be able to contribute to international peace and security.

I now give the floor to the representative of Viet Nam.

I would like to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your successful chairmanship of the Security Council this month and thank you for convening this timely session on United Nations peacekeeping operations and their potential contribution to sustaining peace. Our thanks go also to the Deputy Secretary-General, the Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute and the Chair of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture for their informative briefings on this important topic. My delegation aligns itself with the statement delivered by the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement. Peace and security are the prerequisites for sustainable development and vice-versa. We are now implementing the two important United Nations agendas for sustaining peace and sustainable development. It is our common understanding that peacekeeping operations need to be reformed so as to adapt to the new, changing and complex security challenges and to better realize our goal of a world of sustainable peace — a much needed factor for socioeconomic development. First and foremost, we should increase the effectiveness and efficiency of peacekeeping missions. It is necessary to clearly define the mandates of each mission according to the unique context in each country and the adequacy of our resources. Viet Nam commends recent reviews on peace operations, especially the greater focus on preventive diplomacy and mediation. Interconnection and coherence between peacekeeping and peacebuilding are crucial. Peacekeeping must be accompanied by the promotion of economic recovery, reintegration and capacity-building in order to address the root causes of conflicts, rebuild the social fabric and cohesion, and ensure a smooth transition to lasting peace and security. We therefore call for enhanced coordination between the Security Council and the Peacebuilding Commission in the development of long- term policies for sustaining peace. Likewise, we believe in the need for more inclusive consultations between the Security Council, the Secretariat and troop- and police-contributing countries in areas such as policy formulation and decision-making on the mission mandates. Importantly, every effort by peacekeeping missions to assist national Governments in sustaining peace must be made with the consent of the parties involved. We also underline the importance of cooperation with regional and subregional organizations, given their significant stakes and practical experience on the ground. While the multidimensional and integrated aspects of peacekeeping operations should be emphasized in prospective reform measures, any peacekeeping operation must be carried out in accordance with international law and the Charter of the United Nations, respecting the basic principles of political impartiality, non-intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign States, the consent of the parties and the non-use of force except in self-defence and in defence of the mandate. At the same time, safety and security, as well as the conduct and discipline of United Nations personnel, must be better ensured and promoted through comprehensive policies and commitments, predeployment training and the development of new cost-effective technologies. In recent years, Viet Nam has joined hands with the international community and has proactively participated in United Nations peacekeeping operations in South Sudan and the Central African Republic. We commit to contributing more liaison officers and to preparing for the future deployment of a level-2 hospital to the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, in line with United Nations standards and requirements. We look forward to the continued assistance and cooperation of the Secretariat and Member States in those endeavours.

I now give the floor to the representative of Argentina.

Argentina thanks Egypt for organizing this open debate on a topic to which Argentina attaches particular importance, given its triple status as a troop- and police-contributing country to United Nations peace missions, an active promoter of the concept of sustainable peace and current member of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC). We also thank the Deputy Secretary-General and the other speakers for their briefings to the Security Council this morning. From the outset, Argentina has embraced the Organization’s new emphasis on conflict prevention, as well as the development of the concept of sustainable peace or sustaining peace. In that context, peacekeeping operations (PKOs) have acquired new potential in the continuum of responses associated with prevention, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The development of PKOs in the broad area of sustainable peace is the last step of the evolution initiated in the 1990s, when new complex multidimensional missions were added to traditional missions, as reflected in their mandates, as a result of an ever-increasing number of factors linked to peacebuilding — in particular in the area of the promotion and protection of human rights, the rebuilding of rule-of-law institutions and the consolidation of democracy. In that regard, Argentina believes that this has been one of the most notable developments in peace missions in recent years and is essential in order to avoid relapse into conflict and to enable missions to act as a platform for sustainable development. That trend has led to peacekeepers becoming early peacebuilders, which has been acknowledged by the General Assembly’s Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations since the beginning of the decade, as reflected in its annual report, and by the Security Council in resolution 2086 (2013) — which Argentina had the honour to negotiate and co-sponsor in its last action as a non-permanent member of this organ. More recently, and on the basis of the report of the Advisory Group of Experts on the Review of the Peacebuilding Architecture, chaired by Ambassador Gert Rosenthal (S/2015/490), the substantially identical, parallel General Assembly resolution 70/262 and Security Council resolution 2282 (2016) on the review of the peacebuilding architecture have assigned PKOs and special political missions a prominent role in the comprehensive strategy for peacekeeping. The new narrative of sustainable peace involves redefining the Organization’s peace operations, putting greater emphasis on prevention and taking special note of the fact that such missions constitute a political instrument to be used in the framework of processes aimed at sustaining peace before, during and after conflict. In that regard, Argentina reiterates — in line with the aforementioned parallel resolutions of the Assembly and the Council — the need to seek, on a regular basis, the specific advice and input of the Peacebuilding Commission, harnessing thereby that body’s more long-term perspective and vision, which is essential for our efforts to properly reflect sustaining peace when it comes to establishing, reviewing and ultimately drawing down peacekeeping operations, as well as in setting the mandates of special political missions. In particular, we must work to guarantee that transitions from one mission to another or to a country teams proceed in such a way that sustaining peace is neither disrupted or weakened. To that end, it is important to ensure the continuity and stability of peacebuilding programmes, personnel and resources during the various stages of United Nations activities in host countries, always in close consultation and coordination with those countries. In this regard, Argentina recognizes the example of the Joint Transition Plan of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and the United Nations country team in Haiti, which describes the gaps in peacebuilding arising from the withdrawal of MINUSTAH and which will make it necessary for the new mission, the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti, the country team and the donor community continue to provide support. We are also confident that the second special political mission to verify the peace process in Colombia will continue to support the country on its path to sustainable peace. With respect to the particular issue of sufficient funding for peacebuilding activities by United Nations country teams and for peacebuilding components of peace operations, including during the transition and reduction stages of the missions, Argentina looks forward to receiving the options that the Secretary- General will present in his report prior to the high- level meeting on peacekeeping and peacebuilding to be held during the seventy-second session of the General Assembly. Finally, in line with the parallel resolutions of the Assembly and the Council on sustainable peace, Argentina reiterates the need for greater coordination, coherence and integration in the peacebuilding tasks of peacekeeping operations, country teams and national and international development actors, in order to ensure greater effectiveness and efficiency in their implementation.

I give the floor to the representative of Maldives.

I would like to start by congratulating you, Mr. President, on your assumption of the presidency of the Security Council and also for convening today’s important debate on United Nations peacekeeping operations. Peacekeeping operations are at the heart of the United Nations, which is as much about peacemaking and peace enforcement, as it is about peacekeeping. There is no better cause than preventing violent conflicts. It is about saving lives and livelihoods. It is about bringing hopes to the vanquished. It is about creating conditions to empower communities to enable their children to realize their dreams and let them dream new dreams. The Maldives wishes to submit to the Security Council in today’s open debate that it is of profound importance to construct an analytical framework in which the Council is able to consider the changes needed in the mandates of United Nations peacekeeping missions. Such a framework could be created by establishing, at the inception level, a greater coordination and operational coherence between peacekeeping operations and the United Nations country team on the ground. The designing stage of any peacekeeping operation should take full account of the unique historical, political and economic circumstances of the situation, using the most relevant analytical tools available. Any such analysis should produce the correct diagnosis of the underlying causes of the conflict. The visible signs we see and hear about a conflict, might, at times, be the symptoms of an underlying set of issues. As such, identifying the underlying causes that led to the conflict in the first place should be the goal of even the earliest diagnosis of the conflict situation. Situations can give rise to conflicts that become intractable over time, quite often because of systemic failures. Such failures might be the result of the decaying of a social fabric that had held the communities together for centuries, or it might be the gradual weakening of the State’s capacity to govern and maintain order. Any peacekeeping operation, in any inter-State conflict or intra-State conflict, should aim to build the capacity of the State, first of all, to govern, and then to foster a governing order that is rooted in the principles of democracy, good governance and inclusive development. Building the capacity of the State is also important in developing an institutional architecture that would help to create a shared vision for the country and to mobilize and sustain support for such a vision. If there is one thing that peacekeeping operations can do to help countries create and sustain peace, it is to build a set of institutions that can inspire national unity, deliver a peace dividend to every corner of the country, and cultivate and foster a culture of peace, respect and tolerance in the country concerned. The Maldives believes that the Security Council, in close collaboration with other agencies in the United Nations system, can inspire and lead in bringing the necessary reforms to peacekeeping missions, in designing such operations and in implementing the set of strategies that will sustain peace. Women and men in every corner of the world look to the Security Council for leadership; we in the Maldives have full faith that the Council will not fail in providing that leadership.

I give the floor to the representative of Chile.

We thank Egypt for convening today’s debate, and we listened with great interest to the statements of the speakers who preceded us. We are particularly grateful to have heard Ambassador Rosenthal, with his experience in development and in peacebuilding and his emphasis on the fact that the three pillars must be integrated. Faced with conflicts and their terrible consequences, we have a responsibility to act in a timely, efficient and relevant manner, deploying coherent efforts to counter political, economic, social or cultural situations that are generally at the root of the conflicts to be prevented. We are convinced that conflict prevention is the most effective means of addressing its human and financial costs. We therefore support the achievement of the sustaining peace objective set forth in General Assembly resolution 70/262 through an integrated and multidimensional strategy within the framework of the preventive vision promoted by the Secretary-General. Sustaining peace will benefit from strategies for planning, evaluation and withdrawal of peacekeeping operations tailored to the appropriate interaction between all stakeholders — namely, the host country, United Nations staff, local civil society and national contingents in close dialogue with regional and international actors — under the principle of national ownership that you mentioned in your statement earlier, Mr. President. The design of strategies in this direction should take into account, among other things, the state of play of defence institutions, critical infrastructures, such as schools and hospitals, which is a subject that the Council has been addressing — we note in particular resolution 2286 (2016) — disarmament, demobilization and reintegration, including that of children, security reform, strengthening of the rule of law, the human rights institutional framework, national security and the participation of civil society. We emphasize in this regard the relevant role of the Peacebuilding Commission in promoting stability and social cohesion, in cooperation with the Security Council and Economic and Social Council, among others. Sustaining peace can also be facilitated by proper use of crisis management tools, which range from mediation and the deployment of an operation to sanctions regimes. The missions in Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia, which worked jointly on the issue of cross-border cooperation, provide concrete examples of integrated planning and withdrawal that bare further study. Peacekeeping operations must be periodically reviewed to assess their contribution to sustaining peace, it being the responsibility of the Security Council to analyse whether or not the tasks entrusted to a given mission and the general concept of a mission are consistent not just with the political reality and the operational needs on the ground, but also with its purpose. The declaration issued by the United Nations Peacekeeping Defence Ministerial Conference that took place in London in 2016 reiterated the importance of the role of women in peacebuilding and conflict resolution, including the need for their greater participation at all mission levels. In that regard, we welcome the Senior Women Talent Pipeline for United Nations Peace Operations, set up under the umbrella of the Department of Field Support. We call for that initiative to be expanded. The planning of missions with the goal of sustaining peace requires effective logistical preparation of the critical capacities and operational tools that are available through appropriate operational means, within the framework of a mandate that enhances security and protects vulnerable civilians. It should include child protection advisers, gender advisers and other advisers, who are all crucial when it comes to sustaining peace. In that connection, we would point to resolutions 1325 (2000) and 2250 (2015). In addition, personnel deployed to peacekeeping missions should be properly trained and committed to upholding the highest possible standards of conduct in the framework of the zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, thereby fostering the necessary conditions for sustainable and lasting peace. It is vital that we dedicate resources to sustaining peace; for, notwithstanding the consensus reached achieved with General Assembly resolution 70/262, Member States have not sufficiently contributed to those tasks as compared to those devoted to the deployment of troops. We are concerned that the United Nations Development Programme Conflict Prevention and Recovery Thematic Trust Fund and the Peacebuilding Fund, to which Chile and other States contribute, receive less than a 3 per cent share of the overall peacekeeping budget. We would like to reiterate our commitment to the sustaining peace agenda and call for the United Nations system to develop a shared and practical vision of the concept and the values that underpin it. Finally, we would like to pay tribute to all those United Nations staff who are currently deployed in the field and who contribute day in and day out to the building of peace. We hope that in the future they will be able to contribute in the same way to sustaining peace under this innovative concept. Once again, we especially thank the delegation of Egypt for its excellent work during its presidency of the Council and for the transparency with which it has led its work.

I now give the floor to the representative of Kuwait.

Mr. President, at the outset I would like to commend the presidency of your brotherly country, Egypt, of the Security Council for this month. I also thank you, Sir, for the initiative to hold this important open debate on a topic that is at the core of the goals of the Charter of the United Nations, and also for circulating the concept note (S/2017/692, annex ). I commend your predecessor, the Permanent Representative of China, for his presidency of the Council during the previous month. And I thank Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed for her valuable briefing, as well as Mr. Mahmoud and Mr. Rosenthal. The State of Kuwait stands behind the Secretary-General in his efforts to support peacekeeping operations and to develop those operations in line with the purposes and principles of the United Nations. We align ourselves with the statement delivered by the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. In that regard, I would like to build on what has been said today regarding how peacekeeping operations can contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security. That requres, first, considering innovative preventive diplomacy practices in line with resolution 2086 (2013), which stresses the importance of monitoring and defining functions and challenges facing peacebuilding during the inception of the mission. That is important because we must also mobilize all support from our national and regional institutions and from all social segments, including women and children, in order to start building peace without postponing it until the post-conflict phase. As such, and guided by resolution 2282 (2016), which provides a great number of tools to sustain peace, supporting the work of the Peacebuilding Commission will bridge the gap between the end of peacekeeping operations and the start of planning for peacebuilding through a smooth transition that ensures the sustainability of peace and better cooperation with national institutions in the concerned States. Such an approach should also help us reduce the cost of peacekeeping operations. Establishing peacekeeping operations in line with concepts and on the basis of resolutions 2086 (2013) and 2282 (2016) would allow the United Nations achieve a more comprehensive assessessment of missions and to define the challenges they face. Therefore, this could enable us to come up with innovative solutions that improve the performance of missions and their financial efficiency, without prejudice to their ability to confront all challenges facing their mandates. Continued cooperation and consultation with relevant States and focusing on their needs and wishes would help inevitably lead to greater efficiency in the performance of peacekeeping operations, whether in peacebuilding or peacekeeping. Taking into consideration the needs of host countries in a way that corresponds to their challenges and the realities on the ground effectively contributes to adapting the mandates of peacekeeping operations to those developments and enhances the ability of relevant States to design and devise mission mandates and exit strategies. After that, the international community, the international financial institutions and donor countries will be able to play their role in supporting reconstruction and development efforts. I would be remiss if I failed to commend the partnership between the United Nations and the African Union in support of peacekeeping operations on the continent while enhancing and the national role and responsibility of the African States in their region. The growing cooperation between the United Nations and the African Union is an example to follow when considering other forms of cooperation with other regional organizations. In that regard, I recall that my country took part in the United Nations Operation in Somalia II. But our most extensive experience, which lasted for more than 12 years, was hosting the United Nations Iraq- Kuwait Observation Mission, where the State of Kuwait cooperated with the Mission and the Organization in order to achieve its goals and its mandate until we managed, in consultation with Iraq, the Mission and troop-contributing countries, in 2003, to agree on withdrawing the Mission after it achieved its mandate, as part of a process that included the host country, troop-contributing countries and the Security Council. The State of Kuwait looks forward to taking part in constructive deliberations in the Council regarding peacekeeping operations and their reform this year, as well as over the next two years as a member of the Council.

I now give the floor to the representative of Botswana.

My delegation joins others in congratulating the Arab Republic of Egypt on its assumption of the presidency of the Security Council for the month of August. We also commend you, Mr. President, for convening this very important open debate today on the topic “United Nations peacekeeping operations: their potential contribution to the overarching goal of sustaining peace”. We also thank today’s briefers for the invaluable insights they have shared with us on this subject. My delegation aligns itself with the statement delivered by the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. It is the considered view of my delegation that United Nations peacekeeping operations play a critical role in building and sustaining peace and international security. Over the years, peacekeeping has proven to be the most effective tool employed by the United Nations to provide transitional support to war-torn countries. It has also provided such countries an opportunity to transition from conflict to sustainable peace. However, we acknowledge that the scope, objectives and nature of peacekeeping have been highly dynamic and have evolved over the years, in parallel with the changes in the nature of conflicts, thereby making the success of any operation less guaranteed. In that sense, my delegation welcomes the fact that one of the main focuses of Secretary-General António Guterres’ term of office has been the review of peacekeeping operations, peacebuilding and the involvement of women and children in conflict. It is our view that the full participation of women is essential to the success of any peace process. We therefore agree that it is the responsibility of the United Nations to ensure that political solutions promote preventive approaches, mainstream human rights and foster inclusive engagement and empowerment of women and girls. In our support for resolution 2282 (2016) on post- conflict peacebuilding, we wish to emphasize that in order to bring about sustainable peace in a society emerging from conflict, some of the key activities should be efforts to prevent the escalation, continuation and recurrence of conflict. We therefore support a wide range of activities that extend from conflict prevention to the maintenance of sustainable peace and are included within the scope of United Nations peace operations. Addressing the root causes, building the foundations for peaceful, inclusive societies, assisting parties to end hostilities, ensuring national reconciliation and working towards recovery, reconstruction and development are critical to preventing and resolving conflict. Such efforts should, therefore, be the number-one priority for us as the international community. Peacekeeping in itself should complement existing national, regional and international efforts aimed at advancing and encouraging dialogue and national reconciliation and strengthen national capacities and institutions for sustaining peace. As for Botswana, our desire to see peace prevail in our region and beyond has been one of the key objectives of our foreign policy. We have and remain actively involved in efforts to bring about sustainable peace in countries in our subregion and beyond. Botswana has in the past provided military and police personnel to United Nations and other multilateral operations in countries such as Somalia, Rwanda, Mozambique, Lesotho and Darfur, to mention just a few. Although Botswana is not a troop- or police-contributing country, we have, over the years, faithfully maintained our contributions to the United Nations regular budget, as well as the peacekeeping budget, as a testament to our unwavering commitment to the United Nations system and to contributing, in our own small way, to the maintenance of international peace and stability. Furthermore, in view of our own values and principles relating to democracy, good governance, accountability and strong institutions, Botswana has also been instrumental in promoting dialogue. The country played a leading role in mediation efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mozambique and Lesotho, to mention only a few. Botswana also continues to share its experiences and knowledge on those issues, as is evident in our involvement in South Sudan. Members of the Council will recall that our former President, His Excellency Mr. Festus Mogae, who is a familiar figure in the Council in his capacity as Chair of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission on South Sudan, is making a significant contribution to facilitate the resolution of the conflict in that country. My Government also provides significant support to election observation in our region, including supporting political, and development activities that focus on the smooth transfer of power and contribute to sustainable peace. We also recognize ongoing efforts and collaboration between the United Nations and the African Union through the Joint United Nations- African Union Framework for an Enhanced Partnership in Peace and Security, which was recently signed by the Secretary-General and the Chairperson of the African Union Commission. Let me conclude by reaffirming Botswana’s commitment to playing its part and to our unwavering support for efforts by the international community aimed at the promotion and protection of international peace and security.

I now give the floor to the representative of Haiti.

Allow me, at the outset, on behalf of the Haitian Government, to congratulate the delegation of the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt, which is serving this month as President of the Security Council, for its initiative in convening this open debate on the potential contribution of peacekeeping operations to the overarching goal of sustaining peace. The issue is indeed important. In a constantly changing world confronted with global threats and complex and changing security issues, the nature of peacekeeping operations, their relevance, cost, effectiveness and objectives have rightly raised a number of questions. Many critics have denounced — not without reason — the mismanagement of some missions, in particular the inflated costs and staffing, and the multiplication of tasks unrelated to the fundamental objectives. Others, on the other hand, severely criticize what they perceive as the artificial politicization of peacekeeping, with too much attention being placed on certain issues. Nevertheless, there can be no denying that peacekeeping operations are an excellent tool for conflict management and have proven their necessity over the past five decades. Incidentally, Mr. António Guterres rightly underscored that the United Nations Blue Helmets represent an investment for global peace, security and prosperity. Nevertheless, they are not a perfect tool and have clearly shown their limitations. Reforms have been proposed and initiated so as to remedy such problems. However, we must admit that a great deal remains to be done to ensure that such operations are properly adapted to the complexity of the new challenges, new threats to international peace and security, the various contexts in which they are deployed and to the difficult and often hostile environments in which they are called upon to intervene. Updates are all the more necessary, as the success stories, however undeniable and spectacular they may be, cannot hide the fact that there are what some consider to be half-success stories or even resounding failures that, furthermore, sometimes cast a shadow on the credibility, the image and the moral authority of the United Nations. Among the ever-increasing voices rising from all sides — even here within the Security Council — calling for a new doctrinal approach to peacekeeping, we note in particular that of the Secretary-General, who has affirmed that genuine, strategic reform of peacekeeping operations is necessary. Clearly, new avenues for the future must be explored. The concept paper (S/2017/692, annex) prepared by the Egyptian presidency of the Security Council has outlined some very interesting approaches. Some of the proposals that have emerged in efforts to achieve the goal of sustaining peace share several characteristics. We consider three of those elements to be essential. The first is the principle of accountability, which should guide all aspects of a United Nations peacebuilding operation. Secondly, the role of the Security Council must be strengthened so as to enable it to fulfil its fundamental mission as a core instrument in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, one that is capable of providing appropriate collective responses consistent with its mandate, particularly in situations where gross violations of human rights, atrocities or serious violations of humanitarian law have been committed. Thirdly, sustaining peace cannot only involve the prevention of the outbreak, intensification, continuation or resurgence of conflicts, as the concept paper has clearly reminded us. Peacekeeping will necessarily be incomplete if it does not also include activities dealing with the root causes of conflict. In the case of my country, Haiti, the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which has been working for some 13 years, is coming to an end. The Haitian Government and the Security Council have agreed. The foundation for political and institutional stability in Haiti has been consolidated. For the first time in decades, a peaceful, credible and inclusive electoral process has made it possible to fill all elective posts at all levels of governance. Through MINUSTAH, the United Nations has largely contributed to that outcome. Guided by that shared vision, the Haitian Government and the United Nations are working together to establish a new framework for strategic cooperation that will reflect the new reality on the ground. Among others, the United Nations Mission for Justice Support in Haiti must illustrate that new partnership. On behalf of the Haitian delegation, I would like to conclude with four observations. First, to us it seems essential that, in learning from recent past lessons, the Security Council fully reappropriate its mission of safeguarding and sustaining peace, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. In particular, the Council must eliminate the institutional bottlenecks which, all too often in recent years, have undermined and even paralysed its work aimed at fully discharging its role as the main peacekeeping authority. Secondly, the debate on sustaining peace cannot ignore the question of extreme poverty, which plays a role with which we are all too familiar in many intra-State conflicts. Fratricidal civil wars often have their roots in economic misery, social injustice, political oppression, marginalization and exclusion. It is imperative to afford more substantial assistance to developing countries in the throws of conflict or in the post-conflict phase of reconstruction and peacebuilding so that they can break the vicious circle of poverty. If we fail to do so, “sustaining peace” will remain empty words. Thirdly, under no circumstances can the United Nations shirk its responsibilities, in particular that of respecting and promoting the rights of those it is called upon to protect. In that regard, we welcome the proposal submitted to States Members by the Secretary-General that aims to end impunity and provides for the appointment of advocates of victims’ rights within the framework of the Organization’s peacekeeping activities. So as to be fully in line with the human rights norms that the United Nations has as an essential mission to promote, that approach — we truly hope — must cover all cases of human rights violations and moral and material damages that a mission might have caused. Finally, the objective of sustaining peace is inseparable from that of the sustainable development. The Republic of Haiti reiterates its support for a vision of sustaining peace, which, faced with today’s challenges — to paraphrase the Secretary- General — calls for global responses that allow for confronting the root causes of conflicts and combine peace, sustainable development and human rights. It is therefore incumbent upon the international community to meet that challenge through the implementation of mechanisms built upon collective solidarity, which are essential to achieving the goal of sustainable peace.

I now give the floor the representative of the Philippines.

The Philippines aligns itself with the statement made by the representative of Venezuela on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. Seventy-one years ago, General Carlos P. Romulo addressed the General Assembly and said, “We are not here to make the peace, but to build for peace. We are not here to avenge the injuries of the past, but to fulfil humanity’s hopes for the future. We are not here to reap and divide the harvest of victory, but to make ready the hearts and minds of men for the seeds of peace.” (A/PV.41, p. 18) We are all here today not only to meet head on the challenges to peace, but also to answer the call for sustaining and investing in peace. Peacekeeping remains the flagship agenda of the United Nations enterprise. For 50 years, the Philippines has consistently played an important role in United Nations peacekeeping operations in countries that are too numerous for me to list here. The Philippines’ participation demonstrates the country’s enduring commitment to work with key actors and stakeholders to ensure peace and stability in the affected areas. With regard to the deployment of Filipino peacekeepers, the Philippines has consistently observed the following parameters: the sole prerogative of the Philippine President to decide on Philippine participation; the authority of the Security Council; a clear and achievable mandate; a definite time frame and exit strategy; and the consent of the receiving State. Allow me to provide the Philippines’ recommendations on key elements of today’s open debate. Concerning the overall policy framework, the Philippines reiterates its strong support for the Secretary-General’s recommendation that peacekeeping operations will need to be politically adept in identifying options to support coherent, international strategies for negotiated settlements, while building collaborative partnerships with key stakeholders in each conflict context. We believe that more effort must be invested in local political solutions to conflicts, with peacekeeping in support. With regard to conduct and discipline, viewed in the context of the protection of civilians, the issue of sexual exploitation and abuse must be addressed aggressively through the following measures: robust pre-deployment and in-mission training programmes that underscore leadership responsibility and accountability throughout the chain of command; appropriate information sharing in connection with context-specific responses to cases; and innovative capacity-building initiatives based on best practices in overcoming a culture of impunity. The Philippines strongly supports the new policy on the protection of children in armed conflicts and hopes that the mandate will be mainstreamed into United Nations operations. With regard to safety and security, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of ensuring the safety and security of peacekeepers, while protecting civilians and building protective environments. The Philippines recommends that peacekeeping missions work more closely with local communities and non-governmental organizations. With regard to strengthening operational capacity, the Philippines supports calls by Member States for the Secretariat to be more transparent in selecting contingents from troop- and police-contributing countries. The Philippines stands in solidarity with the community of responsible nations and remains steadfastly committed to contribute to United Nations peacekeeping operations, cognizant of their strategic contributions to sustaining peace.

I now give the floor to the representative of Fiji.

I express Fiji’s gratitude and to you, Sir, and to the delegation of Egypt for convening this debate. Fiji aligns itself with the statement made by the representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela on behalf of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. Since its admission to the United Nations in 1970, Fiji has had at the heart of its foreign policy a strong commitment to the United Nations and its peacekeeping operations. The primary motivation in Fiji’s contribution of peacekeeping personnel to the United Nations is the determination to play our full part as a responsible signatory to the Charter of the United Nations. For many small States such as Fiji, the international rule of law, peace and security are guarantees for independence and equity. It is also the basis for a stable platform for achieving human rights and our development aspirations. Approximately 70 years since the first United Nations peacekeeping mission was established and peacekeepers were deployed, peacekeeping remains as important as ever. The nature of conflicts has evolved as has the role of peacekeepers. Peacekeepers are now asked to become much more involved and essentially act as nation builders, thereby partaking in multidimensional peacekeeping. The civilian, military and police peacekeepers are expected to perform such tasks as monitoring elections, building a civilian police force, distributing humanitarian aid and reforming the justice system, among others. That is in sharp contrast to the type of peacekeeping activities that the United Nations was originally designed to handle. Therefore, an important element to sustaining peace are the rules that govern United Nations peacekeepers. The cardinal rules that were applicable and effective during traditional peacekeeping days may therefore need to be reviewed so as to respond to evolving new security threats and meet the situation on the ground. That is essential to ensuring that peacekeepers are not harmed, while very much keeping with the same approach of introducing new requirements, such as those related to sexual exploitation and abuse by United Nations personnel to ensure that peacekeepers do no harm to others. United Nations peacekeeping mandates need to be clear. When the United Nations conducted an assessment on the Somalia peacekeeping mission, it concluded that the mandate was “vague and was open to myriad interpretations”. The mandate of a mission is one of the critical aspects of any operation. The success of any mission can be assessed through the achievement of the objective. It is therefore imperative to have clear goals in order to avoid ambiguity, or worse still the loss of innocent lives should a conflict worsen. That demands that there be effective collaboration and structured consultation among the Security Council, troop- and police-contributing countries and the Secretariat in order to leverage the potential of peacekeeping mandates and operations for sustaining peace. Equally important is the need to sensitize military, police and civilian personnel deployed in peacekeeping missions about the evolving policy discussions and approaches to peacekeeping. United Nations peacekeeping missions need to have the right leadership and competent personnel in order to give credibility to the United Nations peacekeeping efforts and deliver on their mandates. Equally, how the United Nations equips its peacekeepers in terms of resources during deployment is crucial to the success of a mission. In conclusion, peacebuilding and sustaining peace are best achieved when it they are mainstreamed in society. The involvement of broader stakeholders in peacebuilding efforts is an important factor in sustaining peace. Therefore, the engagement of minorities, women, youth, civil society organizations and faith-based groups, among others, can provide a stable platform for sustaining peace. After all, everyone is a contributor to peace.

There are no more names inscribed on the list of speakers. I should like to thank the members of the Security Council, as well as non-members and our briefers today, whose contributions afforded us a more in-depth look at peacekeeping operations in order to make them more effective and ensure that they are able to draw on all the tools available to us in the United Nations to bring about sustained peace. We will continue our joint efforts with other Council members and countries to achieve that goal.