General Assembly
Sixty-third session
Agenda items 10, 101, 107 and 112
Report of the Peacebuilding Commission
Report of the Secretary-General on the Peacebuilding Fund
Follow-up to the outcome of the Millennium Summit
Strengthening of the United Nations system
Security Council
Sixty-fourth year
Summary
In its presidential statement of 20 May 2008 (S/PRST/2008/16), the Security Council invited the Secretary-General to provide advice on how to support national efforts to secure sustainable peace more rapidly and effectively, including in the areas of coordination, civilian deployment capabilities and financing.
The present report focuses on the challenges that post-conflict countries and the international community face in the immediate aftermath of conflict, defined as the first two years after the main conflict in a country has ended. Reflecting on past peacebuilding experience, section II underscores the imperative of national ownership as a central theme of the report and highlights the unique challenges arising from the specific context of early post-conflict situations. The threats to peace are often greatest during this early phase, but so too are the opportunities to set virtuous cycles in motion from the start.
The immediate post-conflict period offers a window of opportunity to provide basic security, deliver peace dividends, shore up and build confidence in the political process, and strengthen core national capacity to lead peacebuilding efforts thereby beginning to lay the foundations for sustainable development. If countries develop a vision and strategy that succeeds in addressing these objectives early on, it substantially increases the chances for sustainable peace — and reduces the risk of relapse into conflict. In too many cases, we have missed this early window. Section III identifies several recurring priorities that relate directly to these core objectives, and for which international assistance is frequently requested in the early days after conflict. Seizing the window of opportunity requires that international actors are, at a minimum, capable of responding coherently, rapidly and effectively to support these recurring priorities.
Section IV describes efforts undertaken to date by the United Nations to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of its post-conflict response, and identifies systemic challenges related to differing mandates, governance structures and financing arrangements across diverse United Nations entities, which prevent the Organization from making deeper reforms.
Section V sets out an agenda to strengthen the United Nations response in the immediate aftermath of conflict as well as to facilitate an earlier, more coherent response from the wider international community. The core elements of this agenda include (a) stronger, more effective and better supported United Nations leadership teams on the ground; (b) early agreement on priorities and alignment of resources behind them; (c) strengthening United Nations support for national ownership and capacity development from the outset; (d) rationalizing and enhancing the United Nations system's capacity to provide knowledge, expertise and deployable personnel to meet the most urgent peacebuilding needs, in concert with partners who have a comparative advantage in particular areas, as well as assisting countries to identify and draw on the most relevant capacities globally; and (e) working with Member States, particularly donors, to enhance the speed, alignment, flexibility and risk tolerance of funding mechanisms.
Section VI considers the critical role of the Peacebuilding Commission in supporting post-conflict countries and proposes several suggestions for consideration by Member States as to how the Commission could strengthen its advisory role in relation to the early post-conflict period that is addressed in the report.
