Germany strongly welcomes the opportunity to discuss the New Agenda for Peace. Today’s topic is particularly close to our hearts, given our roles as a major contributor to the Peace Building Fund and as a co-facilitator of the process leading towards the Summit of the Future in 2024.

I would also like to thank Under-Secretary General Di Carlo for her enlightening introductory remarks.

Germany shares the Secretary General’s analysis: the proliferation of conflicts and persistence of protracted crises are proof that our existing approaches with regard to conflict management are insufficient. Instability at the national, regional and global levels are further exacerbated by new threats, such as increasing food insecurity, the many adverse effects of climate change and debt crises.

Countless resources are going into the management of conflicts and the alleviation of their humanitarian consequences, while efforts and investments to prevent the outbreak of new conflicts and support countries emerging from conflict in their quest to build and sustain peace are still lagging behind.

“The New Agenda for Peace” should therefore focus on concrete recommendations how to strengthen and develop the UN’s toolbox and ensure that sufficient resources are invested in conflict prevention, mediation and peacebuilding.

Germany is convinced that the Peacebuilding Commission, with its strong convening power and aggregation of local, national, regional and international stakeholders has a central role to play in this context. Let me mention three areas of particular importance to us:   

The PBC should further strengthen its advisory role to the Security Council by providing more focused and operational advice based on successful examples of local, national and peacebuilding approaches. This in return would require additional efforts by the UN to produce more evidence and assessments of the impact of peacebuilding activities. 

The Commission should increase its focus on conflict prevention, including by bringing situations at risk of causing crisis and conflict to the attention of the Security Council. This would require the establishment of analytical capabilities within the UN Secretariat, to provide enhanced monitoring, early warning, and understanding of both risks and opportunities for timely preventive action.

While continuing to consider and support country specific approaches and national peacebuilding strategies, the PBC should further strengthen its focus on regional conflict dynamics on the one hand and cross-cutting threats to peace and stability such as climate change, food insecurity and transnational organized crime on the other hand.

Strengthening the mandate, role and scope of the PBC will however not have much impact on the ground if we fail to also invest more financial resources in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

The emerging consensus on the introduction of assessed contributions for the Peacebuilding Fund is encouraging and we hope that we will soon come to an agreement. Such an agreement would send a strong signal of joint political ownership for Peacebuilding and show that we are serious about developing and supporting a “New Agenda for Peace”.  

To conclude, we are looking forward to a continued in-depth discussion of the peacebuilding priorities of the “New Agenda for Peace” in the PBC in the coming weeks and months on the basis of the many promising ideas presented in today’s interventions. 

As co-facilitator of the “Our Common Agenda” process, Germany, together with Namibia, will make sure that the outcomes of the “New Agenda for Peace” are properly reflected in the Summit of the Future’s outcome document in 2024.