GA Plenary:

When surveying national positions around the world in regard to peacebuilding, a common theme emerges as the key weakness: funding. The United Nations Peacebuilding Commission identified the core need to strengthen conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery, arguing that the cost of prevention and recovery mitigates the human, societal, and financial cost of future conflict. In 2016, the Peacebuilding Fund Advisory Board noted a significant unbalanced distribution of UN Funds to phases of conflict, with an outsized proportion dedicated to peacekeeping and conflict-resolution compared to pre-conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery. The Security Council and General Assembly agreed, reaffirming the need to level the funding and to focus on sustaining peace.  

In March 2020, Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez stated in the Peacebuilding Fund’s 2020-2024 Strategy, “We know that prevention works, saves lives and is cost-effective. But we must recognize that we have been massively underinvesting. This can and must change.”

The Representative from Mexico argued in a report to this Plenary session that, “we have been working hand in hand with Finland to work on the aspect of prevention, not recovery as peacebuilding usually reacts” as part of its vice-presidency of the Peacebuilding Commission.  The Representatives of Japan countered that point, saying, “Japan recognizes the failure of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission and other relevant United Nations organs to focus its attention on employing the necessary preventative actions prior to and implementing lasting peacebuilding measures following a conflict.” Japan went further to cite nearly 30,000 casualties across 56 active conflicts, including Yemen, Somalia and Syria in 2020, and that “these casualties could have been prevented if collaboration and timely attention had been considered.” Colombia provided a shining light, highlighting a peacebuilding project that led to the disarmament of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), which “resulted in more than 900,000 weapons being destroyed and helping members of FARC reintegrate into their community.” The Representatives of Colombia summarized their success story as “a prime example of the importance of funding and follow-through from the UN.”

As valuable and cost-effective as prevention and recovery is, very little funding is dedicated to those projects. The Peacebuilding Fund’s 2020-2024 Strategy identifies a $1.5 billion target for project investment over five years, or just $300 million per year. Compare that number to the annual Peacekeeping budget of approximately $6.5 billion in 2020. (A/C.5/73/21) Conflict Prevention and Recovery efforts through the Peacebuilding Commission made up about 4 percent of total expected Peacekeeping/Peacebuilding expenditures. Comparing the $300 million to the approximate $1.9 trillion in global military expenditures reduces that ratio to 0.015 percent annually. Given the importance of prevention and recovery as identified and agreed upon by the General Assembly and the Security Council, why is the Peacebuilding Fund target budget so small?

The Peacebuilding Fund relies on voluntary donations from Member States, organizations and individual contributors. The Fund’s Strategic Plans Results 2017-2019 starkly pointed out 34 partner States and organizations donated $356 million to the fund between 2017 and 2019, and on average, 59 percent of donations came from just three contributing Member States. The Fund stretches every dollar by utilizing partner organizations to build on their existing infrastructures and utilize shared assets and skills, realizing $7.76 for every dollar spent. But the dollar can only be stretched so far, and especially in the age of COVID-19, the need for each and every dollar for prevention and recovery is stronger than ever.  The Representative from Iraq in their statement to this body indicated that changes to the funding model was necessary, in part to “maximize funding as well as reduce the option for countries to sit by and freeride off of other donor members in … [the] voluntary contribution-only system.”

Secretary-General Gutierrez argued passionately for more funding, “unfortunately, despite these achievements, financing for peacebuilding has not kept pace with needs, jeopardizing years of investment in peace and sustainable development. I strongly appeal to Member States to meaningfully increase financial contributions to the Fund. Those resources must be shared more widely across Member States, and be channeled more predictably through pooled mechanisms such as the Peacebuilding Fund if we want to break down silos, which is essential for effective peacebuilding.” Hope remains that his call is heard and heeded.