Mr. President
I would like to thank you for organising this meeting and the speakers for their contributions.
"We live in an era of paradoxes". This was one of the observations of the "Geneva Peace Week meets New York" event that Switzerland organized with the International Peace Institute (IPI) and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform (GPP) at the end of November. The discussions provided an opportunity for an in-depth exchange on the challenges and opportunities involved in implementing the New Agenda for Peace.
One of these paradoxes is that we seem much more willing to mobilise efforts to respond to conflicts rather than to prevent them. This lack of action is at odds with the enormous costs of war. Countries emerging from conflict can testify to this first-hand. This is also reflected in the New Agenda for Peace, which calls for prioritizing prevention.
The Peacebuilding Commission plays a key role in exploiting this potential, in particular in collaboration with the Security Council. Switzerland has experience of this as a former chair of a country configuration, and we are convinced that these two bodies can mutually reinforce the impact of their efforts.
First of all, the Security Council should make better use of the expertise of the PBC with regard to the factors underlying conflict prevention. Over the years, the Commission has dealt with various post-conflict situations or situations at risk of conflict. This makes the PBC's recom-mendations to the Security Council useful. However, its potential can be better exploited. In this respect, we welcome the efforts made by the Croatian Chair to produce more succinct and operational advice.
Secondly, the PBC has a unique potential in terms of prevention, as it brings together various actors from governments, civil society, the private sector and financial institutions. The PBC could thus support States in their national efforts to prevent conflict and violence, as proposed in the New Agenda for Peace, by serving as a platform for the exchange of experience and expertise. In this respect, the "women, peace and security" agenda can serve as an inspiration, since 107 States have adopted an action plan to implement this global agenda at national level.
Finally, peace-building must have adequate, predictable and sustainable resources for conflict prevention, as the General Assembly has repeatedly called for. To this end, mandatory contri-butions must be made available to the Peacebuilding Fund. In addition, the PBC and the Fund can contribute to federating investments in peace and development through dialogue with in-ternational financial institutions. Such dialogue must be strengthened and institutionalized.
Mr. President,
For the New Agenda for Peace to become a reality, Member States must go beyond words and invest, politically and financially, in prevention.
Closer cooperation between this Council and the PBC is an ideal way of strengthening pre-vention. It is also a crucial step in the implementation of the New Agenda for Peace. We have every reason to seize this opportunity, particularly when it comes to reviewing the peacebuild-ing architecture in 2025. Drawing on its experience in both fora, Switzerland will be fully com-mitted to this.
Thank you.