Urgent Need for Peacebuilding Amidst Decade-High Conflicts- Security Council Briefing

Briefing today (21 Aug) UN Security Council members during a high-level debate on regional and national conflict prevention, Assistant Secretary-General for Peacebuilding Support Elizabeth Spehar, said that building and sustaining peace is central to the work of the Security Council and of the United Nations.

And yet, she added, “the number of conflicts is at a decade-long high” inflicting unimaginable suffering and devastating economies and robbing communities of their future. She said, “As outlined in the Secretary General's policy brief on a new agenda for peace, prioritizing conflict prevention and peacebuilding can contribute to reversing these trends.” It can also provide people affected by violence with opportunities and reduce the human and economic costs of war, she said.

Hawa Samai, Executive Secretary, Independent Commission for Peace and National Cohesion brought up Sierra Leone as an example of transformation that “demonstrates that even the most devastated nation can rise again through concerted efforts, including the valuable support of the international community.”

Musa Timothy Kabba, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Sierra Leone pointed out the number of conflicts that is dividing the world and “are more and more difficult for any individual state to resolve by themselves.” He said, “the complex and multifaceted nature of the 21st century challenges and conflict warrant deliberate and multi-pronged solutions. A new agenda for peace calls for renewed multilateralism and a recommitment to the principles of the United Nations Charter. We must ensure that global institutions are adequately equipped to address these challenges with the focus on preventive diplomacy, robust peacekeeping and sustained peace building efforts.”

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About the New Agenda for Peace

On 20 July 2023, Secretary-General António Guterres presented his Policy Brief on A New Agenda for Peace. It outlines his vision for multilateral efforts for peace and security, based on international law, for a world in transition. It is the main peace and security input from the Secretary-General for Member States consideration ahead of the Summit of the Future.

A New Agenda for Peace was prepared against a particularly difficult global peace and security landscape. The document is clear-eyed about the magnitude of today’s challenges and realistic about potential solutions. It is the Secretary-General’s vision for how to strengthen multilateral action for peace in a world in transition.

A New Agenda for Peace reflects on today’s peace and security threats – including the changing conflict landscape; persistent violence outside of conflict environments; the potential weaponization of new technologies; rising inequalities; shrinking civic space; and the climate emergency – and emphasizes how violations of the UN Charter and a pushback against human rights, in particular women’s rights, represent a significant normative challenge.

To effectively address these threats, A New Agenda for Peace encourages Member States to move beyond the current logic of competition and find avenues for cooperation and collective action to pursue shared interests.

The vision offered in A New Agenda for Peace is grounded in three principles – trust, solidarity, and universality. It reiterates some basic principles for international cooperation: the centrality of the UN Charter, diplomacy, the need to rebuild mechanisms to manage disputes and improve trust among major powers, regional frameworks, and the centrality of national action, for example. It outlines an extensive and ambitious set of recommendations that recognize the inter-linked nature of many of the challenges we face.

For more information:https://dppa.un.org/en/a-new-agenda-f...